8 Month Old Fights sleep...please Help!

I have a 10 month old who also slept fairly well until 8 months. It is because around this age kids learn about object permanence (things i.e mom and dad are still there even though they left the room. We tried rocking, breastfeeding, singing, etc...stil upset. Tried pick up, put down. Tried modified ferberizing. We finally let her cry for up to 30 mins. Took a week but now we put her down drowsy after rocking and 2 songs. She falls asleep within 5 min with little crying. Consistency is key, so whatever method you pick stick with it. All methods fail if they are not consistent.

it is probably that he has learned some new things and is too excited to settle down. my baby has been sleeping thru the night all night since 4 mos and she is now 15 mos. we did the CIO method per our dr. put her in crib awake, turn on music box, turn out light and she cried. went in at 5 min mark and patted her, told her shhhh....no other words, do not pick him up. try not to make eye contact because they think they will get out of the crib. i never turned the light on. still crying at 10 mins...went back in and repeated process..each time dragging it out longer before i went back in. finally at 30 mins or so, she took a deep breath, rolled over and went to sleep. she did wake up some during the next few days at the 2 am feed. i just patted her gently and told her shhh and she would put herself back to sleep. you may have to do it a few times. she had it down by the 4th night and has slept all night every night since that. she sleeps from 6:30 to 6:30. she is down now to one nap a day and sometimes she doesnt nap. she lays in the crib and talks to herself or sings, but it is her downtime. she wont love you any less if you do the CIO method and it is not harmful. now if she had been flinging herself in the crib and things along those lines, then yes i would have interveened, but she wasnt. she knew she was tired but she just didnt want to go to sleep. she has fallen out of the practice if she learns a new skill..like walking. she would walk in the crib until she was ready to lay down and go to sleep. its a phase. our routine now..is to eat, read 3 short books in her room with the door closed, put on nighttime diaper and then in the crib and she is asleep within 5 mins of that. i close the door when we are in there so she wont become interested in the other noises in the house. we turn the light down and i read softly and slowly and then i just smile at her when putting on the diaper. i dont speak much at thet point because she will become engaged and interested in staying awake. hope this helps

There are thousands upon thousands of moms on BOTH sides of this question. I did not "ferberize" our first baby (boy)... because I'd never heard of it. BIG MISTAKE. I DID "ferberize" our 2nd baby (girl) and she was a PIECE of CAKE to put to bed for the night. It took 3 nights. And she wasn't making herself sick or anything... just cried some. Each of the 3 nights it was much less than the night before... on 3rd night... she was out in about 5 minutes. Not kidding. She never cried at bedtime after that. Ever. She is 8 yrs now and STILL doesn't mind bedtime at all. She even prefers her door be closed to keep the lights from the family room from shining into her room, lol.

You will have to do what you are comfortable with. But I will say this: If you DO decide to try Ferber (or a similar method) give it at least 3 nights. AND if you decide to try it, try it SOON. The older he gets at this point, the harder it will be.

After having one child we "did" the "CIO/Ferber" method and one we didn't... I wonder how much more enjoyable that year or so from 6/7 months to 20 months might have been with the first one if only we'd known.

Sorry for the late response, but I did want to offer some advice.

Perhaps co-sleeping will help? I know that some are not fans of it, but even if it's just for you to get your son to sleep....and then transfer him to his crib?

My son, who's almost 4, has never been a good sleeper...and we have co-slept since his birth. I have found that this method works best for us...as I am not a fan of crying it out.

Keep in mind also, that your son is still young. 8 months is still very little. He absolutely needs his mommy to help him fall asleep...whether it is for naps or night time.

Good luck.

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I do not believe in cio. My one year old daughter started doing this around 8 months old too. I try everything, rocking, music, singing etc, but when all else fails, I put her in her car seat and drive around for 15-20 minutes. Then she is usually out for the night. Another thing I try before the car is, even though it is cold, I put a blanket around her and take her outside. It usually calms her right down and she is sleeping within 5 minutes.

We used the CIO with both of my children. With my first we ferberized because she needed the reassurance that we were still there, eventually it got to the point where we just put her down and left the room and let her cry. It took about a week and a half but it worked. It was hard but we weren't sleeping and neither was she. my second we found that Fererizing wasn't working. Going back in was worse than if we just let him cry. He would get more worked up every time we went back in. So we ended up just putting him down and leaving the room. It may seem cruel but honestly, my oldest is 6 and my 2nd is 3 1/2 and for the most part they sleep fine. Sometimes a noise machine helps as well. Good luck!

Oh..my Dear of course I have been through this :) My Son is almost 8 months old and has been fighting naps since probably about 4 months..maybe.. He sleeps straight through the and has been since 5 weeks old which we have been told we are very fortunate. However, naps he will fight them too and we did and worried and still do..However, I have found that if I just let him cry and I know its so hard to hear it. Eventually he will go go sleep! I have waited 10 minutes and than have gone back in and checked on him. I used to not be able to leave the upstairs to do other things but now I go and do some housework and let him cry if need be. I know this might sound mean but it worked for us. Of course we don't totally ignore him. We have also found that his binker helps to sooth him. Once he is down he will only sleep for 45 minutes and lucky to get to 2 hours. Good luck :)

My son would never want to sleep unless everyone else was going to sleep, too. It's like he felt he would miss out on something if we tried to get him to sleep before we were all ready for bed. We'd make sure he saw we were turning off all the lights off around the house, and have his night light on in his room, and tell him everyone and the whole house needed to sleep now. It worked until he was old enough to climb out of his crib. Then he'd come to our room and tuck himself in at the foot of our bed and fall asleep again.

There is this great book called the Baby Whisperer that helped us ALOT, it is a modified CIO where you check on them but reassure and put back down should be short and sweet and not them falling asleep in your arms.

I think the biggest thing no matter how you go is consistency, good luck, Nat.