Personally I believe in a consequent consistent bedtime routine, plenty of physical activity during the day and calming activities before bed. Also when you child wakes up 8x per night, what do you do ? Once you’ve put your child down, I would advice not to go back in his/her bedroom, even when your child wakes up and cries (unless your child is sick), let your child settle by him/herself.

Try to give him food which fills his stomach and then give a warm hot water bath and massage his legs before he sleeps, hope he should be better.

bedtime routine that is always the same, dinner, bath, bedtime story and If you’d like to try use a nightlight or white noise machine or fan on low setting or radio on low setting, Christian station is great or classical.

Hi!
With both my boys, they didnt sleep through the night either. One was a day sleeper, the other one, not so much, so I feel your tiredness.
Even now they are both completely different sleepers, however, the nighttime cues we give them from when they were babies to now seems to help.

Making sure they are feed, bathed and in their pj’s is the standard cues for going to sleep. I use to use a bit of lavender in the bath, they also liked to have massages after their baths (bit tricky as they got older and has stopped) and once the food, drink, toilet (if appropriate) and sleepwear is sorted. We use to read a story and have a cuddle (trying not to fall a sleep with them! lol), then goodnight. It is hard because the crying happens and the excuses as they get older. If you know they aren’t sick and all their needs have been met, then leave them to cry a little bit.

My youngest son, use to wake and come into our bed (he still does with nightmares), he is old enough to be spoken to about staying in his bed for other reasons. But when he was young, and even though I was tired to my very bones, I would get up, put him back in his bed, give him a kiss and a cuddle and then go back to bed. In winter it was more painful because it would be too cold. He would sometimes do it all night, several times. Yet, I would get up and put him back in his own bed. It is trying and tiring and some nights you just don’t want to do it, but all I can say is, stick too it, it does work. My youngest sleeps through most nights now (minus the nightmares) and in those instances, I sometimes cuddle in with him and in the morning have a little chat about what the nightmare was about and how we could have changed it to make it not so bad…I wish you all the best with your restless sleeper and hope some of what I have said has helped. Each child is different, each parent is different, do what you feel is right for you and as I keep telling myself, they won’t do it when they get to school (drink the bottle of milk or have a dummy)…All the best for a good night sleep for both of you!