Another Sleep Issue- 8 Month Old.

I second the mom who suggested "Healthy Sleep, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth. I am normally not a book person, but this book saved my sanity and helped our marriage by showing us how to get some quiet time in the evening and a baby that sleeps all night. I nursed my daughter exclusively for nearly 2 years but by 8-9 months she was happily sleeping for 11 hours a night. He specifically talks about sleep cycle changes that occur right around 9 months enabling babies to easily sleep through the night so this would be a great time to read it. You don't have to read the whole book you can just skim it and read what is relevant to you right now. He also offers advice to both those who are able to do the cry it out thing and those who have a hard time with that. My girlfriends and I call it the sleep bible and it is now the standard baby shower gift. Good luck!

hi J.,
i feel your pain. my daughter was waking every 2hrs to nurse-3 hrs on a great night until she was about 13 months old. at eight months she was still nursing out of hunger. had i not continued to nurse her through the night i know she would have been labeled failure to thrive. before you decide to night wean be sure that she is not hungry. breastmilk digests much quicker than formula. also, do not worry that she will never leave your bed as one mother sugessted. my daughter slept on my chest for the first year of life and is now in her own room in her own full size bed at 17 months.
it took time and patience to get to where we are now but my daughter was not traumatized in any way by being left to cry alone for hours at at a time. and i have to add that i am deeply disturbed that some of these babies are being left to cry until they vomit. it's inhumane and unnecessary. i highly recommend the "no cry sleep solution" by elizabeth pantley. it really works and keeps your child's best interest in mind.

some tips that may help you...
-make sure she is getting more calories during the day and a nightime snack that will fill her belly before bed in addition to nursing.
-a set bedtime routine that begins around the same time every day-
decent naps around the same time every day
- when she wakes to nurse let her suck until she is just about to fall asleep then take her off. if she starts to cry pop her back on and try again. eventually you will be breaking the back to sleep sucking association and she will eventually go back to sleep on her own.
lastly hang in there. i know it's tough but it does eventually get better. take pride in knowing that you are giving your daughter a great start at life. and although it may be tempting to fall into the cry it out trap it's not worth it in the long run. hope you get a good night's sleep soon!

My son did the same thing when he was your daughter's age. My best recommendation for you is the book: "Healthy sleep habits, happy child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth. I wish I had bought that book when my son was 8 months old. It has tons of tips in it that really work.

Are you giving her "food" yet? At that age she should be eating baby food and cereal. Give her a little bit of cereal mixed with breast milk or formula before bedtime. That should hold her over until morning.

Good Luck,

C.

I, too, suggest cry it out. My daughter was exactly the same until 13 months when we finally realized she was getting really poor sleep. I read a lot on all the methods and didn't feel right with "cry it out" until 13 months, but every parent/child is different. I think a GREAT site is these (free, short) videos http://www.videojug.com/interview/child-sleep-training-me...
That explains the different methods succinctly. The same researcher has an interview about night nursing.
http://www.videojug.com/interview/night-time-nursing-and-...

With my daughter, she cried an hour the first night (we went back after 3, then 4 minutes, etc.), 20 minutes the 2nd night, 11 minutes, 2 minutes, and now she usually goes to sleep with no crying, after a short ritual (book, glo-worm lullabies, then she points to the crib). For some reason, the 2nd night of crying it out, she decided she didn't want to nurse at night (or in her bedroom). She sleeps through the night most nights now, and it's like we're seeing our previously black-and-white world in color again.
The best part is that she is TOTALLY happier during the day. Contrary to my fears, she's more affectionate, less clingy/whiny, happier all around.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

This sounds exactly like my second daughter. I also had another 2 year-old I was trying not to wake up. I ended up weaning her from the breast at 10 months just because I couldn't take it anymore, she was too demanding at night. This helped, taking a bottle instead helped her not rely on the physical act to get back to sleep. Maybe having pumped bottles ready might help too, obviously it is the physical contact she is wanting, she shouldn't be hungry that often, right?

Hi J.!

I feel your pain...as I'm sure most moms do. :-) The best thing I found for my kids was to just let them cry out. Babies are smart...they really pick it up fast. With my daughter, she slept well, but wanted to be put to sleep all the time. The older she got, the longer it took. I'd finally had enough. The first night we put her down on her own, she cried for 45 minutes straight! It was much shorter the following night, and by the 3rd or 4th night she didn't fuss at all. With my son, we dealt with much the same thing you are - and I was worried about him waking up his sister too! But, we let him cry anyway and you know, she never woke up once and he picked up on what we wanted very quickly too and we were all much happier for the change. I would recommend doing this over a weekend when you can deal with less sleep. Good luck!

I do not think it is overall unreasonable for an 8 month old to still wake up to nurse at night. Some babies just need to do that for a variety of reasons including calories, comfort, and connection. Here are some links that talk about the needs of babies, sleeping, and breastfeeding:
http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detsleepthrough.html
http://askdrsears.com/html/7/T070100.asp
http://askdrsears.com/html/2/T022900.asp
http://www.drjaygordon.com/development/ap/sleep.asp

I have 4 children, and have been here many times! They were all breastfed. It really took an change in my own expectations. If you research breastfeeding, you will find it is actually abnormal for them to sleep through the night. When you think about it, it makes sense as a protective mechanism. Breastfeeding lends itself to co-sleeping which is also safer for the breastfed baby and mother. Don't listen to friends, doctors, books, YOU are the mom! Listen to your instincts and don't place these expectations on yourself and your baby. You'll find you are much happier, and so is your baby!

I hate to say it, but I am going to suggest cry it out. I went through the exact same thing when my daughter was about that age. All she wanted to do was nurse, but mostly out of habit and comfort. I was completely exhausted. I had to work and I couldn't continue staying awake with her at night because she wanted me to. Anyway, when I discussed this with her doctor he told me flat out that I could not allow her to do this and that it was time for her to sleep through the night and to let her cry it out. Of course I found this suggestion horrifying. But he assured me that babies don't die from crying and that it was ok. So I did it. I think I cried harder than she did and was up half the night, but it worked. I have a newborn now and plan on doing it again, if necessary. Good luck!

My daughter will be 7 months old in a few days, and she does the same thing. I can not do the cry it out thing. She sleeps with me and will not go to sleep unless she is being nursed, and she wakes several times during the night. As soon as I nurse her she goes right back to sleep. Dr. Sears website says that most babies don't sleep through the night until a year or two old. He also says that if you always nursed her to sleep then she will require that to sleep. He also said that is not a bad thing. It teaches babies that sleep is not a scary state, and can be entered into peacefully. He advises against forcing a baby to sleep under conditions which they are not comfortable with. So I just keep on nursing her to sleep and I get up with her when she needs it. She will eventually out-grow it when she is ready. Just my two cents! Good luck to you!

My son just turned 1 and we JUST got his room finished like a week ago. I was in the exact same situation, with him sleeping in a pack n play in our room and then ending up in our bed during the night to nurse. Now that his room is done, he is sleeping through the night almost every night. I don't really have any advice regarding getting her to sleep now, but once you get her room done it should be lots better. I think, at least for my son, that being in our room was the biggest issue. He could hear us or smell us or something.
Please DO NOT put cereal in a bottle. Unless your baby has been diagnosed with reflux and you are doing it under the recommendation of a pediatrician it is not a good idea. It is a bad habit and babies can choke on the cereal. Food should always be eaten with a spoon, not as a liquid.

J.,

Have you tried giving her cereal at night before she goes to bed? I had this issue with mine (years ago, lol) and when I started feeding them cereal they began sleeping thru the night. She should be old enough now to be able to have cereal. You can buy cereal feeders that are like bottles to give her the cereal. Just be careful you are not making it too thick or she will get constipated.

Hope that helps!

Have you tried putting your milk in a bottle and adding alittle bit of dry baby cereal to it. It sounds like she is getting hungry......or at least thinks she is.......by adding just a little bit of cereal to your milk in a bottle at night might just help her sleep all night.......doesn't need to be alot at first, but you may have to make it alittle more if it doesn't work........that's what I had to do with my 6 month old when he would do that......eventually went from the bottle to a bowl......he was a food kid and still is.....at 33......Hope this helps.....good luck. Oh, I also put a radio in his room and played very soft music that had no words to it......or very light songs........it played all night. I think that made him feel like he wasn't alone. So you might try that too......

I have a 4 1/2 yr old daughter and a 21 month old son. My story... I nursed my 4 1/2yr old while we co slept until she was 24 months. At 24 months my husband held her in the night (they were use to sleeping naps together) and she cried and was not happy for about 2 nights. Soon we put her into her "big girl bed." I stopped nursing her at 27 months when pregnant with her brother. She still does not sleep through the night alone. After 2-4 hours she wakes and comes to get us.Loves to be in her bed but not alone.I am a big supporter for nursing for the health of the child. However, with my son I kept him with me in bed nursing in the night (yes most the night it seemed) until he was 8 months old. At 8 months unless a medical condition they can safely sleep on their stomach. With the loving guidance of a friend I made sure he had all his meals and snacks and during the day and we started a bedtime routine including bath (yes every night for nearly a year at least) for the psychology of it and to calm them for bed. I nursed him to sleep in my arms in his room then laid him down. He woke right away and cried. He vomited the first night crying so hard. I went in cleaned him up and his bed etc and put him back in his bed and closed the door. He cried for another 30 min at least. The next night he cried for nearly 30-60 min then went to sleep. The next night 10-15. The next maybe 5. I can not tell you how much more sane I am for having done this. It is still a drain that his sister will wake but she does sleep 10-11 hours. He sleeps about 10 hours unless he is sick or happened to dirty his diaper. He learned to sleep on his own.It is normal for night wakings but if he does now he doesn't make a peep that I hear and goes back to sleep. I have read books and tried other things and wish I had just done this with our daughter. As long as your baby is normal weight she will be fine through the night. Her stomach/appetite will retrain to not want something during the night. I suggest you do this now and not wait any longer. It only gets harder and harder and soon they will be 4 and not independently sleeping... I have read sleep books too on how healthy it is for the developing baby and child to get enough sleep for their brain and developmental growth. This may encourage you to be brave. My friend's son did get sick the first night only as well from crying so hard.. they won't remember and in the long run a rested baby and mommy are healthier. As my pediatrition had advised go outside or in the basement to not listen...but the first night you may want to go in after an hour to see if she got sick..to clean her up. Make sure the surroundings are safe..no toys etc around. I am so grateful to have my son in his bed each night and he sleeps so well. Good Luck!

J. J, have you tried to pump and add some cereal? That could add the thickness she needs to keep her fuller longer. Good Luck!

Definitely read "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth. He is a pediatrician who specializes specifically in infant/child sleep issues with over 30 years of research. Our son was 'sleeping through the night' by 4 months and taking two solid, predictable naps by 6 months. We have had virtually no problems since.

Hi J.,
My daughter was 9 months and still waking up. She would nurse and go straight back to her crib. Finally, I couldn't take waking up anymore and I had to do the cry it out. I hated it, but it worked. She cried for almost 2 hours the first night (two separate hour long episodes) but then the next night it was only about 45 minutes and that's it. The third night she slept through the night.
I hate to say it, but I don't think the food and cereal will work, because I think it's just out of habit now that she's waking up. That was the case for me. Good luck.

I'm assuming that if you haven't done it yet, you don't like the idea of CIO. I don't either, I think it's abusive. I know people will get all offended when they read this, but that's how I feel.
I recommend getting your husband involved. Have him either go get her or put her back. She may sleep better just by not being in your bed - some kids don't co-sleep well, mine don't!
I also suggest the book "The Baby Whisperer". Throw out all her breastfeeding advise, she seems to be pretty uninformed when it comes to breastfeeding, but her sleep training is compassionate and loving.
Good Luck:)

As a mother of an 11 month old who works full time, who breastfed exclusively 6mos, and finised at 9mos- my recommendations would be:
1) try to transition to a crib. To me, I think a baby is a blank slate... they will do what you guide them to do. But change is always hard. In the long run, sleeping on their own is the goal. You seem like you know that (logically) although harder said than done.

2) I did an "in between" CIO. I couldn't just leave my baby, and I figured I had to teach her how to fall asleep. So that meant-
- (1) bedtime routine. Bath, Book. Brushing the teeth, a song... every single night. My child knows the routine now and knows what to expect. So now she expects to go to bed. Biggest thing with the routine- don't feed her right before you put her down. You can do it before the book, before the bath... whatever.

- (2) I would lay her in the crib, awake. Roll her on her side, and have a chair next to the crib. I would basically pat her on the back and had a noise (like a waterfall soother, white noise, something constant) and shhh her. She would cry, but I felt if I was with my child until she fell asleep she would know it was okay (no abandonment).

I also always gave my child that earth's best cereal for her dinner meal. I read the carbs hold them longer, and you can mix in BM with it. Also, my husband started giving my child a bottle once a day (bc I had to go to work), so I would do that as well around bedtime. I added foods more at breakfast and lunch, and have done the cereal constant. I found also when my child didn't like the cereal as much (very bland), you can add some organic fruit juice or fruit to it.

I guess my first question to you would be have you begun giving your daughter solid foods yet. If so, have you considered feeding her a meal of solid food late in the evening before her final breastfeeding? I'm working on the theory that a heavy meal makes adults sleepier, why not babies? Secondly, any chance the workahoic hubby can handle a few of the nighttime wake ups? Maybe after a few times of waking up and not having the breastfeeding option she will give up. I definitely recommend transitioning her into her own sleeping space as soon as possible; my daughter, who is 5 now, was never able to sleep as soundly in the same room as another person and would wake up and fuss through the night if she had to share a room for some reason. Put her in her own room and stay out of it and she slept like a rock.... Understandable since I'm the same way.

First, sleep issues are terrible! I'll give you my thoughts as a mother of three who went through tough sleep issues with my first two (especially the first).

Make sure the naps during the day are actually naps. I would never wake a sleeping baby personally, but if your child is sleeping more than two hours at a time, then they may be catching a little too much during the day. Since I am not a person who can wake a sleeping baby, I would instead make sure that the child's major activity period is after their afternoon nap to start (a little extra time in the bathtub or lots of tickling).

I couldn't cry it out with my first (unless you meant me, of course). What I did was decide on a simple routine - bath, book, nurse, crib, for example. Mine would scream for over an hour once he was put in his crib. So, I would sit in the dark in the rocking chair and sing to him softly. Yes, I would do that for an hour and a half sometimes. It took about four weeks of pure nightmare, but finally my singing would put him to sleep within a few minutes. I will tell you that it wasn't pleasant. But, for me, it was a lot more pleasant than listening to him scream all alone.

I should also mention that my first barely napped at all during the day and nursed constantly. He was over 22 lbs at 6 months. The good news was that by evening he was very, very tired. If your child naps a lot during the day, this idea may not work as well for you. I am not sure.

Good luck!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet. Have you tried giving her a pacifier. I didn't want to give my son a pacifier, but the hospital suggested it before I even left the hospital because he was crying so much. My son would fall right to sleep with his pacifier, which is the only time I gave it to him - when I wanted him to sleep. It wasn't that he was hungry - it was the confort issue. After a few months (sorry can't remember when, but it was too soon for me lol)he would just spit the thing out & I had to try other methods to get him to sleep. He seemed to just want me there, so I would sit by his crib, with my hand on him until he fell asleep, (or I did!) and then I would ever so gently lift my hand from him (sometimes taking 5 minutes to lift the weight of my hand off of him! LOL) I actually had a stuffed sock with my scent on it to lay behind his back at one time to fool him to thinking I was still there. Yea - I know - no one likes pacifiers, and you shouldn't put things in the crib with your child, but my son is/was fine. And I got to sleep. Good luck!

The first thing you should do is call the Elizabeth Blackwell Center and talk to a lactation consultant ###-###-####). They are extremely helpful with getting some perspective on the situation and coming up with a plan and great ideas to try. Going to a breastfeeding support group also helps a lot, as you will realize you are not alone, and the other moms can offer you their advice. If you are in Columbus, there are support groups at Elizabeth Blackwell, and the La Leche League has groups in most areas. It sounds like your baby is possibly a "high needs" baby, a term coined by Dr. William Sears, a harvard pediatrician and father of 8. Read his books: The Baby Book, Attachment Parenting, and Nighttime Parenting are a few. Mothering Magazine is also a great resource. The No-Cry Sleep Solution is another book that works for some. I know you don't want to hear the cry-it-out debate, but there is a lot of research out there warning against the detrimental effects of this, and even Dr. Ferber, who wrote the book on it, has since modified his position. And the cry-it-out method, if it really works at all, is not effective with high needs babies. Personally, as the breastfeeding mother of a high needs baby, I found that co-sleeping or bed sharing and nursing my baby back to sleep were the best ways for both of us to get sleep. Regardless of what you read in books about when a baby "should" sleep through the night, the truth is that many babies don't consistenly sleep through the night until age two. They are simply not biologically ready. Your baby probably IS still getting hungry at night and does need the nutrition. Eating more solids during the day may help, but it didn't with mine. Any number of factors can effect nighttime sleep, so being able to comfort your child with nursing is a great tool, not a hindrance. It is typically easier to wean during the day before you'll be able to do it at night. I too shared your dream of sleeping through the night, but finally surrendering to the situation as it was rather than trying to force a situation that caused stress on both me and my child helped me to make it through. It doesn't last forever and is just a part of motherhood that you have to endure. Just believe that you are doing the best things for your baby. The APA recommends breastfeeding for at least the 1st year, and the WHO recommends at least two. If you quit now, you may find that losing that tool to comfort your baby and get her back to sleep will only add to your problems. Good luck and blessings, R.