Please help me

[prettyfly1]

Apologies if this is littered with typos - I am shattered. My nine, nearly ten month old has always been an awful sleeper but he seems to be getting worse and after all this time I am utterly exhausted. I am functioning poorly at work, grumpy as hell with the kids and a danger behind the wheel of my car quite frankly.

He has two fairly decent naps in the day - roughly and hour in the morning and afternoon but will NOT sleep for any length of time at night. He goes down around seven, wakes again at ten/ten thirty for a bottle, all of which he drinks. Again around 1 - 1.30, 2.30 - 3.00, 4.00 and 5.00 and often he stays awake. He wants feeding much of the time through the night and will drink three or four bottles, despite feeding really well through the day.

I dont know what to do with him. My partner and I are now seriously arsey with one another as he sleeps in our room and I cant move him until he sleeps through as its bad enough for ds1 already and I have had to apologise to the neighbours as they must also be feeling the strain of the baby that doesnt sleep.

Any suggestions at all - please help.

I think you need to try and break the waking to feed cycle. A 10 month old should be getting towards the point where they no longer need the 10.30 feed let alone all the others. Could you not perhaps warn the neighbours, and then try a night where you don't let him have the bottle when he wakes through the night? Try perhaps giving him his dummy (if he has one) or offering water, then leaving him to go back to sleep. You might get a lot of complaint for the first few nights, but I think he would get used to it after that. It worked well with my DS after the first few nights of not letting him feed whenever he wanted. I now give him the 10.30 feed and that's it. If he wakes after that, he gets his dummy back, a stroke and then I leave him. Sometimes he grumbles and makes noise, but 9 times out of 10 he'll just go back to sleep.

i stopped my DD nightfeeds recently at 14m i just refused, said no milk and cuddled, offered water, she got the hang of it after a few nights and despite cosleeping after 1st waking still she only wakes 2-3 x a night now and settles easier (down from 3-8 breastfeeds)

a slightly easier but longer approach i've heard of is to gradually water down the milk and he'll begin to lose interest. or reduce quantity in the bottle gradually.
it sounds like you're having a really hard time but keep strong and i'm sure you'll get through it (-:
i know what you mean about strain on relationship. hopefully you can laugh about it sometimes too.
remind yourself that this is a temporary situation and all over the world are lots of other mums feeling exactly like you.
good luck.

Sounds like it's the 9 month sleep regression which for some babies goes on till 10-11 months. Basically it's two big developmental spurts plus often working on new physical development (crawling/pulling up etc) at the same time. Their brains are so busy that they can't stay asleep. It can also be combined with a growth spurt and the need for extra food.

More info here, here and here.

It's horrible and it does pass, but in the short term there's probably not much you can do to stop the frequent waking. Just do whatever it takes to get everyone as much sleep as possible.