Is there a way to get an 8 month old to STTN without CIO?

I nurse DS to sleep which always worked fine and she still slept until about 4-4:30 before waking for the 1st time now she's up all the time. I've read tnst I should nurse her about 20-30 min before bedtime but she'll just fall asleep if I feed her then. Wjat do I do in that case? Can I get her to sleep without CIO?

Re: Is there a way to get an 8 month old to STTN without CIO?

Maybe your DD is teething? That's when DS' was erratic. I would give her some motrin and see if that helps.

Are you nursing her to sleep? You need to get her to go to bed WITHOUT nursing. I started putting DS to bed awake around a year and it really helped his sleep (until he teethed for like 7 months straight.)

Re: Is there a way to get an 8 month old to STTN without CIO?

We are not comfortable with CIO and have chosen other methods to get my DS to sleep well and it's worked very well for us. Look up the book Good Night Sleep Tight.

Re: Is there a way to get an 8 month old to STTN without CIO?

There are gentle methods like the Sleep Shuffle. They take longer than CIO and have varying results.

We definitely worked on separating nursing from bedtime with DS, and I'll be doing the same soon with DD.

I would nurse while he was still dressed, somewhere OTHER than the nursery. Then we would do bath time (if a bath night), then change for bed and DH would then rock him in his room for a few min, sing a song, put him down. That way we separated me/nursing from sleep time. If he fell asleep during nursing, we still had bath/changing to do so that would wake him up and serve the same purpose.

I will say it didn't end up helping him STTN. DS didn't STTN til 15 months. I wasn't comfy with CIO - we tried the Sleep Shuffle and it sorta worked. Eventually we kinda did a combo of modified CIO/Sleep Shuffle.

Is there a way to get an 8 month old to STTN without CIO?

I agree with what others have said about separating nursing from bedtime. My son was a crappy sleeper until well after a year old but what helped a bit was I started giving him a bottle of pumped milk before bed rather than nursing. He never seemed to pass out as easily drinking a bottle but always conked right out if I gave him the boob.