9 month regression - anything else I should be doing?

[SleepWalkingZombie]

My son is a good sleeper, and we got through the 4 month sleep regression in a couple of weeks by following all the general advice - not feeding to sleep, etc etc.

He's almost 9 months now, and has been crawling for about 7 weeks and he just this week learnt to pull himself up and is cruising. This has resulted in an absolute nightmare for his sleep and nap times. Two nights ago he spent an hour and a half rolling over and standing up in the cot in the middle of the night. I would just go in every time and put him back down. Last night he took 40 minutes to go to sleep, but then he woke at 1.30, 3.30, 4.30 and 5.30. Each time it was only around 10 minutes. But still, I am exhausted.

As background, he has largely been night weaned for a few weeks now. So I haven't been feeding him when he wakes to do this. And the reason I'm confident with this is when he wakes for the day at 8am he won't even finish his 7oz bottle. He will sometimes only have half and he does eat a lot in the day.

So what do you do? Am I right to just keep going in his room and putting him back down?

Also, as his sleep is crappy at the moment, I'm taking the opportunity to really remove any sleep association - we don't feed to sleep, but he does have a bottle in his room before we put him to sleep, that always got him quite drowsy, but now that doesn't work because all he wants to do is to practice his new skills. So I think we are going to move the bottle perhaps before his bath.

In addition, I think his nap schedule maybe isn't working, for a while he's been transitioned to two naps a day (on a 2-3-4 schedule), and I tend to let him have up to an hour in the morning and up to two hours in the afternoon. But he never seems tired enough for his morning nap these days after 2 hours. What's a good nap schedule look like at this age? Also, to improve his night sleep, am I best to swap and have a longer morning nap and shorter afternoon nap?

Is there anything else I can do to get through it? Please tell me it does end! Soon!

[FATEdestiny]

Also, as his sleep is crappy at the moment, I'm taking the opportunity to really remove any sleep association

I would take the opposite view.

While sleep is crappy, I would take this as a sign baby needs temporary extra help to sleep. More than normal. I'd tackle anything i was looking to change when sleep was going well, not badly.

Am I right to just keep going in his room and putting him back down?

Is there a specific reason baby has moved out of your room before sleeping through?

Anyway, yes that is the plan. Leaning a hand into the cot and rest a hand quite firmly on baby's chest/back helps to settle and still baby.

You need to teach baby that when in the cot, he needs to lie down and be still in order to relax and go to sleep. This basic understanding doesn't come naturally to many babies. Especially once motor skills develop (it always gets worse once pulling to standing)

With the cot next to your bed, you can often catch baby before fully waking and standing up. Then resettle with the firm hand before the battle to stand up or rock on all-fours starts.

If you've got to go to another room then changes are you will miss the chance go resettle and you'll have a fully awake trying-to-stand battle in your hands. So it just requires consistency. Lie baby back down, firm hand (or hands, if feet are kicking add in your second hand to physically keep legs still) to still and calm baby until asleep. Repeat at each wake up.

[SleepWalkingZombie]

As I said, he has been sleeping through. When we put him in his own room at 6 months he was sleeping between 8-10 hours having 1 feed and then going back to sleep for another couple of hours. So not sure what you mean by that? We just put him in his own room at 6 months as most folk do.

[FATEdestiny]

I don't mean anything untoward by it. Just that dealing with what you are going through will be a lot easier if cot was back in with you. A bed for you in baby's nursery will work too.

Otherwise just accept that you won't get much sleep on til this phase. No big deal if you are fine with that. The more consistant you are, the quicker baby will learn and it will pass. Hopefully it won't take long.