9 month old not even close to sleeping through

[MarchEliza]

My DD is nearly 10 months old and has never slept through.

To be honest this never really bothered me as she used to go to sleep at 7 and wake at 6.30ish waking only briefly at 11 and 3 (approximately) to have a 180ml bottle and go back to sleep. However all that has recently changed.

Now she goes to sleep at 7 and will often sleep until 10 - then will feed a bit but will take up to half an hour of soothing (rocking) to go back to sleep. Then there will be a feed at about 2 requiring up to an hour of rocking to go back to sleep. Each time I try to put her down she starts writhing and crying. Then she wakes at 5 something and won't go back to sleep.

Often it seems like she has wind and is fidgeting and moaning in her sleep until she wakes herself up.

We co-sleep and I'm supposed to be going back to work at the end of the month and I'm not sure how I'll function on about 4 hours of sleep.

The need to rock her (she bellows if I stop) is also pretty back-breaking as she is not a small baby.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

How are her daytime naps?
How is her eating / daytime milk intake?

My first thought was, provided the above are all good, you should think about night weaning. A 9 month old doesn't need overnight feeding. She's just got used to it.

Sorry should have said: she has two naps during the day of about an hour each (no problem with these). I put her down for her nap about 3 - 3.5 hours after she last woke.

She drinks about 700 ml during the day and has porridge and fruit for breakfast, porridge and veggies for lunch and a snack at about 4 ish.

I have tried to get her to take more milk during the day but this is the maximum we get to and slightly reducing her solids did nothing to change that.

9 months is old to be rocking to sleep still. I'd just stop rocking to sleep and deal with the consequences. The rocking will be the reasons for the disturbed sleep - anytime she wakes she cant get herself back to sleep.

Lie her in the cot after a feed and ideally lie next to her on your bed (or on a chair in her room). Keep in reassuring - shushing, patting, stroking, tickling. Lie her back down if she wriggles or sits up. A firm hand on chest/back might help with this. Just stay right there with her being reassuring (while she wails) but still caring and trying to help. Key is don't pick her up, get her to go to sleep lying in her own cot and stay reassuring all the time until she's asleep.

Over time, gradually reduce the amount of reassurance needed to get her to sleep.

I sleep trained my DS at 9 months as we're stuck in an awful rut of feeding to sleep and co-sleeping etc and the first thing I was told was to put DS into his own room. I was dubious as I dreaded the thought of getting out of bed constantly throughout the night due to his many wakings, but him being in his own nursery made a huge improvement to his sleep.