Please help! 9mo baby's sleep and next steps!

[GuessHowMuchI]

Hi, I'm looking forward advice about managing our baby's 8/9mo sleep regression. I've posted before and feel like I'm always asking for help! But I've not got any family IRL and no bubble at the moment, plus health visits never happened due to the dreaded Covid... I would be so grateful if anyone can advise me.

Our baby is now just 9 months and has had a sleep regression for past 4 weeks. I know this is normal. Prior to 8 months he slept like a dream and only woke once to feed (formula fed).

To cope with the sleeping I have started bringing him into our bed, which we've never done before. Otherwise he wriggles and climbs around his cot and no-one gets any sleep. This way he lies still and seems to sleep soundly. I don't sleep as soundly but at least baby does!

Normally, before all this, DH and I would swap night feeds every other night. We've done it like this ever since 1 month- baby had to be formula fed due to other issues and it worked for us (used to be only 1 night feed anyway). However since this sleep regression hit the baby won't settle with my DH. He seems to be asking for me and only settles when I come and hold him. So I've ended up looking after him throughout each night. DH then takes him at 7am when he wakes and lets me have a small lie in. DH does see a lot of baby (more due to wfh), a silver lining of the pandemic for us. But still baby seems to only want me all of a sudden.

So here are my questions based on all of this:

1. Will we ruin things if we start just having me look after baby at night? Will this be making a rod for my own back and mean baby will never settle for his Dad again? Or do we go with it for now just so we can all sleep, and then hopefully when this phase is all over (🙏) we can switch back to taking it in turns?

1. We've stopped the good practice we were doing before, (put baby down drowsy but awake etc), and now at night I am rocking or feeding baby to sleep. Otherwise he won't self settle like he used to. Again, have I ruined all the hard work I put in sleep training him before? Will we be able to revert back to the old methods?

1. Baby is drinking lots of milk at night and seems genuinely hungry. I'm worried because everything you read says baby should be consuming less and less milk now ready for 1 year old when it should be just one bottle!

1. Lastly, please tell me this will end? Baby just climbs cot the whole time. Will he ever go back to lying still and sleeping by himself?

Thank you in advance and sorry if this all sounds confusing - rushed typing after hardly any sleep!

It does end. Eventually. I can't tell you when though but it's hellish. I drank a lot of coffee at that stage.

I'm a "path of least resistance" parent so if I was the only one who could get him to sleep I'd do that with the proviso that if you were struggling that your OH would step in and take over. I've found that they go through so many changes that you need to be able to adapt your routine and your strategies to attempt to meet their needs as they grow and develop. It's hard - especially if you've done sleep training and then it all goes tits up for no apparent reason.

I would actually do the opposite to the PP and step back completely from night times and have dad do it all for a week. I have so many female friends who have ended up being the default parent at night and get stuck doing every bedtime and night waking because “child won’t settle for dad”.
I’ve always been very conscious of not letting a habit/preference take hold for that reason!
When your baby is happy with dad again, then go back to turns.

With the self settling and milk in the night - you have two choices. Either grit your teeth and make the change yourself accepting you will have a week of disrupted sleep. Or go with it and wait til baby grows out of it accepting it might be months/years. Neither is right or wrong, just different parenting choices and your baby will be fine either way.

9 months is the point I’d be looking at cutting out night time milk entirely. I’d probably give a bottle at 10pm & 7am and just offer water in between. Once your baby has adjusted to that, then start reducing the 10pm bottle until it’s just a couple of oz and switch to water.

I’d go back to putting him in the cot awake. Do your whole bedtime routine, sleepy music, comforter etc and lie him in the cot. If he crawls around that’s fine, let him burn himself out. If he cries pick him up and calm him but lie him back down before he falls asleep. Yes - night 1 will be very frustrating for everyone and take an hour but night 3 or 4 should be much easier.

Thank you so much for your replies! I really really appreciate the support and to know others have been through it.

Oh goodness, two completely different approaches! I'm feeling a bit at a loss! On the one hand we've been so structured and disciplined up to 8 months and done so well sleep training that i would be in favour keeping that structure. But on the other hand a massive part of me feels this is a natural phase which has happened in spite of that structure, and that we could just let it pass and in the meantime get by as and how we can.

I'm so tired I can't make these decisions!

Personally, with any sleep regression or blip I have got back to what we were doing before asap. If you wait til it passes and they naturally do it you could be waiting til 2 or 3...

My first baby didn’t sleep through until almost 3 so with subsequent babies I have been much more proactive (I realised how much I like sleeping at night ).

But again, it’s all just personal preference! You could always give it a couple of months and if you’re still not getting much sleep, then you could look at being more structured.

Thanks for your perspective, much appreciated. It's so hard, I wish there was a manual!!