My baby is 8 months old, and still wakes up at night. It’s not just waking up to suck, but also to play. She just doesn’t want to sleep! Falling asleep during the day is not a problem, but when night comes, she wakes up every two hours, and she can be awake for several hours. I’m losing my strength and the will to get up and I’m afraid I’ll lose my patience, even though I know I should be thankful because she’s a healthy and happy baby. My husband have more patience but we both are tired and Im beginning to worry for our mental health and relationship. I tried few sleeping techniques but none of them was useful to me Do you have some advice?
Don’t let her play. Swaddle her tightly and maintain routine. Restart the sound machine, run the mobile, etc. – whatever you do to indicate it’s sleep time not play time.
Also talk to her pediatrician about it.
And don’t afraid to lose your shit but plan for it. Make her safe (e.g.; strap her in a car seat) and walk away. Take the time to scream at the moon, she’s not going to cry herself to death.
I have advice but you aren’t going to like it. The advice you might like is to obtain a copy of a book called “Sweet Sleep” and read it cover to cover. It contains the latest research-backed information about sleep, not just what some first wave behaviorists opined after doing experiments on dogs back in the mid century. (Sleep training is just dog training from the mid-century and does not, I repeat does not, has been studied and absolutely does not, and it has been repeatedly studied and documented that it does not reduce the number of wakes a child has. It just increases their distress.)
Here’s the advice you aren’t going to like …
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Your child is not going to reliably sleep through the night without waking for one reason or another until somewhere between age 3 and 4. And that is developmentally normal. Nothing in your story right now is wrong, bad, off, or worrisome. I’m sorry that you ever had expectations set to the contrary. Those people were cruel and the only possible result would be to make you think something was wrong with you and/or your child. There is nothing wrong. Your daughter is behaving exactly as is correct for her age.
And. It. Sucks. Because you need sleep even if she doesn’t. You need consistent night time sleep. And you aren’t able to get that need met because your daughter is growing up exactly right. Two things can be true at the same time.
Day time sleep has an effect on night time sleep but ONLY after age two. She’s not that old yet. Mess with her day time sleep at your peril, it won’t change the nights.
Given that you say waking for hours, is it possible that your idea of bed time doesn’t match her biorhythm? Is it possible that what you think of as bed time is actually something her body treats as another nap? Some kids can go to bed at 6-7 pm for the night. Other kids go to bed at 9-10-11 pm/midnight, but catch an hour or so nap around 6 pm. Both of these sleep profiles are equally healthy and normal, but there is no money in it if the latter profile weren’t pathologized (if you get my drift). If you suspect your daughter is the latter type of child, then treat that evening nap as a nap and do the bed time routine later at true night sleeping time, and that will likely sort you right as rain. (Not for nothing but there is a correlation between what is socially considered a late bed time and intelligence.)
Wish we knew this when our kiddo was young. The amount of times we tried to step back bed time, be met with early success, only for it to rebound was a couple too many. Thankfully we threw in the towel and just enjoyed the sleep patterns he had.
Also the 3-4 years old thing is so true for us. I feel like no one talks about this!
