9 month old has never slept through the night and we are losing will to live

[SLEEPDEPRIVEDHELP]

Hello,

We have a beautiful baby and love him dearly (we're two women FYI and I'm not the birth parent, my partner is still breastfeeding) - but he has never successfully slept through the night in 9 whole months and it feels like no matter what we do, we can't seem to get him to.

We're at breaking point - and it's really affecting our lives and my ability to work.

We used a sleep trainer but to no avail - we've even tried cry it out and he just will not stop crying and go back to sleep. We've tried introducing comforters. Essentially only way he'll kind of sleep through the night in a way that causes least disruption for us is for my partner to breastfeed basically all night.

Here's how a typical night goes:

Bedtime 7 or so: goes to sleep pretty easily, but will start waking and need soothing back to sleep from about 45 minutes in to his sleep and then can expect maybe 2 hours uninterrupted sleep if we're lucky. Then constantly waking from midnight.

During a particularly busy period at work for me, we fell into a pattern of my partner/birth mother breastfeeding him during the night just so we could get some sleep and then I would take over from 6.30am/7am until I needed to leave for work so she could get some unbroken sleep.

We've me doing the nights so now he doesn't expect breastfeeding but still will not stay asleep or go back to sleep with either co-sleeping or extended periods of time soothing him back to sleep.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as we are walking zombies by this point.

It is tough. My sympathies. My eldest didn’t sleep
through until 1 months. And my youngest was 4 😢.

You have my sympathy my ds was over one before he slept through. Things that helped-
Tilted cot (reflux)
Stopping night feeds
Putting him down awake
Tag teaming. I slept 8-1, dh slept 12-7 (he worked full time)
Alternated lay ins on weekends

It started to get better around 9 months and he was sleeping through around 12 months. Once he nailed it he was doing 730-730. He did that til he was 4.

It can be normal unfortunately, my second one didn't sleep through ever until he was 2.5 years old and then suddenly slept all night every night O_O my boobs were very confused.

2 hours being the longest stretch with shorter stretches being the norm is not usual, though - that might be worth going to GP to get some red flags ruled out. Here are some example red flags, from Lyndsey Hookway's book.

Just to compare, none of my 3 kids slept through reliably at 9 months, but DS1 and DS3 would have had the occasional night where they did sleep through, and typically wake every couple of hours in the early evening, then have a good 4-6 hour stretch when I was in bed with them with usually 1-2 wake ups between my bedtime and morning. That is IME typical for 9 months without any intervention like sleep training.

DS2 was a bit of a bugger for sleep and he would typically wake every hour in the evening, but then have stretches of 2-3 hours during the main part of the night, going up to more like 4-5 hours by the time he was one.

Hey OP, solidarity to you our worst time of sleep deprivation was when baby was around 4/5 months old and I swear I still have a bit of trauma around it and anxiety around it going back to that so I can fully relate to how exhausted you guys must be feeling.

Loads of posters here saying “totally normal for bf baby to still wake during night” and essentially telling you to suck it up / buckle up for a long ride. I’m going to be totally honest now and give you our scenario but it’s not to make you green with envy at our sleep situation, it’s genuinely to let you know it doesn’t necessarily need to be this way for you if sleep deprivation isn’t working for you.

Our baby is nearly 9 months now, and I exclusively breastfed up until 8 months. Never a great sleeper, and around the 4/5 month mark was the worst, up feeding 3-4 times a night. So the most we would get was maybe 3 hours of sleep at a time.

Now our baby is nearly 9 months and genuinely (honestly) sleeps from 7pm - 7am. We sometimes have to go in to pop a dummy in but its quite rare we need to do that, and usually only once a night. Not saying this as a boast or brag, it could totally all go to pot for us and I could be back in the zombie camp with you, but I didn’t think we would ever sleep again and now we genuinely have a baby that sleep 12-13 hours a night.

this is what happened for us:

dummy for sleep, blackout blind, white noise
moved into his own room at 6 months

at just over 6 months I stopped breastfeeding during the night, apart from a 10.30pm dream feed. That dream feed was the last bit of milk he would have until 7am, and any wake ups after the dream feed would be met with cuddles and dummy and shushing back to sleep (some nights this took ages, but we held strong on not giving milk overnight). I was happy to do this because he was eating like a champ, 3 meals a day plus snacks.
at around 7 months we introduced a big bottle of formula (210ml) as his last feed before bed and I then felt confident that I could stop the dreamfeed which I did at 7 months.
So at that point baby is down to 1 breastfeed in a morning, 3 meals a day and snacks and water, then bottle of formula before bed.
At 8 months I replaced the morning breastfeed with a 210ml formula for breakfast. This has been us for the past month:

210ml formula for breakfast
porridge
mid morning toast and peanut butter
lunch (usually scrambled eggs, spinach, cheese)
mid afternoon snack (usually baby bel and finger food veg)
dinner (usually meat / fish / veg)
210ml formula before bed

for us I think it was ensuring he is really well fed throughout the day to give me the confidence and reassurance that he doesn’t nutritionally “need” the milk overnight anymore

and then teaching him that night wake ups won’t be met with milk (again, could be some long nights there initially but we held firm on only giving cuddles / dummy / reassurance but not milk and eventually he gradually just woke up less)

this might be way more info than needed and every baby is different but loads of people say sort of just accept sleepless nights as par for the course, when it’s damaging your mental health (which sleep deprivation absolutely does) then I also needed to hear that there was another way!

Your partner is an absolute champ for still breastfeeding, and she must be knackered. She might love breastfeeding but she might want to sleep again, if she is ready I would absolutely stop feeding through the night and go from there

Sadly as others have said, this is completely normal. You're not doing anything wrong. It really is just that hard sometimes. My 2 year old has never slept through the night. My 5 year old and 7 year old have maybe a dozen times each. I found as soon as I stopped focusing on what others were experiencing and went with the baby's needs, whether that be breastfeeding all night or co-sleeping, things got much easier. Once I wasn't stressing and pushing against the baby's natural instincts (to stay close to the breasts essentially) I found that they were less distressed and slept better. Still not through the night, but better. Enough for me to cope and function pretty well. If teething or overtired we would occasionally have a bad night, but in general, co-sleeping saved my sleep and my mental health. Different people cope differently with lack of sleep and you have to find a solution that best meets all of your needs, but by worrying and focusing on it and trying too many different strategies, chances are you are just stressing yourselves out and the baby will feel that. So lower your expectations and don't be hard on yourselves, the first year is by far the hardest sleep wise.

Can your partner master lying down breastfeeding. My three have all been absolutely awful sleepers (2 year old still hasn't slept through the night yet... 🙄😭). The only thing that got me remotely more sleep was feeding lying down whilst co-sleeping. Oh and brown noise being played at a decent level. All of my kids still sleep with white/brown noise as they're rubbish at sleeping but the white/brown noise seems to help them stay asleep/ go back to sleep when they wake during the night.

One of mine was sleeping through from 7 months but the other two were school age. Having talked to DM and DMil it seems that DH and I were also 5 before sleeping through.At 9 months it could definitely be considered normal not to sleep through but I suppose the issue is what impact it is having on you. Mine weren't waking hourly so I slotted in to their routine, they would feed it snack and go back to sleep. I don't think I could have coped with playtime in the night.

It is very much normal at 9 months and it’s very unusual that you know no one that baby hasn’t slept through at 6 months, in fact only 16 percent of baby’s at this age would be sleeping reliably through the night every night

I agree with the poster who said you need to change your expectations massively

while it does happen, babies aren’t meant to sleep through. It’s not normal. Your baby has only been in the outside world the same length of time they were in the womb, you are pushing adult sleep onto your tiny baby.

please don’t sleep train or cry it out, it’s neglect. In all honesty you can’t have a baby and expect it not to act like a baby, they wake up and have different sleep than adults.

Ffs it IS normal. Just because you don't personally know anyone. Look how many of us are saying it.
Stop peddling a perfect narrative designed to make a mother feel shit because her child isn't acting the exact same as yours.

So your child was hungry but you didn't want to deal with that and spent ages shushing back to sleep. That sounds bordering neglectful to me.

Hm I think I sit somewhere in the middle of most pps. I think it is normal for 9 month olds still to wake up and some need night feeds, but this to me sounds excessive and not sustainable for you. I think you could make some small changes and see what happens. Things like:

• Making sure baby is not overtired before bedtime/has 2 decent naps

-Only feeding at every other wake up and rocking or comforting another way for the ones in between. Yes he might need a couple of night feeds but not feeding all night imo.

-Work on not feeding entirely to sleep at bedtime so that baby learns to put himself to sleep

I don't expect everyone to agree with the above as everyone parents differently but they are small changes which won't involve any cio or formula and might help. You can't pour from an empty cup. Good luck in any case 👍

Why are you expecting a 9 month old to sleep through the night? Mine didn’t do that until she was 2 years old.

I'm so sorry this is tough. I am in the camp that thinks babies might not sleep through at this age but hourly wake ups are hard on everyone, including baby.

Some babies are just wired that way but we were advised to ensure three things in daytime for better night sleep:

• enough stimulation / exercise, ensuring baby is seeing new things regularly and experiencing new sensations
• eating enough in the day - adding in extra breastfeeds so that baby (and the breastfeeding mother) gradually attune to daytime as the primary nutrition time.
• enough sleep - even if it's contact/pram naps, making sure baby has a couple of solid naps in daytime to avoid over tiredness

Count up number of hours your baby is getting in 24 hrs and speak to your doctor if it's under 12 - they may be able to help and advise.

Still, sometimes it's just the way your baby is, even if you are doing absolutely everything right. I'm sorry it's so hard!

Haven’t RTFT but this is totally normal
for a bf baby. Both of mine were like this at 9 months and then both slept through beautifully from about 12/13 months. What saved me was cosleeping and bf lying down in bed. You will get through this!!

PS the only way to change things is to stop bf in the night completely. This will involve a lot of crying from your baby. Call it sleep training/sleep teaching and do it gradually or cold turkey but ultimately that’s what it will come down to. Your baby won’t like it but will get used to it eventually, some quicker than others. Up to you to decide whether that’s what you want to do.

Sorry that you're having a hard time OP but this is normal.

All children are different and some manage to sleep longer stretches before others, we are 18 months in and my daughter is still waking.

I do not recommend sleep training either. You don't have to do that. Your child will grow out of it eventually.

Also, Google the Sleep Intruder. If a baby can't link sleep cycles, they'll wake after 45 mins in daytime and roughly every 2 hours at night. Learning to connect them is key and daytime sleep, food and stimulation all help them to learn without needing to do anything too extreme.

I breastfed my 3 DCs until they were toddlers, but from around 5 months old we told them “night time is for sleeping, not for eating”. I wouldn’t breastfeed at night. At 6 months old, we’d give them a large dinner, with lots of protein (scrambled egg, puréed beef and broccoli, nut butter, etc.), I’d give them one more feed before bed around 7:30pm, and then my DP was on settling duty until at least 5am. Usually we’d have 3ish nights of protesting, but by the fourth night they’d sleep through. They then significantly upped their intake of food and milk during the day.

Breastfeeding absolutely does not mean that a baby can’t sleep through the night. It’s just harder for the breastfeeding parent to get the baby to settle without it. (…and I’m not sure if it’s because the baby finds it harder, or because the breastfeeding parent is more likely to give in… I definitely relied on my DP for being firm!)

I know this is a few years old but its 1:30am on a three day roll of zero sleep and I’ve been desperately searching for something anything to help my situation when i stumbled upon this post. This post that describes my issue as if my husband had written it himself, and changed our daughter to a son. I read through the entire thread and ended up cry laughing hysterically leaving my husband wondering if i had finally broken hahaha. In a strange way i suddenly feel like there is hope and the tunnel WILL end at some point and i can stop holding my breath for the wish at the end

Sorry @SLEEPDEPRIVEDHELP but 9 months is really young and loads aren't sleeping through by then, breastfed or formula fed.

My son didn't sleep through until 18 months, we also tried sleep training with no success.

We got through it by going to bed early, alternating who got up early in the mornings and tag teaming at weekends so one could rest up a bit.

We also had to get creative with things. From 8-18 months my son (who hated his cot, but also co sleeping in our bed) slept in a travel cot in his room with a nice mattress. I sat in it and cuddled him to sleep then climbed out and repeated for night wakes. Sounds insane but it helped us all get decent pockets of rest. At 18 months we took the side off his cot and used it as a bed, he loved it. I'd lay with him until he was asleep, after months sat in a travel cot it felt like luxury 🤣

Edit - Woops I didn't realise this was such an old thread, sorry!