8 month never slept through the night. Should I be concerned?

[Kaydove]

DD has never slept through the night and wakes 2-4 ish times a night. We co sleep with the crib side carred and I purposely don't have a clock within eyesight of the bed, so I'm not certain of how much she wakes up. She might have slept through the night once or twice, I was in such denial that I assumed I woke up and nursed her without realising it. 

She's pretty intense and demanding but happy and so much fun to be around. I would say she's high needs but not in a screaming all the time way more of a super hyperactive, draining way. The Drs. Sears description is spot on but the saving grace for us is that she's usually stoked on life. She's on the cusp of walking, standing well without support and able to stand on her own from a crawling position, not sure if the practicing new skills is keeping her awake, but she's never slept through the night. I'll talk to her doctor about it at her 9 month appt. I'm hesitant on using sleep training techniques because she isn't easily placated. 

I did end up with the weirdest sleeping schedule for myself - I accidentally falling asleep with DD at 8pm when she goes to bed, wake up at 12am then up for an hour or three, and asleep again till 7-9am when DD wakes up. 

[katelove]

I wouldn't be concerned personally. My LO ( who I don't believe is high needs) only started sleeping through when I night weaned her at 2y4mo. Even now she still sometimes stirs for a drink of water or some reassurance.

I don't think most adults sleep through the night either, we just don't have anyone to notice our wakings and keep track of them.

ETA - as you probably know, the definition of sleeping through is 6 hours without waking so, as you said she might have done it without you noticing. I suspect my LO did that a number of times and I just didn't realise.

[skycheattraffic]

I completely agree with pp. My 19 month old DD was up at least 2-4 times until recently. Nowadays she settled into a mostly one waking schedule and gives me a solid 6 or 7 hour stretch - more if I'm very lucky. It's totally normal for a cosleeping baby to wake multiple times and there is nothing you need to do about it. Unless your sleep and daytime life are being severely negatively impacted, just keep going with your system. My DD practiced all her skills at night and it wasn't unusual for her to be up many times, including from 1am to 4 am continuously when she was about to make a big breakthrough. Honestly it sounds like your LO sleeps better than the majority of 8 month olds out there.

[~Adorkable~]

i feel like waking 2-4 times thru out a night as you are defining it (over 12 hours) is really normal for even 1 or 2 year olds.

and yeah like the other person mentioned, for the sake of sleep coaching and milestones, sleeping thru the night is actually just 5 hours!! (usually about 12-5 at this age if at all)

i know you have found calm in not having a clock around, but maybe tracking things for a week might help you get a better feel for what is actually happening.  i used my iphone app Baby Connect, every once in awhile at that age to track what a babe was doing and to se if there was a pattern, often there was and knowing that it was similar each night actually helped me feel like it was just their way at that age. i also liked knowing what time it was, because u started to treat 1am waking differently than 5am wakings, in that i worked on them returning to their own sleep area on the earlier  waking while i left them in bed if it was getting closer to the morning, knowing that they would ultimately sleep longer that way.  i also wanting a clock to tell me if they had woke again after 10 min or sleep or 2 hours of sleep, its amazing how both feel the same to you when you are sleep deprived! but i liked knowing so i would not start a whole new nursing session if it had been less than 30-40 min and would comfort in other ways and that usually worked sense their bellies were full still.

maybe having a clock turned away from you but that you can check when you need to will help bring perspective without dwelling?

my babes around that age were down at 8, up at 11 or 12, 3, 5 or 6, and then up between 8-9 for good. and napped at 11 and 3 each for 1-1.5 hours. but that is the general pattern, there was tons of variation between the two of them and from week to week as they neared milestones or struggled with teeth. i never thought at that age that pattern was odd at all and sounded like a ton of other moms* i talked to. 

* as i interact with more moms and hear more stories, i am convinced that way too many moms do not remember correctly or outright embellish how and when they kids did things, like walk, talk and sleep thru the night. So if you are comparing it to a lot of folks that seem to have it easier than you, please take some comfort in that this might not actually be the case. Some day you will gloss it all over too maybe, me might just be hardwired to gloss over on this stuff!

hugs

[Kaydove]

Thanks for the reassurance! Every few months I start to freak out that she wakes up so often, so its nice to hear that's its normal. I think recording her wakings for a week or two will give me some much needed perspective. Its not affecting me too much considering I'm a SAHM, I can nap with her if need to and I'm not trying to manage the budget for 200 people like I used to.

For her naps, I've found using the 2-3-4 schedule is really effective for us. She wakes up at different times each day, a whole 2 hour difference, so she'll nap at different times and go to bed at different times but I try to keep bedtime as close to 8pm as possible.

Also, she and her sister both have their dads sleeping habits or lack there of. DH has the hardest time falling asleep and staying asleep. DD also has her dads temperament, instense but very sweet.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

[~Adorkable~]

it is exactly that she has her dads sleeping habits that i would work to focus your schedule as soon as you feel like you can! i really do think that we learn lifelong habbits about things like sleep in the frist few years of our life.  ive known folks who have to have music on and if you ask their mom i bet she will say she always turned a fan or the vacuum on. others that cant sleep with so much as a drop of light, i bet they never did as kids either.  and a schedule does not mean really changeing anything, just tracking things for a week or so and finding the pattern and "cleaning it up" a bit

we were napping pretty good and then out of need to structure when we were traveling and my mom was helping me with them, i started have afternoon nap at 1pm on the dot every day, within 3 or 4 days their nap doubled in length from 45min or 1 hour to nearly 2!  and any time i mess up and vary the down time by more than 30 min or so, that magic 2 hours disappears, i think the body cycle of falling asleep gets upended and things suffer.  i do however let them sleep in till whenever and enjoy every minute of it, i cant see what could posible be woth waking a toddler to get on a schedule! yikes

bottom line, your darling `Phina sounds perfectly normal

[mamazee]

One of mine never slept through the night until she was 2, and she's 10 now and sleeps wonderfully. She sleeps alone in her own room and falls asleep quickly and easily and doesn't wake up till morning and wakes refreshed. I nightweaned her at 2 and that's when she started sleeping well, and it was pretty instant.

I don't think there's anything to worry about. Is she nursing at night? Hunger can make them wake. But yes they do get wakeful sometimes when they're in a developmental leap time like that as well.

[fiona2359]

Neither of my kids, now 5 and 9, slept through the night until sometime after age 2 - and even then it was spotty. I think it is  normal for babies to wake and hard on parents if you get too sleep deprived (as I did w/ first kiddo). *ALL* children will eventually sleep through the night and even the seemingly endless sleep deprivation for parents will end too. My kids are even old enough now that they get up in the mornign for a while and don't wake me up!

[ananas]

Sounds normal to me!

[Zirconia]

Our birthing class just had its reunion this weekend - babies all between 7-10 months.  Someone finally got up the courage to ask, "So...  are any babies sleeping through the night?"  The answer was a resounding "NO!!"  Most of the babies cosleep, and waking every 2-3 hours seemed the norm.  You could feel the relief in the room when all the parents realized we weren't alone.  :)

[sageowl]

Nope, sounds normal to me.  I don't think mine ever did until he was well over 12 months.

[Kaydove]

Originally Posted by mamazee 

One of mine never slept through the night until she was 2, and she's 10 now and sleeps wonderfully. She sleeps alone in her own room and falls asleep quickly and easily and doesn't wake up till morning and wakes refreshed. I nightweaned her at 2 and that's when she started sleeping well, and it was pretty instant.

I don't think there's anything to worry about. Is she nursing at night? Hunger can make them wake. But yes they do get wakeful sometimes when they're in a developmental leap time like that as well.

She does nurse at night and its the only thing that gets her back to sleep. She doesn't eat that much actually. Kinda stressing me out since I worry about iron intake. She enjoys eating and will try everything but its the quantity of food that is lacking. She gets bored and wants down to go play. She has a hemoglobin test at 9 months next week which I'm looking forward to getting the results from. 

[mamazee]

One of mine had no interest in sold food until she was almost 12 months. It was a few days before her first birthday. And she ate very little solid food until about 18 months. She was fine. Make sure you get enough iron in your diet. For the first year, food is more about experimenting with tastes and textures than anything else.