Please tell me your routines for 9 mo (ish) babies/ what you think of this plan?

[lovelylentils]

DD is 9mo and a terrible sleeper. She has only slept through (6hrs) twice since birth! She mainly sleeps in our bed and bf to sleep. We tried cc about a month ago and failed miserably. She screamed the whole time (wether we were in the room with her or not then would wake up half an hour later anyway.)

So, I'm thinking on trying again with encouraging her to self settle and get used to the idea that a nipple in the mouth is not the only way to sleep!

But I'm starting with day naps (which up until now have seen me pinned to the sofa - not much fun for 2yo ds).

So this morning at 10.45 (3 hrs after her waking) I tried putting her down with a bottle music, calming etc then usd cc for 45 mins! She finally fell asleep in her cot (a major achievement for us) at 11.30. She is still asleep now so it's one of her longest morning naps ever too as she usually only manages 30 mins.

So I feel quite pleased with myself (sorry that sounds terribly smug but we've been useless with these naps - ds just seemed to do it all himself and slept through from 11 weeks ) and would like to continue to use cc during the day at least to help her get the idea.

What do you think? What sort of napping/ then bedtimes should I be aiming for now?

Thanks xx

Bump.

She's screaming again...

DD is 9 months - her routine is:
6:15/6:45- wake up, milk
7:15- breakfast
9:15-10:15 morning nap
12:00-lunch
13:30-milk
14:30-16:00-nap
16:30-tea
18:00-milk
18:45-bed

Times are approximate, I'm not Gina Ford

I tried a more gradual withdrawal, so initially sitting with my hand on DD's chest whilst she was in the cot, once she was settling like that sat near the cot with hand through the bars, then sitting on the floor Mumsnetting on my mobile. She also has a comforter & dummy but she does self settle and very rarely sleeps less than 11.5 hours.

Good luck, sleep deprivation is torture.

Thanks.

She went down at 7pm last night, slept almost immediately then woke up 40 mins later and screamed! We went in after5, 6, 7 mins stroking her head, gently singing and she kept drifting off and 5 mins later wake up and start all over again. By about 10pm we gave in and I ended up bf her to sleep. We put her in her cot at 12pm where she slept till 1.30am. By that point I was so tired I just grabbed her and brought her into bed with us.

Failure again.

I have a 9 mo. She wakes every hour , bf back to sleep . HV suggested a more gentle approach to CC, and to stop offering the breast at night . I adapted their suggestion and am on day 6. Last night she woke at 0020, 0330, 0530, 0600 and then in with us. She went down at 2000. I fed at the 0020 and 0600. This is a great improvement . She did wake more but I left her, she found her dummy and self settled within minutes.

What I am doing is offering feed at a waking closest to 2300 and 0600.

When she wakes, I wait a minute, then go in, then I add on 15-30 seconds each time . Never had to go above 3.5 mins. Go in, switch on musical sea horse , put dummy in, role on side, rub back 3 times and leave . HV said I may have to do this 20 plus times a night .

If she goes a few hours, I reset to one minute.

Our biggest help is sticking a camera on her . When she starts disturbing I can watch her on my phone. I can see if she is trying to self settle or look for her dummy, and I leave her to it, I go in if she gets upset, but she is now learning what to do .

Our day routine is rubbish .

that's really interesting iceberg, thanks. I did feel like leaving her for too long just led to her being too worked up to settle.

unfortunately dd wont take a dummy so short of over filling her on ffs she's going to have to learn to settle without sucking on something which is a huge step.

When you say your dd wakes up in the night, how long does it take her to go back to sleep each time as we're finding that this can take 40mins again.

It's hit and miss, sometimes she can be up for over an hour, or we put her back, she is asleep, then awake within 5 mins.

It's only this last week that she hadn't stayed awake for more than a few minutes . I find that she goes down quicker if I go in, put on side, rub back then out. Before I would pat back etc for ages until she feel asleep , or pick her up, and it just kind of dragged on and she got upset.

The camera was the best thing. We could watch her rolling on her side and trying to settle herself , before , id go in and disturb this . Just a web cam set up locally .

I also accepted that even though I feel exhausted, I was going to get up how many times it took, rather than cave and bring her into our bed at two in the morning . Deciding this helped . I'm not at work though, and only have teens, not another child in the house, so easy to be tired all day and laz around.

First night she must have disturb about 20 times . I do hope it clicks soon though . I'm a right grump.