Continue with sleep training or go into survival mode during 9mo sleep regression?

[AlmondFrangipani]

Our DS was a terrible sleeper until 6 months when we got help from Andrea Grace. He changed from waking up every 1.5 hours to sleeping through with a week of her training. He's now 9 months and we're going through the classic regression. He's almost crawling and teething and only slept 4 hours last night. In between was mostly hysterics, screaming, thrashing etc. We don't know what to do as he just won't settle. I buckled and fed him at 5am and he went back to sleep till 8.30am. But I've broken Andreas 'cardinal sin'. Help...what do we do? Would we undo it all if we fed him in the night now??

6mo terrible sleeper here... just wondering is the cardinal rule to not feed at all overnight?

It's what Andrea told us to do and it worked for us. Our DS couldn't go back to sleep without milk so we were feeding him 4/5 times a night! She said that a 6mo shouldn't need milk at night, especially if they feed well in the day and are weaned. It's worth trying but expect an unhappy baby for a few nights as they won't understand why you're not feeding them! Andrea said rock/walk etc to sleep but don't feed or bring into your bed.

thanks. same here. she's only just starting food though. and I think (bf) she has more milk at night than in the day so it will be hard to shift that balance. how long did it take to stop all the wakings?

I'd have thought you should ride out the regression and then it shouldn't be too hard to 'retrain' if needed. I've been told not to train while in a regression, if you can tell once it's passed though...

My DS was the same, having more milk at night and I thought the same as you about the balance but it actually really helped his feeding in the day. In fact everything got better as he was napping and feeding on 'schedule' which he'd never done before. He slept through within the week then we'd get the occasional wake up at 2/3am but I haven't had to get up as he puts himself back to sleep (apart from this regression ).