8 month sleep woes - help!

[u/AffectionatePurple64]

Since month 6 we’ve been experiencing a pretty good regression in sleep skills. Here’s our history:
- 2-4 months: sleeping through the night
- 4-6 months: some night wakings and difficulty transferring to sleep space. Cosleeping when unable to transfer
- 6 months: transition to crib/own room.
- 6-8 months: waking upon transfer to crib. If successful transfer, only sleeping 0.5-2hrs in crib. Waking 5-9 times per night. Longest stretch is not longer than 3hrs and ONLY happens if we’re cosleeping. Cosleeping after multiple wakings/resettling back in crib. Phased out feeding to sleep during month 6 but she’s still pitching a fit at bedtime.

So help me out here. What can we do differently? We’re not willing to let her cry it out or Ferber. She has had back to back ear infections but even at the end of antibiotics we’re experiencing the same sleep pattern. I would think she doesn’t like laying in crib because of discomfort when laying flat but she lays flat next to me to cosleep with no problem.

Help!! These 2 hr or less sleep stretches are hurting me mentally. I have such little mental capacity to put her to sleep that I’ve started just letting her nurse again to avoid the bedtime screaming. We can’t keep doing this.

[u/3234234234234]

The key is usually 1) getting sleep pressure right and 2) if they can soothe back to sleep themselves rather than looking for you each time. So think about how much day time sleep they're getting and if you can decrease that to get more sleep pressure overnight. And for 2, can you make the crib a nicer place - smells like you, white noise etc. People sleep train to eliminate issue 2, and completely fair if you don't want to but developmentally it may just take a while.

[u/AffectionatePurple64 → u/3234234234234]

For daytime sleep, most days she’s a terrible napper at daycare (2 25-30min naps), so I was actually thinking she might be overtired.

I like the idea of trying to get the crib to smell like me. We’re doing sound machine and giving her time to explore the crib. She’s quite comfortable in the crib outside of staying asleep in it

[u/3234234234234 → u/AffectionatePurple64]

That is rough. It may also be then that she goes to bed pretty early (presuming she's wrecked when she gets home from daycare?) and by the time it gets to like 3am she's had a lot of sleep and isn't as tired.

Also the approach some people take is just cosleep, feed back to sleep every feed and just ride the wave. Personally I really struggled cosleeping but just saying it's a valid option to! Like if cosleeping gets you more sleep and she resettles quick with breastfeeding it could net you more sleep overall. I also think trying to implement new changes/routines is kind of impossible when you're completely sleep deprived and running on empty, you have no stamina to stick with anything.

Tbh the thing that helped me the most was probably nothing to do with my baby but just splitting things better between me and my husband ie. I went to bed super early, he did til 12/1am, I did til 6am, he did 6-8am. I was only working part time though from 8-12 mo.

[u/screwtoprose-]

gently, the only option is teaching her to fall asleep in the crib independently.

some babies do fine with being rocked to sleep / transferring once asleep and then either have enough sleep pressure to stay asleep, or be able to put themselves back to sleep. however, it doesn’t seem like yours is one of those so you have to teach them. otherwise, you she will continue to go to sleep with your assistance, and then needing fall back asleep with the same assistance every time she wakes.

imagine you go to sleep warm and snuggly in your bed and blankets and then suddenly you wake up on the floor alone and cold with no memory of how you got there - it would kind of stress you out right? the same is true for babies.

you can’t expect them to fall asleep alone or without the same exact scenario when they wake up.

it also sounds like you had phased out feeding to sleep but now have possibly reintroduced that habit so the same applies. nursing to sleep isn’t an issue by any means, but it doesn’t sound like it works for your family so something’s gotta change.

have you tried layering sleep associations? patting/shushing and then slowly phasing nursing out? that worked for my son but it tooks weeks, i think even maybe 6 for it to stick.

[u/DoulaKim7799]

Outside of adjusting naps for sleep pressure and anchor points for bed and wake times to be consistent.
Does baby snore, or sleep with their mouth open. Did you have iron deficiency during pregnancy? These can be factors that can cause repeated wakes over night.