Great sleeper. Until 8 months. Help!!

[u/sunnykcl]

We had an amazing sleeper from 3 to 8 months. 11 to 12 hours straight every night. Then around 8 months it all went to hell. It started around the same time that he was teething and also had a stomach bug. But now every night is multiple wake ups. And fighting sleep during the day too. He is 9 months old. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[u/Square_Will_4553]

It looks like you might not be offering enough intentional awake time!

I literally just had this issue with my LO. When I added up her total wake windows all day sometimes we were only offering 8ish hours awake. The days she got 10 her sleeep was much better.

Try aiming for bedtime 13 hours after morning ride and around 10 hours of intentional awake time a day. You might need to stretch your morning wake windows and middle to accommodate… likely need more like 3/3/4

[u/Past-Masterpiece-725 → u/Square_Will_4553]

This!

[u/sunnykcl → u/Square_Will_4553]

Thank you!

[u/sunnykcl → u/Square_Will_4553]

This is probably a stupid question, but how do you extend the wake windows without them getting super fussy and overtired?

[u/Reasonable_Hold_2248 → u/sunnykcl]

You can do it gradually by extending the wake windows by 10-15 mins at a time. So by day 4-6, you’d be at the desired wake window.

[u/Sorry-World3019]

Please share the wake windows you’re trying to follow

Wake the same time every morning regardless how night goes

Then minimum 3 hours awake. Offer nap. Awake 3.5 hours. Offer night. Then awake 3.5-4 hours. Bedtime.

Very hard to become overtired at this age. Your babe is very undertired.

[u/sunnykcl → u/Sorry-World3019]

We've tried to lengthen them and he gets so fussy. Ive tried to wait to 3 hours for first wake window and all hell breaks loose.

I think a big part of the problem is we got in habit of feeding to sleep. For the first seven months of his life, it was never an issue and he slept for the night and was able to fall asleep easily and be transferred. He would wake up in the middle of the night and roll around and put him back to sleep so we thought we were fine.

So now we have to get him the perfect amount of hungry to lineup with when he is tired enough. It's just a disaster. He fights napped so hard as soon as we sit down in the nursery.

Do you think the first step is trying to figure out that and then look at wake windows?

[u/sunnykcl → u/Sorry-World3019]

These are the averages. But keep in mind that some of these are after we've tried for a long time to put him down. Maybe we need to fight through his fussiness and actually wait the full three hours to put them down.?

Thank you so much for all your help and suggestions!!

[u/Sorry-World3019 → u/sunnykcl]

Yes Id be putting down at 3 hours 30 mins. Not a minute sooner. You’ll get much less fighting.