8 Month Old Sleep Habits

We were in your same boat, and at exactly 8 months of age, we knew our family was ready for a change. My husband and I were exhausted, and it was becoming evident that our baby girl was ready for some gentle sleep training. I researched heavily and found an online program we all liked and benefited from greatly: Dana Obleman's Sleep Sense. Download it now, and start tonight! For our daughter, who was a NIGHTMARE "sleeper," it worked the first night (again, she was soooo ready, and we could tell the timing was right). It's not rocket science; the program is actually quite simple and logical, but the key is consistency. Consistency is the fairest approach for your child, and it works. Best of luck to you!

BTW, to answer your questions about feeding, if you daughter is a normal, healthy sized baby, she does not need milk during the night anymore. It's hard b/c she's probably asking for it, but offer her water in a bottle. In no time, she will not feel the need to habitually (or sporadically) wake int he night for milk....IF she knows how to get herself to sleep on her own---babies go into light sleep mode every hour, so if their tummy is used to milk, they will wake up for it. If milk is the only way she knows to get back to sleep, she will insist upon it, even though her body doesn't physically need it. This sleep program will teach you how to teach your baby to put herself back to sleep on her own w/o needing you to intervene with milk or anything. :)

You are probably right. She's not hungry but is looking for comfort. If you want to stop the feedings and then stop the waking up part do it in 2 steps. Cut out the feeding part and just comfort. You may need to slowly reduce the bottle, giving less and less over a couple of weeks. Once you've got her ok with just being comforted back to sleep then you can start letting her cry. I didn't let my son cry too long because it made me crazy too! After a while of letting him cry longer and comforting himself I didn't have to get up at all. He was almost 2 but I didn't start until he was about 18 months. Once I got started it went pretty fast. Now he almost never wakes up. He did wake me a few nights ago because he'd gone to bed in his Woody costume. He was crying the 'real' cry. I flew out of bed expecting something horrible. I was sure he'd fallen off his bed or had a nightmare. His costume wasn't on right!! In his sleep he'd slid one are out and couldn't get it back on! Oh well at least he keeps it interesting!!

We were in the same situation with my son, who is now 3 1/2. It's exhausting & heartbreaking to hear your child cry OR to be exhausted with multiple nightly feedings.

Our doctor recommended waiting no less than 20 minutes during night time wakings. 20 minutes is the time it will take for your daughter to put herself back to sleep. She's old enough that she doesn't NEED to be fed at night. She just needs to be trained not to expect to be fed, and rocked back to sleep. The 20 minute rule worked about 60% of the time - we just needed a night or 2 for our son to stop expecting milk at night, and the 20 minutes reduced to 10, then 5, then 0 crying.

Secondly, she recommended reading "Solve your child's sleep problems", by Richard Ferber, which was a big breakthrough for us. Everyone has a sleeping rhythm where after the first 3-4 hours of really deep sleep, we all wake up, and then start cycles of 2-3 hours of less deep sleep broken up by these quick wake ups. Adults just don't really notice because we just put ourselves back to sleep. Babies need to be trained how to put themselves back to sleep during these expected, completely normal wake ups every 2-3 or 3-4 hours. He talks about putting your baby to bed initially with a consistent routine, like dinner, bath, final feeding, diaper change. And then you have to put your baby to bed AWAKE, so they start to put themselves to sleep on their own. If she cries, you let her cry for increasingly longer intervals. Between the intervals, you can go in and comfort her with your voice, a brief rub on the tummy, but don't pick her up or feed her. So, start with 5 minutes of crying, 1 minute of comforting, 10 minutes of crying, 1 mintue of comforting, etc. It's hard the first few nights, but you'll find that the number of intervals (if you need them at all) will be come fewer, and she'll start to put herself to sleep.

When she wakes up in the middle of the night, follow the same procedure. First, wait 20 minutes as our pediatrician explained. Then, start the Ferber method of the increasing intervals of letting her cry and comforting. She'll start to be more independent putting herself to sleep in the evening, and then BACK to sleep in the middle of the night. It took us about 2 weeks of real consistency on this to get our sleep training DONE. There are always circumstances that might disrupt this --> travel, illness, teething, etc., but 90% of the time, our son has been a good sleeper consistently since.

I hope this helps you! Good luck!

It sounds to me like you're doing a lot right, honestly. The one thing I'd add is that you daughter is old enough for sleep training. It does not have to be a cry it out method (we'll be doing Dr. Sears' method later this month with our four month old because CIO doesn't match our parenting style). But if you're okay with a CIO method, just make sure you read up a little and see what you're really supposed to do (it's not just putting the baby to bed and walking away). A couple good resources are the book Baby 411, which rates several sleep training methods, and the website Babycenter.com, which has articles and videos.

Committing to a technique is the hardest and most critical step. We had amazing success with our older daughter at four months, one week (I chickened out the first weekend, so we waited another week, lol). Less than one night. Like I said, we have another four month old, and I still feel like chickening out a little because you never know how it will go until you're doing it. But we *will* do it either next weekend or the one after that because the ability to fall asleep and get back to sleep on her own is the best gift we gave our older daughter and ourselves.

Best wishes,

S. :+)

My daughter is almost 7 months and gets about 4 naps a day (I know that I will hear it is too much), but that is because she eats about every 3.5 hours or so during the day. When her night sleeping is interrupted, I am usually able to let her cry it out. If that doesn't work, I go in and rock her and try to get her to calm down that way. Feeding is the last resort, and I can usually tell when that is really needed.

It sounds like your daughter knows that she will get fed at night, so maybe you just need to be a bit more consistent, and slowly wean her off. If you are offering a bottle after the 12:00 wake up, make sure that is the only bottle of the night that you offer. Then, delay that one a bit, and see if she can go without.

Sorry, that is the only suggestion I have.