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wisewoman said:
I am so not an advocate of crying it out. I believe that when you leave a child to cry it out the child learns that you will not respond to his needs and gives up. I think that letting the child fall asleep with gentle hugs, rocking, and yes sleeping with you is probably best. Remember that many countries don't have separate beds or separate rooms for sleeping.

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I completely agree.

When a child is left to cry it out, as wisewoman says, the child learns that he cannot depend on or trust his providers to care for him when he needs it.

And, I would wager that much of the time the baby falls asleep from exhaustion from crying anyways.

Can you imagine if that was your only way to communicate when you were in need of food or comfort and no one responded, how would that make you feel? Do you think you would feel confident or secure and happy? To me it makes a little bit more sense that if parents do respond to baby, baby learns that the method of communication is effective and that the parents will be there to meet their needs and to comfort them or tell them that everything will be ok if that’s what they need. I think that will develop a more secure and confident happy baby.

again, I say cosleep if it will work for you. The main thing is that the baby is sleeping. There will be lots of time later in his life for learning to sleep alone when he can better communicate through things like words or coming to get you when he is in a bed and able to walk.

Im wondering, is there a reason you feel so strongly about him being in the crib alone? Is it that you have other things to do, need some time alone, ect...

Are you nursing? Or Formula feeding?

If you are nursing its not that uncommon for babies to wake often at night and need to nurse, because breastmilk is processed faster than formula. Because they digest it so quickly often they get hungry again quite quickly.

Also, how long has this been happening? It could be that your baby is going through a growth spurt. Has your baby learned any new skills lately? Often times when a baby learns a new skill their sleep will be patchy for a while.

How often does your baby sleep during the day? What times on average does baby sleep during the day? When does he eat during the day?

All of these could potentially have an impact on your babys sleep.

What time do you put him to bed at night? Are you putting him to bed on your schedule or when he gets sleepy? At 8 months he may not be on much of a schedule yet and if you try to get him down too early he may just continuously wake up.