Hand hold please - sleep training 9 month old dd

[FeelLikeTheresNoGoingBackNow]

Please can someone offer a handhold / reassurance. I'm a regular MNer but have NC.

I have a 9 month old dd. The last two / three months have been awful sleepwise - I've been at the edge of my sanity it felt. She's always been bf to sleep. Won't take a dummy. But started to be waking constantly and constantly needed the boob to resettle. Bad nights, very overtired and naps were getting worse.

Started to sleep train 4 nights ago. Using PU/PD with patting and shushing. Never leaving the room. Trying to be gentle.

Night one she fell asleep on Dh shoulder - which wasn't our intention. The last two nights she's fallen asleep in her cot. Which is our aim. So unsure if this is night 3 or 4 iykwim.

She's screaming blue murder up there. Doesn't sound distressed she sounds absolutely fucking livid!

I've stayed away since we started training. I say goodnight and Dh takes over.

My boobs feel flat - she's been fed. So she's not hungry / ill / teething etc. But I know the only way to calm her is to bf her and she'll pass out on my boob - which is what we're trying to stop! Or, she'll get more boob - which she doesn't need.

I feel helpless. My baby is screaming. But if I go to her what's been the point of the last few nights?! Just to reiterate, she's not by herself my Dh is with her and comforting her (or at least trying to).

Please can someone reassure me we're doing the right thing. Please, please be gentle with me 😢sleep training has been a huge step for us. It needs to be done - I know that as I can't go on how it was.

Please be gentle with me.

Thanks all for responding to me. You're all very kind. I've lost track of PP names.

Fanshawe best of luck for the weekend. Ignore any judgement! Let me know how you get on.

Fate no allergies, or reflux that we know of. She eats pretty well. Three meals a day, varied diet, meat / protein generally twice a day. She's tiny - 2nd centile but that's where she's always been and always following her line.

I've looked at the link. We may give that a go going forward. We already have a comfy chair by the bed.

Was she feeding lots iń the night until 4 days ago?

And have you now fully and completely night weaned from 7pm to 7am?

What sort of proportion of her milk intake would you estimate was taken in the night?

Would you give her formula milk?

She was feeding, on average, twice to three times a night Fate. Last few nights only once - except for tonight which has been twice. But I've shortened the feed. I regret offering her the boob at 3:30am as she's now screaming in her bed. She was calmer before I came in. God, this is hard! I just didn't want her dehydrated.

Night feeds are more focussed as less distractions. But I've been trying to offer boob more in the day.

She has literally had s tiny bit of formula in a cup. We need to keep up with that more.

Oops, NC fail.

Well, after getting in a tizzy with me I woke up dh. He was in there less than 5 minutes and she was asleep! She fell asleep in her bed.

Woke up five minutes later, screamed, changed position and asleep again (video monitor).

I'm now wide awake! 😩

It's soooo hard to go back to sleep when your baby has woken screaming! Glad she settled back quickly though, what a relief.
Hope today goes well for you

She has literally had s tiny bit of formula in a cup

Would you give her formula in a bottle?

She won't take a bottle - outright refuses and I don't think it's worth the effort when she drinks from a sippy cup / doidy cup.

It's not worth the effort, it's just milk is the quickest/easiest way to get calories into baby. If not breastfeeding then formula is the easiest way you have to get easy calories in through this tricky time

Since you are trying to significantly reduce the amount of breastfeeding overnight, as well as considering a way to replace the comfort, you do so need to consider replacing those calories.

The night time calories would be insignificant to most babies. But yours is so tiny that calorie intake needs to be an important consideration. A bigger baby could just have fewer calories until they adjust. They will just gain slightly less weight for a while. A 2nd percentile baby taking even a a little less calories may end up losing weight - something that no baby ever be doing.

I assume you are already breastffeding as much as you can in the daytime. And you are working on a high calorie, high far diet for baby. Given the sudden change in night feeding habits and her naturally low weight, I would posh formula milk in addition.

I think that's dreadful advice fate .
Breast milk has all the calories baby needs .
Just breastfeed more surely .
No need to introduce formula unless of course you want to op

"I assume you are already breastffeeding as much as you can in the daytime. And you are working on a high calorie, high fat diet for baby. Given the sudden change in night feeding habits and her naturally low weight, I would push formula milk in addition."

Shall I say it again for those (who have history of) not reading my posts fully and appreciating the point properly?

I assume she already is breastfeeding as much as she possibly can. Surely that is common sense. I credit the OP with plenty enough intelligence to know this.

Wind your neck in Timetogrowup2016

As she is consistently on the same centile, I would not worry about weight loss but don't completely drop night feeds either. Set a time limit (5-6hours seems appropriate given you breastfeed her consistently through the day and she eats solids too) and do not feed her at night until this time has passed. Make sure she has a set time for bedtime feed and morning breastfeed - she will quickly compensate for reduction in night feeds by making sure she is completely full before sleeping and wake up anticipating her first feed. If she wakes up any additional times at night, use your sleep training technique to get her back to sleep.

You can work on nightweaning once you are consistently down to just the one feed at night

I'm happy (if that's the right word) to still keep bf in the night. She is small and I'm trying to get her to grow - which is part of the reason we've introduced formula (though how much she's actually drank is small my aim is to offer it every day in the hope she'll get used to it). What I'm not happy with is her falling asleep on the breast as she's sometimes using it as a comfort rather than a food source. Waking up umpteen times, needing the breast but not taking a decent feed is no good for anyone.

Last night I fed her about 6pm, again about midnight and again about 3:30. I don't think she was hungry at 3:30 but I let her feed a decent amount but then removed her when she started slowing down and getting very drowsy. This angered her shall we say!

I'm trying to increase her bf in the day. She eats very well proper food wise.

Typical of 9 month old babies she is very nosey so it is a job to keep her focussed on feeding during the day. When she wakes in the morning she's not ravenous - she's more interested in what her brother is doing. She's developing well, crawling everywhere and has plenty of energy. Whilst she is small she has chubby arms, legs, belly and face. She has a small skeleton though - which is why she's low weight rather than longer but skinny.

Addicted that's exactly what I'm working towards. That makes sense - thank you.

Wind my neck in ?
Their is absolutely no need to add formula unless the op wants to mix feed or stop breastfeeding.
2nd centile is as normal as being on the 91st centile .
Formula won't do anything

She will get used to the formula in a cup FeelLikeTheresNoGoingBackNow. Just keep offering it as a drink. Maybe try mixing with expressed milk?

Don't forget things like full fat cream when cooking, avocado and banana where possible. Lots of butter, carbs, protein.im sure you're doing all of this already. I appreciate the stresses of having a smaller baby.

I used a similar technique to addicted when I sleep trained my (then) 5.5month old with a sleep consultant. We used a shorter gap (4 hours) because she was ebf and had not started solids but she stretched out her feeds to 8-10hours herself within a week.
She also did not used to wake wanting to eat and I was told this was because she was feeding more than she needed at night.

She is now 8 months old and I use 6 hours as the time before which I won't feed (after sleep training, I have discovered she makes a different sound when she wakes up wanting to eat). She usually goes 8ish hours without a feed (am hoping this will increase once solids go a bit better)

Waking up umpteen times, needing the breast but not taking a decent feed is no good for anyone.

This. DD was waking frequently then almost instantly falling asleep on the boob without feeding properly. And repeat. If she was really hungry, she would feed accordingly. After two babies, it's clear to me when they're feeding because hungry and feeding for comfort. Wanting comfort is absolutely fine, but not at the expense of everyone's sleep.

From the weight perspective, my daughter was 9-25th centile so on the smaller side too. I never introduced a feeding schedule or routine because she was smaller and I was terrified of weight loss. When the sleep consultant gave me feeding times, I was so reluctant to follow them during the day (feeding 1.5-2hourly on demand and schedule involved feeding 3-4hourly) but decided I would try and give myself a 1 week limit - go back to feeding on demand if it didn't seem to be working.

To my absolute surprise, she has skipped centiles and is now above the 50th at 8 months old - still ebf and weaning is going very slowly (just about on 2 meals a day and they're not great ones). It seems routine works better for her - not saying this will be the case with yours but don't be scared to try something for a short time.

I'm reminded of the Einstein quote. Definitely don't be afraid to do something different. In fact to get a different outcome you will need to do things differently.

Hi everyone,

Thanks to everyone who has posted. Your support has been lovely.

I wanted to update you on last night / this morning.

So, after the dreadful PU/PD of the night before last, I showed my Dh this thread and we decided to give the approach that I think Fate linked. It worked a dream! We already have a comfy chair by the cot in dd room. My Dh put her in her cot at 6:35pm, and sat down on the chair with his iPad. I heard him monotonously saying "head down, eyes closed" a few times. After minimal fuss she was asleep by 7:10pm. My Dh thinks she's understanding his instruction...not sure if she can at 9months but she is learning to lie still.

She slept through till 2:30am (those stretches she could do before sleep turned bad!) but she was hot when she woke. Took a good bf, and I took her temperature. Fever of 38c so gave calpol and my Dh resettled her v quickly in the same way as early eve. She was a bit restless and as we have a double bed in her bedroom (it used to be our guest room) I decided to sleep in there to be closer to her. A neighbours dog barking at 6:15am woke us both.

Bf at 6:30am. Breakfast at 8am. Her temperature was a bit higher than usual at 37.6c so more calpol at 9:30 and my Dh settled her in her cot for a nap. After minimal fuss she was asleep by 9:45am and slept peacefully till 1215pm! I appreciate she's a bit out of sorts / slightly under the weather but she woke happy. Temp I think is normal as she feels her usual warmness iykwim and she's now gobbling her lunch and laughing at her brother.

She eats high fat foods. For example, she loves bananas and I love avocados (we have them in as a staple), so she has avocado everyday nearly. Today for breakfast - toast with butter. Mashed banana. Lunch - avocado, breadroll with butter, pastry and a tiny bit of ham hock (not too much due to salt level). Rice pudding or pear for dessert. So, I'm happy with her diet overall.

I'm going to start lengthening time between feeds so she'll take a proper bf rather than a snack feed. I think a couple of PP mentioned that - thank you.

Fanshawe hope your sleep training weekend goes well.

I'll try and keep updating, just in case any "lurkers" are watching this thread and thinking of sleep training.

Oops, as well as what i listed she also ate for lunch the vast majority of an Ella's Kitchen spaghetti bolognese pouch.

I know the NHS guidelines have changed regarding weaning and they now advise full BLW (no spoons) but BLW is so slow and I'm concerned she's not getting enough in to her so we are supplementing with some pouches / spoon feeding our home cooked meals mushed up depending on what we're eating.

Since you've got such a little one, calories are more important. It's all very well BF on demand day and night and going at a slow pace with BLE. But if you've got to the point where you can no longer tolerate on demand milkbar 24 hours a day (understandable) then something has got to give. If that means baby food jars/pouches, I can't see a problem.

For what it's worth, I did meals along this kind of routine:

1. small, savoury, baby food jar spoonfed to take the edge off hunger. Then....
2. proper food savoury course. Served as the rest of the family would eat it and usually eaten alongside the rest of the family at the table. No consideration given to how much was eaten. It was served, we'd all eat ours as baby played/ate theirs. Cleared away when we finished, regardless of how much of baby's was eaten. Then...
3. Spoonfed yoghurt. So that there was another course of the meal I could be certain the calories were going in. Plus the extra dairy is useful when cutting milk. Then...
4. Sliced fruit served. Again, no consideration given to how much was eaten.i knew baby has at least 1 jar and 1 yoghurt because they were spoon fed. Everything else was bonus extra or just for the tactile play and taste factor.

Over time more of the proper food courses were eaten so I offered the spoon fed stuff less and less.

Thanks Fate - your meal routine is basically the same as ours. Though we don't offer yoghurt at every meal. She has it once a day. We'll increase yoghurts.

Her temp has gone back up to 38.3c. She's happy in herself, eating well etc. Think it might be teeth. I'll keep an eye on her but I'm not to concerned at the moment.

My dh is moving about upstairs so think she's settled for another nap in her cot.

He's just come down - she's asleep.

*too concerned