Talk to me about 9mo growth spurt / sleep regression please

[helloelo]

Hi,

DS will be 9mo in a few days.
He had a frequency day last week, 14 feeds in 24hrs (usually, it's 6 feeds, 4 meals).
Since then, he has started waking up every 2hrs at night (usualy, it's 8pm-2am-5am-8am + a 10am and a 1.30pm naps / I was about to nigth wean)

I was used to waking up twice a night but 6 is a bit too much I'm exhausted about to loose it. I will not do CC or CIO though. So... What is my baby telling me? Can I help answering his needs better?

Talk to me about how you managed that tricky time please.

Mine is 8.5 months and the last few nights have been awful. Saturday night he was up 8 times between 11.30 and 03.30 and then twice more before he woke up for the day at 6.45ish. Then last night he just cried every time I tried to put him down. I ended up cuddling him in his room between 2-5am so he at least had a few hours and didn't keep everyone else awake.
He's feeding less during the day but I think that's because my milk seems to be drying up. He's eating a reasonable amount I think, but am finding it quite hard to fill him up as he's quite fussy.
I'm sorry, I'm not much help at all. Just wanted to say you're not alone

dragon sounds horrible, at least mine falls back asleep immediately after his night feeds half the time. I'm so glad I have him on a mattress on the floor, at least I can slouch next to him ;)
BTW, your milk is probably not drying up, in fat, it's probably even fatter than before, adapting to his needs, but they tend to "forget" the boob during the day at that age.

Sounds like you are going through a pretty classic sleep regression, and in my experience the 8/9/10 month one was a doozy. The very fact you managed such a balanced post about meeting his needs is admirable! I have some threads on here from DD's 9 month regression which are basically me yelling "fortheloveofgod make this monster sleeeeep" at the Internet...

Night weaning is worth a go, but may be ambitious at an age when they are also going through separation anxiety and lots of developmental upheaval. Don't beat yourself up if night feeds are going to be with you a bit longer, it can be hard when you get the "no baby that age needs a night feed" line, but they really are are all so different.

What I found constructive was to do things that made the cot a happy place. Introduce soft toys that can become special comforters. Keep dummies just for the cot so the comfort they provide becomes associated with going to bed. Play in their bedroom during the day so they don't see it as a room you only go into to leave them alone. We also found it helpful to build in some little rituals to distinguish sleep time from getting up time, so lots of pantomime about closing the curtains for bed, and opening them in the morning (ie no curtains open during a night waking means no chance you're getting up yet!).

None of it works quickly, you're still doing the hard yards at that age, but over time it really did help her get her head around bedtime. When the regression passed (about 10mths) she was in a better place and sleep gradually got better from there.

Marathon post! Hope it helps

tiny thank you very much, both for the encouragement and for the advice, it was helpful. I'm not too worried about night weaning, I can leave it another month or two. He is, in fact, going through that separation anxiety phase right now and I'm not surprised he needs the reassurance at night too... Just less than every 2 hours would be great :)
I will however try to limit the dummy to the bedroom. We've used Ewan the sheep to good results too.
I'll keep repeating my "it's just a phase" mantra :)

This, too, shall pass!