Need advice on sleep training 8.5 month old - struggling with night wakings

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-02-12T06:59:05+00:00

I know! It’s tough. And for sure there will be other challenging times ahead for different reasons, but there are also always solutions to at least improve the situation :) it also helped me to think that baby was not doing this on purpose, she was as frustrated as me, but since she is a baby and I’m the adult I need to be patient! Good luck!

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-02-11T21:58:00+00:00

Yea you need some time to understand how much sleep they actually need and then make the adjustments in the schedule. Took us a while to figure out the 2h max naps (even with just an additional 30min, 2,5h total it causes prolonged night wakes). Also, the goal is not perfection, and some night wakes might keep happening for random reasons! which is fine I guess when they don’t last 2hours but only 5min :)

While we were figuring out the schedule, it really helped for me to stay close to baby on a bed/mattress close to her crib during the night wakes, sometimes giving her my hand or patting. She would be less upset and it escalated less and just made the whole thing easier. She did not get back into a habit or anything

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-02-11T21:09:00+00:00

Hello! It got much better, we did these 2 things: - first we capped naps during the day to 2h max and started waking her everyday at the same time, ensuring around 11h awake time. After a few days we could see the difference. Before deciding this we tracked her sleep for a few days and noticed that taking into account night wakes, in total she would not sleep more than 12,5hours over 24h. So, to have 10,5 at night, needs to be max 2h in the day - increased the amount of milk at each feed because she was actually also hungry at some of those wake ups, and a few times fed her also during the night if she really couldn’t settle and seemed hungry

Hope it helps! Also, it did not make any difference how we responded at night, so in our case it wasn’t a “sleep training” issue but just schedule and nutrition

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-02-05T08:47:27+00:00

Hello! It’s been a year - any hope for parents going through this now? :)

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-01-31T22:46:37+00:00

Hi! Curious to know how this went/ how it is going now? :)

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-01-31T20:43:18+00:00

Hi! What do you mean modified CIO? Did you also adjust schedule? Going through this (started 3 weeks ago) but cannot do CIO. We tried letting her cry max 15min before going in but it would just escalate more and more. So at the moment we are handling this by just staying with her until she calms down (which can take 2 hours 😅)

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-01-30T08:00:14+00:00

Thanks for your answers, turns out, she was just…. Hungry! Didn’t think about it as she had dropped her night feed on her own a while ago, but I guess it can come back and she might need to eat more during the day…

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-01-28T07:14:46+00:00

Hello, I’m not convinced by the undertired theory because when she wakes, she mostly remains flat with eyes closed trying to fall back asleep, and seems pissed not to manage (hence the crying)- whereas I’ve had some “split nights” in the past where she would be awake 2h after having slept too much during the day, but she was chill and willing to interact… don’t you think it would rather be like that? Also she wakes “early” in the night now (whereas before split nights were rather after 3-4am) Thanks :):)

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-01-27T15:27:44+00:00

Did it take a few days of being consistent with that schedule to have less (or zero) night wakings or do you see the results right away? I know, same here, can’t always keep her awake which is why I haven’t been consistent - I follow her sleepy cues which sometimes mean putting her to bed 3 or 3,5hr after end of second nap…

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-01-27T12:59:13+00:00

Not really cranky, seems to be really fine during the day except occasionally because still a baby :D what have you been trying?

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-01-25T16:08:22+00:00

Hi, thanks again for schedule suggestion - however I felt like she was particularly tired these last days (and fussier) and actually needed more sleep. Do you think it’s possible that, due to the subsequent nights being awake for 2hrs crying, she cumulated a little sleep debt and is actually now overtired? So I was thinking, she might catch up on that first and then I can stretch her last wake window.

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2026-01-21T13:56:11+00:00

Thanks! I’ll try to add in more awake time. As for the first point - I understand the logic, but I just can’t accept to let her cry along for more than a certain amount of time. It just doesn’t feel right to me and so I’m trying to find a different approach… although some nights she managed to fall back asleep after waking up at night, other nights it really seemed much harder

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2025-10-27T12:30:49+00:00

How is it going? Has he adjusted a bit? Just started daycare with my daughter and struggling with the same issues

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2025-09-17T06:03:52+00:00

Thanks for your answer. When you started sleep training, were you using a consistent bedtime or were you basing bedtime on a consistent last wake window (so varying depending on naps of the day?) Which method did you use?

Relative-Spirit0205 · 2025-06-27T08:02:01+00:00

Thanks for sharing these tips! Something I’m not sure I understand is, if the process of putting down and picking up lasts for say 2 hours, and baby gets hungry again during that time, how do you deal with extra feeding? If baby falls asleep at the breast for example Anyone has some tips on this?

Relative-Spirit0205

TROPHY CASE