"This FOMO Baby Went From Hourly to 8pm–6am — And Feeding to Sleep Had Nothing to Do With It"
Max had just turned 8 months, and sleep had been a disaster zone since the 4 month regression, prior to this he was sleeping 5-6 hour stretches!
This changed to every 1-2 hours, all night, every night. By the time his parents came to me, they were convinced they knew exactly why: they'd been feeding him and rocking him to sleep, and they'd been told over and over that this was the problem.
It wasn't.
This is one of those cases that's stuck with me, because the real answer was almost the opposite of what everyone — including his parents — assumed.
When I Assessed his Sleep
This family booked my Sleep Plan package, which starts with a 7-day sleep diary assessment, i ask them to track every wake up, every nap, every bedtime, every wake. I don't guess. I assess.
Two things stood out straight away — and neither of them was about feeding or rocking.
He was bored, not tired. This was a classic FOMO baby: alert, busy, not interested in switching off. He wasn't fighting sleep because he was overtired — he was fighting it because his days weren't giving his nervous system enough to do. He needed real sensory input built into his schedule and his bedtime routine, not less stimulation, more of the right kind.
He was being napped too much. His diary showed naps that only worked in contact, and a fair amount of resistance to going down at all. When I calculated his actual sleep need, it came out at 12 hours a day — not the 14 hours his routine was aiming for. He wasn't refusing naps because something was wrong. He was refusing naps because he'd already had enough sleep, and his body knew it.
The Fix
Once I had the real picture, the plan was simple: reset his body clock around his actual 12-hour need, and build a routine that matched it. Alongside that, I put together a personalised sensory plan and a FOMO-baby-specific bedtime routine, running both side by side.
No sleep training. No leaving him to cry. Just the right amount of sleep, at the right times, with the right input to help his nervous system actually switch off.
What Changed
Within a short stretch of implementing the new routine, he went from hourly wakes to sleeping 8pm to 6am — through routine changes alone. His parents had been told the answer was breaking his feed-to-sleep and rock-to-sleep associations. It wasn't. Not every baby needs to fall asleep independently to sleep well — his issue was never the cuddles. It was that nobody had worked out what his body actually needed.
Why This Matters For You
If you're sat there assuming you’ve created "bad habits" you are the reason your baby won't sleep, this is exactly why I never start with assumptions. A proper 7-day sleep diary and assessment finds the real issue — because sleep is never one thing, sleep is puzzle, we need to look at routine, sleep needs, sensory needs, behaviours at night.
This is exactly what my Sleep Plan package includes; a 7-day sleep diary and full assessment, a 60-minute consultation, and a personalised step-by-step plan built around what's actually going on for your baby — not a generic template.
If this sounds like your house right now, click here to book a personalised sleep plan.
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You deserve sleep, too.
