My Baby Only Sleeps About 8 Hrs Total !

I don't know if you have or haven't but if not set up a regular routine for bed time. Try a nice calming bath lavender bath wash is great also you can give a little cereal with the last feeding making her feel more full and helping her sleep more. Also a massage after a bath is great it helps relax them and i found rocking a baby and singing sweet lullabies. I hope this helps you.

My now 14 yr old daughter was never a good sleeper. From birth she would only take 20 minute naps. I was exhausted. I tend to think that chilldren like this have a very strong natural curiosity. They fight falling asleep becuase they dont' want to miss a thing. The TV or music won't help becuase it will stimulate them rather than help them fall asleep. My daughter is very intelligent and has immense natural curiosity - she wants to understand how thing work, what's going to happen next, etc. (My son who has been a fabulous sleeper since birth, 3 hour naps, full night sleeping at 4 months - doesn't have the same natural curiosity.)
The good news is that you probably have an intelligent baby on your hands (my grandmother use to say "sleep is for the stupid" - don't think it's true but has maybe a kernal of truth to it) She doesn't want to miss anything. I think the way to help her sleep is to make it boring to stay awake. Don't give her anything to look for in her room or wherever she sleeps, use white noise (I used a fan for my daughter - pointed away from her), turn off the TV in the house, run the vacuum, try to remove any distractions such as the ubiquitous crib mobile. Try to wear her out with lots of fresh air outside.
It does get better so hang in there mom!

If I were you, I would definately contact a sleep specialist, perhaps at a local childrens hospital they have a sleep clinic. My friend's daughter had lots of sleeping issues and nothing they tried helped. Their insurance paid for most of the bills and they had nothing but glowing reviews for the people they worked with. They saw some improvements after a week and had great results after a month. I am recommending this because it wouldn't have been my first instinct to look for a clinic and their pediatrician didn't even recommend it but I guess lots of childrens hospitals would typically have this sort of resouce - and it is covered by insurance :)

Have you tried putting her to sleep early (like around 6pm)? If my son misses that time frame to go to bed, he can't sleep and if he does, he doesn't sleep well. Good luck..

A.,
My son was the same way. I never felt more exhausted. I read every sleep method book, tried all of the home remedy recommendations and never found a solution. At age 3 (with no more naps) he finally started sleeping 6 hours per night and now, at age 6, he can do a full 10 hours (but no more than that). I remember many a night taking turns driving around and then the second I would stop the car, his eyes would open. So, I can't give you any advice on how to change her sleep patterns, but I can tell you that you need ask for help. I used to hate when people would always say, "well dear you need to sleep when the baby sleeps." It is not possible when the sleep only comes in 20 minute or two hour increments. Sleep is just as important for you as it is for your little girl. As a side note, I was really happy to read Susan's comments. My son is in the second grade and considered intellectually gifted.
Sweet dreams,
C.

well depending on her bedtime. a half hour b4 bed time give her a bath with Johnsons lavender baby bath. lavender helps alot i use it on my son and by bed time he is ready to go he is in bed at 9 and sleeps til 7:30 and then at noon he goes for a nap and that is usually about an hour and a half to two hours long... And dont get her use to sleeping in ur bed cause it is a very bad habbit to break her from

Have you moved houses or to a new town or even moved her into a new bedroom recently? If so, this can cause a trigger on getting her to sleep.

Does Daddy stick with Mommy/s scheduling with regards to going to bed or does he play with her making it even more difficult for her to go to sleep because after playing, her mind is wired up. It's what I've always referred to as the barmaid syndrome, not that your baby is in any way associated with bar rooms or anything...

Back when I was working as a barmaid 6 nights a week, I'd come home around 4am to 5am & literally be so wired up from working that I wasn't able to actually lay down let alone go to sleep so a few friends and I got into the habit of stopping off an an all-night diner where we'd get a bite to eat and sort of BS around until the buzz of working a busy night wore off and then we could actually go home and rest although for me 99.8% of the time it was go home, shower, get 10mins of rest, pick up my daughter from her night sitter, change her into day clothes, unless the sitter did it for me, which she did much of the time, and I would take her to the daytime sitter that allowed me to work full time during the day in a factory. After working 10 to generally 12 hours shifts at the factory, I was back picking up my child, spending a total of about 2 hours with her, which usually included a bath, washing a few clothes, repacking her bag, and picking out clothing for the next day with extras in case she made a mess on her first outfit then took her back to the night-time sitter before I headed off to work as a barmaid again where afterward, I was once again too wired to go home and sleep. My ex refused to pay support and this was during the time before the opening of the Child Support Enforcement Program so I had to work 2 and 3 and even sometimes 4 jobs in order to keep a roof over our house and food on the table as well as covering for health insurance through the factory job, which also had short-term and long-term disability as long as I worked at the company and I had worked my way up into the Quality Control Program where we all met to find safer ways to do the same job that would lower the rate of accidents.... It was quite an honor and each time we met outside of company hours we rec'd payment for it.

It took forever after I was able to scale back my hours of work because my daughter, quite honestly, didn't really know the real me or rather the person to put her to bed, gave her a bath every night, cooked every night, etc... because I was working all the time. We did get through it.

I would put her to bed. If she got up, she was put back in bed. If she got up again, she went back to her bed. I kept this cycle up for about 3 to 5 nights before she got the picture that it was nighttime and she was going to go to bed no questions asked. It just takes perseverance on your part.

At 8 mos, I'd cut out all naps. There is no reason for her to be taking a nap at 8mos old.

Don't let her pull the, "I wanna sleep with you" stunt either b/c it will become an every night thing and make it even more difficult to break.

Cut out everything except a glass of water after 5-6pm. The sugar levels in drinks other than water will cause your child to become hyper. It's like feeding the lion and that's the last thing you want to do. Try warm milk with a touch of vanilla in it. Stay way from chocolate.

If you stick to the schedule then she should be sleeping at night on time every night without any problems and then you can sleep at night too.

Hope this helps... b/c I've been there and done that.

my niece still wakes up every night and shes almost 1!!! I think its nuts but apparently her doc said it happens.we also had two children at a day care i watched who would not nap and i mean since they were like 3 months old it was nuts. some kids just arnt sleepers but talk to her doctor he may have better advice good luck!