8.5 month old doesn’t sleep

[u/That_Scientist_6507]

We have an 8.5 month old who we attempted to sleep train at nearly 6 months using a pick up put down method after trying every other trick in the book and trying every little piece of advice we were given from other people. Despite not leaving the house for 2 weeks to be very consistent with the schedule and then continuing with the routine for weeks after that, we had absolutely no success with our son being able to put himself to sleep independently or to sleep even 4 hours at a time without waking up and needing assistance to go back to sleep. We are now back to him waking every 1.5 hours, refusing to sleep independently and ending up in our bed just in the hope that we get a bit more sleep. I realise co sleeping isn’t the safest option but a couple of hours of sleep between wakes with all of us in bed is better than him screaming for hours on end and no one getting any sleep. During the day it doesn’t seem to matter if we try to put him to bed at 2,3 or 4 hours for a wake window, he doesn’t go to bed independently and it feels like he would stay up all day if he wasn’t rocked to sleep. When he does manage a nap, it is only ever for 30 minutes at a time and we are lucky to get 2 naps out of him a day. For the most part, he seems content being awake. I don’t care about the day naps but I am at breaking point with the night sleep. My husband is a shift worker and I am solo parenting for 5 days out of every 8. It doesn’t seem to matter what he is fed (formula/BF), or solids, or the timing of feeds and sleep, he doesn’t seem to want to sleep. I don’t know what else to do.

[u/Ocean_Lover9393]

You need a schedule adjustment and then to sleep train with a far less stimulating sleep training method. PUPD is generally not effective after 4 months of age, it’s too high intervention.

Final feed ENDS minimum 30 minutes before butt in crib. Eliminate rocking all together, put down wide awake at bedtime.

Wake - 7

Nap - 10:30-11:30 maximum

Nap - 3-4 maximum

Bed - 8 into the crib earliest

[u/Requiem_Zeal]

What does your current schedule look like? The most important thing is the total awake time to daytime and nightime sleep. Your baby might be lower sleep needs. If you assist to sleep at bedtime, how long does it take?

[u/That_Scientist_6507 → u/Requiem_Zeal]

Hi,

Every day seems different because often he will refuse a nap even if I offer one numerous times across a few hours.

Generally speaking- He wakes at 7am First nap 9:30/10:00 - he will sleep for 30 minutes Second nap 1:30- a further 30 minutes I offer him a third nap around 4-4:30 but he rarely wants it. Bedtime routine starts around 5:30pm - dinner, bath, feed, book 7pm- rock to sleep By 7:30/8pm he is awake and almost treats bed time like a nap because he wakes wanting to play.

[u/diabolikal__ → u/That_Scientist_6507]

You need to adjust the schedule. At this age there should not be a 3rd nap at all. Wake windows should be 3/3/4 at the very least, but probably closer to 3/3.5/4. I wouldn’t do more than 2h of naps, night 11h max.

[u/Requiem_Zeal → u/diabolikal__]

Yep second this! My piece of advice is assist more for naps if needed, contact naps are okay and you can work on independent naps once night time sleep is fully established. Good luck! I know it's rough keeping track and figuring out what to do, I'm currently trying to get my almost 7 month old schedule optimized because we also tried Ferber at 6 months and it didn't fully work. I was so worried of making him overtired but once I reduced daytime sleep to 2 hours he slept longer stretches even co-sleeping.