Wondering if I’m going to regret our sleep habits in the future

[y0ung1996]

My baby is 8 months old and maybe I was naive but I thought sleep would be better by now. I guess I’m looking for encouragement and maybe some tips from seasoned parents. I’ll try to put together my thoughts in a way that comprehensible.

Relevant information:
-Currently nurses to sleep (he used to be able to go to bed drowsy but awake but I think has developed separation anxiety)
-Will only sleep in crib when dead asleep.
-Sleeps from 8-7:30 am, typically.
-Wakes up about 1-3 times before midnight, and 2-5 more times between 12-7:30am and only goes back to sleep after nursing.
-Sleeps next to me in his crib 2/3 of the night, and co sleeps after nursing when I accidentally fall asleep (I have made the bed as safe as possible for this).
-I follow wake windows and try to encourage naps in the crib.
-My husband can comfort him back to sleep without milk but this does not work past midnight.
-Baby has consistently stayed on 40th percentile

Basically my fears are that if I don’t sleep train or night wean now, it will only get more difficult when he’s older. I’m on maternity leave until he’s a year old so I can handle the broken nights right now but I’m not sure I can do this past then. I don’t feel right moving him to another room yet, doing cry it out, or night-weaning at this point. I know babies can go longer periods of time at this age without eating but he is also incredibly active and he really does seem hungry. I also worry about tooth decay (he has 5 currently).

Overall feeling unsure

 

[pastorinny]

@y0ung1996 Sleep is developmental, and what you’re describing sounds 100% normal for an eight month old! It won’t be this way forever. I have two kids (pregnant with my third), and we did not sleep train. I coslept and nursed throughout the night.

Both of them sleep through the night in their own rooms now. No dental issues either.

 

[taisho]

@pastorinny Yeah eight month olds sleep like CRAP lol. Brutal. But you get through it and their sleep gets a million times better

 

[kateetak]

@pastorinny I’m cosleeping and nursing my 12 month old son to sleep and throughout the night every night. How old were yours when they started sleeping in their own room and how were you able to successfully do that? I have no plans to stop cosleeping yet but I do wonder when he’ll be ready to move into his own space

 

[pastorinny]

@kateetak With my first - I nightweaned at 18 months and she switched to her own room when she was 2. She was excited about getting a new bed and it was an easy transition. She still woke up every 2 hours though until she turned 3 years old, we would just go in her room and pat her back to help her get back to sleep. Then it’s like a flip switched one night and she started sleeping through the night.

With my second - she nightweaned herself when she was around 20 months old. She started sleeping much longer stretches so we switched her to her room. We started out by laying down with her until she fell asleep. For a few weeks, she woke up once or twice at night and then started sleeping through the whole night. She’s almost 3 now and goes to sleep by herself.

 

[rhemajoy]

@pastorinny How did you cope waking every two hours for that long?

 

[pastorinny]

@rhemajoy With cosleeping and side lying nursing, I didn’t have to fully wake up. Once they stopped nursing, my partner was able to handle a lot of the nightly wake ups. It wasn’t easy but once you’re through it, you kind of forget how hard it was.

 

[rhemajoy]

@pastorinny My daughter woke every 1-2 hours for the first 14 months and it’s almost killed me! Like I’ve developed anaemia, have terrible memory problems etc. But she doesn’t like cosleeping so we couldn’t do that, just up and down all night! It’s a bit better now but still hard. It’s good to know it eventually does get better at some point though, and that you forget how awful it was at the time!

 

[kateetak]

@pastorinny Wow that sounds great! Thanks for the response!

 

[craigbrickhill]

@pastorinny Can I ask how old your older children are? I need hope

 

[pastorinny]

@craigbrickhill They are 7 and almost 3. My first started sleeping through the night when she was 3, my second started when she was around 20 months old.

 

[craigbrickhill]

@pastorinny Thank you

 

[zach0024]

@y0ung1996 Don’t borrow worries from the future. What’s working for you now is working, and you stop when it stops working. I felt similar doubts at 8 months and I’m so glad I powered through until 12 months - then we night weaned and had her sleep in her own room. It fills me with so much happiness to look back and reminiscence how we did everything baby needed to feel safe and loved through the night. At 12 months, I finally felt like she knew us well enough to understand that she wouldn’t get boobs at night but only daddy’s embrace and that it was just another kind of love. And she transitioned well. And sttn more often than not at 19 months. Night weaning did not decrease the number of her wake ups btw! But my husband could take over. She randomly started sttn so sleep is developmental gets another vote from me. We wouldn’t expect an 8 month old to walk because we accept he just couldn’t, so why expect them to sleep through the night. We’ve got zero issues with dental decay and honestly? I thought I wouldn’t be able to do nights on so little sleep and work but it worked out better than I thought. I can’t stress it enough: do not borrow worries from the future! Focus on the good now, you’ll miss all the sweetness and not remember the hard edges Best of luck!

 

[trends]

@zach0024 I did pretty much exactly the same. Floor bed was incredibly helpful. She's only STTN about 3 times , but sleeps in large blocks now.
Unfortunately though, I just got her sleep sorted she was developmentally ready at 12mo and then BAM , my return to work and daycare illnesses screwed it up. I have faith we will get back there, but gee it sucks

 

[srm332]

@y0ung1996 Hey I’d highly suggest less time in bed we do 8.30-6am. You have to do this for two weeks to see the wakes lessen (sleep pressure buildup)

How much day sleep?

 

[giveitup007]

@srm332 I agree, my 7.5 month old sleeps 10.5 hours per night, always wakes herself after this amount of sleep. Sometimes bedtime fluctuates depending on when she woke from last night.

 

[brione]

@y0ung1996 You're doing fine. Sleep is developmental. I coslept and nursed through the night until 17 months (when we night weaned), my guy never slept in his crib for a second. Woke up every hour or two until like 20 months. He's now 2.5 and sleeping through the night (most nights - of course there are ups and downs) in his own bed. It's okay to nurture your baby and give them the support they need! 8 months is seriously so tiny. also for every single thing where people say "you better stop that habit now, it will be harder to break when they're older" I actually found it to be easier to break the habit the bigger my guy was. I mean that might not be true of like pacifiers and TV but for nursing and cosleeping? Absolutely easier as he got older. Times a million.

The less your can worry about all the society nonsense around sleep the better. I'm about to have #2 and am so excited to just roll with all of the "bad sleep habits" and never think twice about it. What you learn is that every single sleep problem is eventually fixed by time even if you do nothing. Night waking, 5am wakeups, false starts, all of it - at some point they will just magically stop doing it. No need to stress. No need to manage the process. So much easier if you can just roll with it!

 

[cameronb67]

@y0ung1996 Hate to break it to you, this is how most babies sleep. Mine is one and I work, my husband is a SAHD. There is no magic bullet. Sleep training isn’t a magic bullet, and even if it was, there is no way that I could do it from an ethical and emotional standpoint it’s just wrong to me. On a gut level it doesn’t make sense to me. You’ll have to decide how you feel about it but for me it’s cruel and not on the menu.

The good news is, it does get better. Incrementally but consistently. My five year old sleeps fine and we never sleep trained her. And there comes a time when you even start to miss being close to them.

 

[glorygirl16]

@y0ung1996 I agree! I am co sleeping now with a 12 month old and she is now going 5+ hour stretches and we are working on getting her in her crib and off her bottle. She has 7 teeth!! Our bed time and nap time routines are very consistent so she knows when it’s coming and we used to do walk the stairs and rock her to sleep now all we do is rock her after our routine. Next step is to lay her down and let her get drowsy on her own after our routine. I agree it’s all very developmental I have seen some huge huge improvement in her from 11-12 months! I used to be afraid that if I didn’t sleep train sooner it would be terrible as she got older but it hasn’t been and we still havnt and she knows when it’s time to sleep granted I’m with her for that but I know once she grows out of this stage she does have some of those skills to understand what things mean and as they get older they want more control of that. She fights naps sometimes by not wanting to get in her sleep sack so I have started to sing fun songs and patting the sleep sack on my lap and she comes to me and gets in it willingly when she knows she has that choice. It’s been working so far, and when it doesn’t work we will try something new! It’s so stressful I read comments and posts here daily because there’s just so much to try to “fix” but really time and age is the ultimate fix. She used to never sleep past 2.5-3 hours and now she’s starting to get into 5 hour stretches last night she did 5 and 5. Woke up early but I was happy!! I have faith it all works out and the love and support we give to these babies creates a safe space for them to be independent and grow.

 

[sammuks]

@y0ung1996 Just reassurance: my boy was a similar sleeper at 8 months, up every ~2 hours but improved significantly after 12 months. He also weaned just after 12 months and that helped with the comfort feeds overnight. It feels like the poor sleep will last forever, but it doesn’t!!