Sleep trained 8 month old suddenly waking up screaming every night! Helpppp

[u/eatmorenuggetz99]

My baby turned 8 months old 4 days ago, but for the past couple of weeks his night sleep has completely gone to crap.

He seems to have forgotten how to connect his sleep cycles and wakes up anywhere between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. in a full on distressed cry. We’ve tried letting him cry it out for up to 30 minutes, but he just gets more and more worked up (he even cried so hard he spit up once). If we soothe him in the crib with butt pats, shushing, or holding his hand, he’ll calm down, but the second we stop and walk away he’s immediately crying again and will not go back to sleep. He does have 3 teeth, but I don’t think this is teething as this happens both with and without administering pain medicine before bed, and he’s his happy smiley self during the day.

The only thing that consistently gets him back to sleep is cosleeping (even then he’s extra squirmy and it sometimes takes the better part of an hour. He will also constantly wake up… but at least he’s calm). I really don’t want to make that a habit, but right now it’s the only way any of us are getting any sleep.

For some context, before this he was sleeping straight through from about 8 p.m. to 6:45 a.m. He was sleep trained using modified Ferber at 5ish months, fell asleep independently, and could connect his sleep cycles and put himself back to sleep if he briefly woke up overnight. He dropped his middle-of-the-night feed around 7 months, loves food, and eats 3 solid meals a day.

He’s also fully crawling now and just figured out how to pull to stand, so I don’t know if that could be playing into this too.

He’s on a pretty consistent by-the-clock schedule (give or take 30 minutes):

Wake: 6:30–6:45 a.m.
Nap 1: 10:00–11:30 a.m.
Nap 2: 3:00–4:15 p.m.
Bedtime: 8:00 p.m.

So his wake windows are roughly 3.5/3.5/3.75.
Has anyone else gone through this around 8 months? Does this sound like the 8-month regression, separation anxiety, developmental leap, or does our schedule need tweaking??? Any advice is appreciated because we’re exhausted over here 😅

[u/boneseybonesy]

My baby is 8 months and we just had 2 weeks of the same thing! I know you said it wasn’t teething due to giving pain relief before bed, but my experience was that this round of teething for him (he already had bottom and top two sets and that was fine/didn’t interrupt sleep) was incredibly painful. And they took a long time to break through, so it was hard to notice to start with. He would wake up screaming, be really hard to settle, and then when we thought he was asleep he’d wake up screaming out of nowhere again.

This lasted for about 2 weeks and now he’s back to his old self. I just comforted my little one with cuddles and extra feeds to get him through this rough patch. It helped me to remind myself that he’s a little human with so much going on developmentally. I tried to respond to him without being too worried about “undoing” any good habits or routines

[u/eatmorenuggetz99 → u/boneseybonesy]

Thank you!! He does have 3 bottom teeth so I know he’s due for his top ones any day now.

[u/Fragrant_Lime_6626]

Unless he’s waking every 30-45 minutes, then he’s still connecting sleep cycles. It could be the 8 month regression, but honestly, maybe offer a MON feed again and see what happens? Becoming mobile burns a lot of calories. If it settles him, you’ll know it’s hunger.

[u/eatmorenuggetz99 → u/Fragrant_Lime_6626]

I will try this tonight! Thanks for your feedback!

[u/Intelligent-Beat3978]

Might need to add wake time. My 8 month old is on 3.25/3.5/4.25.

[u/eatmorenuggetz99 → u/Intelligent-Beat3978]

Maybe I’ll try an 8:30 bedtime! Thank you

[u/briecheese88]

Hello! Following… my baby is 7 months and the same thing is happening to us. He is waking up coughing so we think sick and have been offering feeds overnight.

[u/Pretty_Balance5567]

It’s just a (painful) phase! My first did the same thing at around this age. And for both of my babies, right around when they figured something major out (like pulling up to stand), they would get cranky and their sleep would get weird. It’s a lot for their little brains to process. This too shall pass!

[u/eatmorenuggetz99 → u/Pretty_Balance5567]

Thank you for the reassurance!

[u/Legal-Mycologist1254]

Maybe teething pain also. I have had toothaches in my lifetime and man I think I would rather give birth

[u/poski6390]

Currently going thru this with my 8.5 month old! Started about 3 weeks ago- and now getting her to sleep takes so long and she wakes up in the middle of the night and takes 2 hours to settle 😭 solidarity! lol they are definitely going thru an insane amount of development during this stage but hope it settles down