9 month old still never slept through

[marilou89]

We've always had difficulties with LO's sleep. We endured a terrible time with the 4 month regression.. came out of it at 7 months and LO's sleep mellowed out a little. She learnt to self soothe, naps became more predictable and longer and she woke only once or twice a night for a couple months. However, since 9 months old her sleeping is getting worse and im running out of ideas and patience :(

Here's a typical day regarding naps/bedtime;

6-6:30am - wakes

9am- 10:30am nap

1pm - 2:30pm nap

4pm - 4:30pm cat nap if super narky

6:30 or 7pm bed

each time she will self soothe quite happily

However the night time wakings can start as early as 9:30pm, she will wake crying and I will leave her for a few minutes to see if she will go back off. Usually she doesnt, so I go to her and offer dummy (she can find it usually and put it back in herself) if it doesnt help I resort to offering bottle, thinking perhaps she is hungry. She only usually takes a few oz and then I can quite happily put her in the cot awake and walk away and she will go to sleep again. The second waking usually happens about 1am and I repeat the same process. Lately theres been a 3rd waking around 4:30-5am. 9 times out of 10 I can repeat the same process and not have to start the day at that time. Then she will wake for the day any time between 6 and 6.30am.

I'm wondering whether she is waking out of hunger or comfort... to rule out hunger I tried for a week or so offering a small snack before bed, but that made no difference. If she can self settle for all naps why cant she do it during the night?

I would really love a full nights sleep because im so worn out!

any thoughts?

Sounds normal to me, my DS is 13 months and has only just this last week done 2 nights sleeping through

Sounds very normal to still be waking she's still little.

It probably is habit, everytime she wakes she gets some lovely milk and then drifts off with a full tummy. So when she next wakes she expects them same!
Hard habit to break.

My dad always said most children sleep thru reliably from age 2. Seems he was right for my two!

baby your dad is spot on for my 2! I think some kids sleep through, some don't. There's not a lot you can do to influence it, IMO.

My lo is 25 months and still doesn't sleep through I've come to accept that he will sleep eventually because I've tried everything else it's really put me off having a 2nd though.

Why is it when you moan about your LO not sleeping through it seems like everyone else's babies are!! I wasnt expecting so many of you to say you get up during the night, specially after 12 months!! I guess it is normal :)

Ive been debating whether dropping the night feeds all together would help, i.e to stop giving her something to wake up for, as im pretty sure she isnt hungry.

This is all new to me as my first was a dream boat and slept beautifully through from 3 months!!

I night weaned at 9 months corrected, DS was still waking at least once. We had a week of him waking at his usual time at 4 am, and he wouldn't go back to sleep for at least an hour. However, he gradually woke up later and later, and now he sleeps through most nights - TOUCH WOOD! - from 8 pm to 6 am. So I'd definitely recommend night weaning, it doesn't guarantee better sleep but it's worth a try.

I night weaned at 11 months and she slept through for a few nights but then continued to wake once or twice just for a quick cuddle.

She's 18 months now and has been sleeping through fairly reliably for about 2 or 3 months now though will still wake the odd time or if we're somewhere new.

I agree that it seems everyone else's DC sleep through from 6 weeks (though that is often taken to mean from midnight to 5am which just seemed like kidding yourself to me!).

Mine slept through for the first time at 8m but it was a one off and he didn't do it regularly until we properly sleep trained him at just over 2. Every single baby I know in RL has slept 13h non stop since 5 weeks of something.

Some are just crap at it

Btw dropping the night feeds did help us a bit we started just offering water. There was lots of screaming at the time though, think we did it at about 10 months.