Sleep- 8.5 month olds HELP!

[teagan01]

Hello everyone,

I am one tired mama. I am a SAHM to twin 8.5 mos olds and have a few questions regarding one of my twins sleep. DD goes to sleep around 7-7:30 each night but wakes every 40 minutes until about 2am and still wakes one to two more times after that. My DH does the first round of comforting and can get her to sleep pretty quickly but she is up again within the hour. We do not have a family bed (just learning about Natural Parenting which I love!) and not sure if we should consider that.

I do nurse her around 11p, 2am and again at 4a. My other DD only gets up to nurse twice.

Is this a phase or a concern? If she is waking this many times how can this be good for her?

[DeerMother]

NIght waking is totally normal at this age. S/he needs the calories, even at night and the reminder that mama is right there. Are they teething? Teething for my dc = night waking. Another thing that helped ds was disposables at night or a cloth diaper w/ a hemp/microfiber combo. Ds would wake as soon as he peed if he could feel it. It was harder for me to get up at night the older they got, a family bed or at least a mattress on the floor where I could sleep with someone made my life so much better.

It gets better! Dd was sttn after her first bday and ds, almost 2, wakes at night maybe once every two weeks.

[teagan01]

Thank you. She does have her bottom teeth and when those came in she had a different reaction when she woke that she is now. I just worry that she is up 10 times before 2am! I don't mind getting up to nurse as often as they need it just worried that she is not getting enough sleep to thrive and brain develoment. I know waking is normal, just curious if waking this often is common. Hopefully it is a phase and she will start sleeping more than 40 minutes at a time

[DeerMother]

It was a phase w/ ds. . . . a dark, terrible phase. There just wasn't any way around sleeping together, 4 hours of broken sleep for me was better than 1 hour (or 40 minutes) of solid sleep. Good luck!

You can google required amount of sleep, I think it is 14-16 hours total for that age. So as long as she's getting that amount in a 24 hour period, I wouldn't worry about what stretch it comes in.

[obxbound]

Originally Posted by esaesa

It was a phase w/ ds. . . . a dark, terrible phase.

DITTO!!!! OMG...it was soo hard. I wanted to try to tell you how long it lasted, but I don't think I can. I'd have to refer to my journal. Between teething, developmental stuff, and growing (we also moved so time change) I was up and up often. What was once up once or twice a night was a lot!

There IS light at the end of the tunnel. Last night my babies went down at 7pm and slept for 11 hours straight!!!!! Now, before then once we got out of the every few hours pattern, they would only wake up once.

I also remember my oldest doing this.

Hugs. I slept a lot when the slept during the day. I had easy meals (like throw in the oven or cold cuts). I did anything it took to make it through.

Hugs

Tina