Sleeping through the night

I will take ANY suggestions to help get my 8mo DD to sleep through the night. What have you done that worked? Any help is appreciated.

[Pollyanna]

I think we need some information on what your little sweetie is doing. How often she wakes, when she goes down, how she goes down, does she still eat in the middle of the night, etc ?

[ladymoreta]

Yep - I'd love to help! Goodness knows I need to find some use for all the research I've done for DS! What's going on? What's your usual bedtime routine, and what happens when she wakes up during the night?

bedtime is between 7:30-8:00pm She is put in her crib and given lovey and paci and is read a short story. She puts herself to sleep from here, usually with minimal problems. WITHOUT FAIL she is going to wake up around 11:15-11:45 and will be awake long enough to take about 2oz, sometimes she jsut needs her paci... same thing happens around 4:15ish. She wakes up for the morning around 7:30.

Help I am at my wits end... what are we doing wrong!

[Pollyanna]

You are not doing anything wrong at all. The only thing I would change is to stop the 11pm feeding. Don't pick her up, just give her her paci, a pat on the back and leave again. She sounds like a pretty good sleeper

You are not doing anything wrong at all. The only thing I would change is to stop the 11pm feeding. Don't pick her up, just give her her paci, a pat on the back and leave again. She sounds like a pretty good sleeper

What about the one around 4ish? Seriously though... I need her to start sleeping.. I am so sleep deprived that my eyelid has been twitching on and off for almost a month. But Chris D. offered a suggestion to help with that issue which if it works I may drive to her house a kiss her!!!!

[ladymoreta]

Hmm, yeah, it sounds pretty normal actually... DS had one nighttime feeding until 11 months. So sorry, but I agree, she sounds like a good sleeper.

[SuzySunshine]

Yep she sounds pretty good for that age, R didn't sleep through the night until 1 year. But I agree stop feeding her and she'll learn she's not going to get anything so she'll stop doing it.

I honestly do not know if I should be happy or sad over this information......

[migirl]

DD (9 months) sleeps from about 8pm until around 4am, then goes back to sleep until 7:30am. She was doing the 11:30pm wake-up too, until I just stopped feeding her at that time and let her cio. So, add me to the camp that says that it sounds very normal for this age!

[Thirteen]

DS is 3 1/2 mos and eats 1x in the middle of the night, but... won't go down until between 9-10pm. Maybe that's the trade off? Later bedtime, last feed is later, one less night waking?
Idk though - I'm new to Mommyland.

[alison]

I'd say that she's on the right track! M woke up two times (around midnight, and again at 4am) until she was almost 10 months old, and up once (around 4am) until she was about 13 months old.

Our case may be slightly different, because she'd wake for bottles. Because she was/is such a poor eater we always gave them to her. She'd always go back to sleep, and wake up for good between 8-9am.

That sounds pretty normal. If you want to cut out the 11 and 4 wake ups, maybe try gradually taking out the paci before she is fully back asleep so she learns to soothe herself without a prop? That's one of the things we're working on from The No Cry Sleep Solution, and 6 mo DS slept 3.5 consecutive hours last night, wahoo, from 8:30-12, breaking his prior record by a full half hour. And that sentence alone should disqualify me from dispensing sleep advice to anyone ever. Ignore and carry on.

[alison]

I think every kid is different. M falls right on track with Weissbluth's advice. An earlier bedtime has made a huge difference in whether or not she fights her daytime nap. Who would have thought! (Sorry for the hijack.)

One of my friends has had two babies who have slept 8 hours straight at 5 weeks old. WTH!!!!!

[ladymoreta]

Heh, Selu, I think our sons are conspiring behind our backs!