Help Nursing 8 month old to sleep

Dark Rabbit

Hey,
I'm a proud father of a healthy 8 month old baby. Baby is very good natured, eats very well but also breast feed in morning and evening.
The reason for this post is that in the evening my son won't fall asleep by him self but always needs his mother either holding him or in the bed beside him.
I bring the baby to bed, play the nursery rhyme music and read him stories. While he is relaxed with me he needs to be held by his mother or else he won't go asleep.
The net result of this is that my wife with with my son for 1 to 2 hours (more often the latter) just trying to have him fall asleep.
Any practical suggestions greatly appreciated.
Regards Ken

scarepanda

At what point does your son get his evening breastfed?

My daughter is the same age and we kept a really simple bed time. Basically 9pm is bed time. She says her goodnights, brush her teeth on the way to her room, get ready for bed and into her sleep sack. The main room light is turned off and a night light and side light are turned on. I then start to feed her in the room and the side light is turned off as soon as she's feeding properly. I let her feed till she's happy. She's usually still semi awake at this stage. I put her up against my shoulder and if she's content I put her into the cot. If she's not too happy I'll sit and hum a tune (same one everytime, so she associates it with night time sleep) and rock her till she's content and then into the cot.

We've had this general routine since she was about 10 weeks old, with very few changes. It took a couple weeks for her to get used to things, but now I usually have her down in about 15 minutes. I don't let her cry it out, but will let her whinge for a few minutes before going into her. I don't speak or interact with her if she's wide awake after her feed or if I have to go back in.

I don't know if it's a good or bad routine, or whether it's any good to you, but that's what we do here and it works for us. Biggest problem for me is that I'm the only one she will go to sleep for at the moment, but that's because boobies are still on offer!

thekooman

our little fella at 6 months was a disaster as well... Mammy always bringing him to bed to feed and fall asleep. so we (i kinda said it had to stop) decided to put him in his cot. each night we would put him down and he would be wrecked. he would cry but any full on crying we would lift him and re-assure him all was ok. then try him again, after 30 mins (maybe lifting him 8 to 10times) he would drift off. we kept doing this for weeks and now at nearly 10 months we put him down and he drifts off straightaway. he is totally weaned off the boob now and its all bottles but the night feeds are over nearly as well unless he wakes and really cant get back to sleep.
hope this helps.
I nearly posted here one time as well to get advice.

shesty

thekooman wrote: »

our little fella at 6 months was a disaster as well... Mammy always bringing him to bed to feed and fall asleep. so we (i kinda said it had to stop) decided to put him in his cot. each night we would put him down and he would be wrecked. he would cry but any full on crying we would lift him and re-assure him all was ok. then try him again, after 30 mins (maybe lifting him 8 to 10times) he would drift off. we kept doing this for weeks and now at nearly 10 months we put him down and he drifts off straightaway. he is totally weaned off the boob now and its all bottles but the night feeds are over nearly as well unless he wakes and really cant get back to sleep.
hope this helps.
I nearly posted here one time as well to get advice.

This right here.
There are many variations of exactly what you can do and how to do it, but it really all comes down to some form of this....you have to gently introduce a new routine and just sit with it for a couple of weeks til he gets used to it.And it just takes as long as it takes.I'd feed, then put him in the cot and just sit there with him
It will take a lot of time and patience, but you are teaching him a new skill....how to fall asleep himself, so it's worth the work.

thekooman

shesty wrote: »

This right here.
There are many variations of exactly what you can do and how to do it, but it really all comes down to some form of this....you have to gently introduce a new routine and just sit with it for a couple of weeks til he gets used to it.And it just takes as long as it takes.I'd feed, then put him in the cot and just sit there with him
It will take a lot of time and patience, but you are teaching him a new skill....how to fall asleep himself, so it's worth the work.

after about 15 to 20 days you will notice the change. someone needs to take charge of the situation and implement the plan. my wife always fed him in the living and then up to bed and we do the same routine every evening (but a bottle now). he would be awake 4 hours at this stage from his afternoon nap so will be well wrecked. get them out in the fresh air as well or even a bath will help to sooth them before bed. the night feeds have been just gradually weaned out and he hasn't had a bottle feed at night in 2 or more weeks now (but up to a year if he wakes and wont sleep again, a bottle is definitely the way to go). if he wakes, in with the dummy and if he is unsettled pick him and let him know all will be ok.
we dont bring him into the bed with us anymore cos he thinks its playtime and keeps all of us awake!
he is teething and so there will be hiccups along the way such as colds, etc.

we, as new parents, were too nice with him regarding his sleep at the beginning; bringing him into bed, multiple night feeds to pacify him to sleep, etc.