9 month old waking for 2 hours in the middle of the night. Any ideas?

[loopy11]

My DS has never been a good sleeper. He has always woken frequently but would usually go back to sleep quite quickly with a little shush and pat. In the last few weeks though he's started properly waking up and will not go back to sleep for 2 hours. We've tried leaving him (leads to hysterical screaming which I can't cope with at 1am!), rocking, feeding - nothing seems to work. Does anyone else have any experience of this? We've thought about changing his bedtime (currently 7pm) - might this make a difference? Any advice/strategies to deal with this would be great - its killing me and I go back to work in 4 weeks and would love to have it sorted before then otherwise I might get the sack!

Hi Loopy, my DD does this during times of development, e.g. on the cusp of learning to crawl, stand, etc. She would just wake up and practice her new nearly-skill in the middle of the night. Nothing could be done to get her back to sleep until she was ready, so I just used to bring her into the lounge and lie on the couch whilst she tired herself out. Of course there is also the obvious of is your DS getting too much daytime sleep?

Too much DT sleep was my thought too. Although it isn't always necessarily too much sleep but maybe at the wrong times of day.

Could you post his daytime routine including WU time, nap times & length?

omama - His daytime routine is a morning nap of around 1 hour 20 mins at 10am then an afternoon nap between 40 mins and an hour at about 3pm. I think this is fairly normal for his age? Also we tried cutting out his afternoon nap last weekend and it didn't seem to make a difference.
Emsmaman It could be a developmental thing as he is trying very hard to crawl at the moment. If it is this, how long did it take for your DD's sleep to get back to normal?

loopy I found the disruption would last around 2 weeks each time and just correct itself. One thing I do to try and combat the wakefulness during the night that doesn't always work is what I call my "swaddle-cuddle" i.e. I cuddle her in a way that she can't move her arms or legs unless she tries really hard and often she's too sleepy to bother, so she gives up and gives into sleep again.

Of course I'm no expert on baby sleep, we have many of our own issues, but 2 hours of daytime naps is more than my 10mo DD has/had a month ago. I also find DD sleeps marginally better on days when we've had playgroups/swimming/gymboree so maybe you can try and tire him out a bit more?

OP - his routine looks ok & no I wouldn't say he was having too much DT sleep for his age - not at all. My DS is 17months & still has a 2hr nap & he isn't high sleep needs at all. At that age he had around 2.25-2.5hrs day sleep. I also wouldn't cut out the afternoon nap just yet either - most babies drop to 1 nap nearer to 15-18months so he is still quite young for that & likely to get OT.

Def sounds like a developmental thing if he is trying to crawl. PP gave you some great advice. I can't help you with that much as we never had the trying to stand/crawl in the night thing!