I was able to deal with the bad naps when he was sleeping good, but recently 8-month-old started waking more at night. I don't know where to start. Previously DS was sleeping 7 to 7 with dream feed about 10 and one night feeding about 3. All of sudden he started waking more at night. Thinking he was hungry I was feeding him. I stopped night feedings more than a month ago. But he still wakes. Often he'll just whimper or cry out a couple of times and go back to sleep. But every few nights he screams on and off for up to an hour and a half. PU/PD and Pat/shhing seems to make the screaming worse. Letting him cry is just awful. Then the time change occurred and he started waking at 5-5:30 a.m. We've tried everything to get him back to a 7 to 7 schedule, but nothing has worked so now he's typically going to bed between 5:30 and 6.
His naps have always been awful. He starts crying during the lullaby. Nothing works to quiet him during this time either. They were finally getting longer during his 7 to 7 schedule (1:15 minutes as opposed to 30-45 minutes) but have started becoming more varied. Sometimes 1:15 sometimes 30 minutes. You can tell when he's still tired when he wakes because he cries. If he gets in a good nap or sleep he wakes up and talks.
We've been thinking maybe he's teething, but have been thinking that for months now and nothing has happened. We understand he's a spirited child (somewhere between spirited and textbook), but there must be something we can do to get him to nap better and soothe himself back to sleep at night.