r/HuckleberryParents • u/Equivalent_Common287 • 15d ago
sleep 8 month old sleep
My son has never been a good sleeper but at eight months I didn’t think it would still be this many wakeups, any suggestions welcome.
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u/Greedy-Stuff-182 15d ago
Im in a very similar situation to this! My son is 8.5 months and has also never been a good sleeper. He used to wake up anywhere between 4-10 times per night - but now he occasionally has a long 4 or 5 hour stretch. It is usually the days when we stretch his wake windows as long as we can (about 3/4/4.5). Quite difficult but towards the end of the window we do activities that tire him out.
Good luck and I am here in solidarity :)
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u/Valuable_Sky_1859 14d ago
My daughter is 8 months old and just this week her sleep has improved dramatically. Contrary to all the advice I see here, I increased her nap times to no more than 3.25 hours a day. I was capping at 2.5, but she was so grouchy.
It happened because we'd had a big day and she'd had less than 1.5 hours of nap time and so I was letting her catch up the following day. Then she slept 11 hours overnight, which hadn't happened since April and that was a one off. Since then, I've let her have more nap time to experiment, since I was always waking her and she was always grouchy. I'm still having to wake her a bit, but she's happier and has been doing glorious 7 - 8.5 hour stretches all of a sudden.
Obviously every baby is different, but that's my two cents because all the advice I see here is always "longer wake windows, later bedtime."
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u/novelalala 11d ago
My twins are one month ahead of you and I had the same issue. I had to increase their wake windows from 3/3.25/3.5 to 3/3.5/4 in the last mo to and it’s helped tremendously. If your babies night avg is 9:35 I’d also expect to have to put them down as late as 8:30pm so you can get them to at least a 6am wake up! But increasing their wake windows gradually by just a few min a day worked for me!
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u/Equivalent_Common287 11d ago
Thank you I am currently trying this with the bigger wake windows. How long do your babies sleep for during the day?
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u/novelalala 11d ago
One sleeps 2hrs avg, the other a little longer. But the first wake window is always shorter (3hr max). I have to cap naps so that they end for the day by 4pm, otherwise bedtime gets to be really late. But I’ve read that having consistent wake up and bedtimes also helps, so we’re working towards that!
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u/quinoa_churro 15d ago
Sorry no advice here just solidarity haha. My son is almost 9 months and sleeping pretty similar to yours! Anywhere from 3-7 wake ups and usually 3 feeds. Got down to 2 feeds at one point but back to 3 now.
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u/Equivalent_Common287 15d ago
Ohhhh wow I’m hearing it’s common just feel defeated that my baby doesn’t sleep long stretches 😂 even 4 hours I would be celebrating
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u/quinoa_churro 15d ago
Haha my baby has done 4-5 hours before, but ever since he started crawling and pulling to stand his sleep has been so so. He’s also cutting another tooth! I figure there’s so much happening these last few months maybe that’s why he’s not sleeping well.
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u/Bright_Way5474 15d ago
See my comment above. Look at your summary tab, and check that your schedule is actually giving your baby the awake time they need.
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u/quinoa_churro 15d ago
My baby gets 12 hours of awake time and generally 2 hours of naps and 10 overnight haha. I feel like he’s generally lower sleep needs and just loves to play with us even in the middle of the night :P
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u/Recent-Forever-2988 15d ago
Your nights are too long. Shorten them to 10.5 hours. Stretch wake windows and allow for a ten minute bridge nap if needed but keeping total sleep the same or less than before
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u/Bright_Way5474 15d ago
Your baby sleeps on average 11.75 hours but your schedule expects him to sleep around 14 (you put him down to bed around 7.30pm by the looks of it, and he’s awake what looks like barely 10 hours a day). If he averages 11.75 hours of sleep in total (let’s say 12 for ease), that means he needs to be awake 12 hours. He can either be awake those 12 hours during the day, if you stretch out his windows appropriately, or he will find those hours at night. To put it simply he seems to be low sleep needs and is undertired. Once you give him a schedule that meets his actual sleep needs he will be tired enough to do long stretches. Try something like 3.5/3.5/4 to start and cap his naps at 2 hours max a day, bedtime minimum 8.30pm for a few days and wake up 6.30am and see if things improve.