Is this 'normal'? - 9mth old crawling around in their sleep

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DS is 9 months and has been crawling for a while now. He has also recently learnt how to pull himself up and cruise around the furniture.

His sleep has now completely gone to pot! He has around 2.5-3 hrs of naps during the day (roughly 9-10.30 and 1.30-3) and goes to bed around 7pm. He is put in his cot drowsy and settles with me patting his tummy, we don't have any tears or fussing. He then wakes up on all fours, trying to climb his cot or just wriggling around. This carries on for hours sometimes. He isn't fully awake but just can't seem to stop himself!

Last night I resettled him in his cot a few times (finding him attempting to climb up the corner of his cot with his eyes closed was funny the first time! ) and then just put him in bed with me. This meant I only had enough time to have a cup of tea with DH before rushing upstairs and then basically spending the evening in the dark lying DS back down

DS spent the rest of the night next to me but still wriggling, legs cycling in his sleep, and generally attempting to constantly move! He isn't fed overnight anymore so there was me hoping his sleep would improve

Is this 'normal' though? Whatever that means.....it's as if his body is out of his control. Is there anything I can do to help him apart from just ride it out? It feels like trying to restrain a greased up chimp at the moment

Hi OP

This is really useful and explains a lot

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/sarahockwell-smith.com/2015/11/18/what-the-heck-goes-wrong-sleep-wise-at-8-10-months/amp/

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Thanks HT interesting to read and glad it's a typical thing to be happening

His sleep has now completely gone to pot!

Yeah, it does at this stage. The rocking on all-fours stage (just before crawling) and the pulling to standing phase are a nightmare to deal with. It seems yours is doing both at the same time. I don't envy you, it is normal though.

For safety you should lower the cot mattress to the lowest setting, if you haven't already.

If your aim is for independant sleeping (ie baby in the cot) then teaching baby to be calm and still in the cot will be more useful than bringing baby into your bed.

This will be much easier to do with the cot next to your bed. If you have to get up every time you need to settle baby there's no wonder you bring baby in with you instead - it's bloody hard work traipsing from room to room all night and I'd think "stuff this, let's stay in bed instead".

I'd do that staying in bed by having the cot next to my bed. Even better, if you have a high divan bed, remove one side off the cot and cable-tie the cot to your bed. With cot mattress low down. Then, from your bed, you can lean an arm down into the cot to settle baby without having yo reach over the cot side. It means you don't even need to sit up (or even open your eyes!)

It then involves either strategically ignoring if baby isn't unhappy. Or encouraging stillness by lying back down, firm hand on chest, some patting if that's what you do. Basically you are teaching baby the basic skill that:

I'm order to sleep he must relax his body. In order to relax his body he must be still.

So bring still is an absolute requirement to go to sleep. So he needs to learn to switch off, stop moving and relax before any going to sleep happens.

Once he's got this - and it is a phase, he will learn in the end because he has to - then he should go back to normal with his sleeping. All you can do is try to help him learn.

My DD wasn't quite that mobile but I found a Grobag helped to limit movement when she started to pull herself up in the cot

FATE his cot is next to our bed with the side off however the problem is that our bed is quite high and isn't a divan so I'm not sure if the lowest setting will bring his mattress in line with the underneath of our bed IYSWIM That's one of the reasons for bringing him into bed with me. He is so mobile that I worry about him crawling over me in my sleep and off the bed, at least if he is right next to me I feel as if I'm more aware of him. I was saying to DH that I think we need to lower his cot but that will mean putting the side back on and me not being able to reach into the cot to settle him without sitting up or getting out of bed.

Definitely some things to think about, thank you. In some ways it was much easier when he was a newborn!

I know what you mean - he could climb out and under your bed. We have a divan, so I've not faced this. I would get a large piece of board or something, the same height as your bed, and block off the side of your bed from the cot. So that its like a solid wall to the cot.

An opened out cardboard box could do it. Or plywood if you want something more substantial. The lower the cot mattress to the lie at setting.

Another option would be a floor bed for you. Ditch the bed base and out put your mattress directly on the floor. Cot in lowest setting next to your mattress. Then it's like a newborn sidecar, but lower down.

I'll just rewrite this sentence because it doesn't make sence:

The lower the cot mattress to the lie at setting

=

Then lower the cot mattress to the lowest setting

My Ds did this but never actually woke up - I just used to check the monitor when I heard him and make sure he was ok. He still crawls to the top and sleeps up there every night now but never wakes up when he does. I do still go in very occasionally and pull him down but he ends up back there anyway!

Grobags are my suggestion too - he can wiggle but he can't stand or crawl very easily.

my baby does this occasionally (the cycling/dancing in his sleep, he obv does not crawl or escape). he's only 4 months. we've got so much to look forward to by the sounds of things

DD is 9 months and we bedshare. She started rolling over, trying to crawl over us or slide off the bed etc. a couple of months ago. So we just got rid of the bed and moved the bedside tables further away.

I have to say there's something very bohemian about a mattress on the floor. I said to DP it reminds me of my student days and makes me feel at least 10 years younger!

DD2 is 7.5 months and doing this too. It's an absolute nightmare, worse than DD1. I've resettled her 5 times in the last 1.5 hours! The ridiculous thing is that she's on a single mattress on the floor for her own safety (have a new bed on order as the Snuzpod is now off limits), yet she still manages to pull herself up on the wall then gets hysterical.

What worked with DD1 was to let her practise lots during the day, and also teaching her to get back down again, so when she pulled herself up I would put a toy on the floor next to her to encourage her to sit down for it. Not sure if this will work with DD1 as she's so much younger and very unstable.

fate I have a question re the "firm hand" as I really believe in teaching independent sleeping - how do you do this with a baby that wants to move at all costs? I've tried with DD2 and it would take brute force to hold her down. I've tried one hand each on her upper back and bottom yet she still insists on pushing herself up to crawl!

fiftyshades I know what you mean! I can't quite believe I've resorted to sleeping on a mattress on the floor yet it's the only safe option at the moment.

fate I have a question re the "firm hand" as I really believe in teaching independent sleeping - how do you do this with a baby that wants to move at all costs?

Well really, they don't want to move "at all costs". Because it's impossible to go to sleep while jumping around and baby cannot survive without actually sleeping. So while I appreciate (and have said above) that this is a bloody nightmare of a phase (I'd put pulling yo standing as the very hardest work time, in terms of sleep. Second is rickibg on all-fours pre crawling).

So it begins with knowing that you, as parent and adult, do know that the child needs to learn to still. That involves multiple ways to teach, the "firm hand" is just one of. The firm hand mostly comes at the end, once you have convinced child to lie down and you are just reaffirming that and aiming to still limbs rather than whole body.

Before that there are things like multiple lie-back-downs. Anything that isn't lying down would result in me lifting baby and immediately lying back down (as I would and have done from birth, so no battle in doing this).

My settling method from newborn has always been lie baby in cot, lie down myself on bed next to baby, dummy in, hand on chest, wait for baby to go to sleep, remove hand and put dummy aside, leave.

So through this hyper mobile stage, it is just a return to this. With loads of repetition. I would repeatedly not accept anything other than lying down and any lying down is "rewarded" with my hand on chest for reassurance, as has always been.

Any attempt to get up and I'd lift baby up about 30cm or so (just off the mattress, not in my arms) and start again. Repeat a million times over.

The key message I would be getting across is "the cot is for being still, calm, quiet and relaxed only. Nothing else happens in the cot". So just repeat until this happens. This phase is only usually a few weeks, mine have always mostly got it within a week.

Once mine 'get' that there is no other option but lying down and stop fighting it, I may get some massive leg kicking instead (common in the earlier pre-crawling phase). I would still this with my other hand on legs. Again, reiterating that the cot is for going to sleep only. And to go to sleep means being still, so there's zero tolerance on not being still.

As an aside, its worth mentioning to the attachment parents that this phase is possibly easier to get through by use of "full body cuddles" ie, you use your whole body wrapped around baby while cosleeping to keep baby still when going to sleep.

I would often utilise full body cuddles and cosleeping for the odd daytime nap through this stage - given bedtimes become harder work so I often couldn't be bothered to deal with it for naps too so we just napped together instead.

Not sure if this will work with DD1 as she's so much younger and very unstable.

All of my 4 children have been early with their mobility milestones. I think this actually makes it easier to deal with the sleep regression, not harder.

Mine went through the rocking on all-fours stage around 4-5 months and I've had walkers aged 7 months, 11 months, 10 months and 9 months - so pulling to standing was probably 2 months before these.

I think this stage is much harder the older they are. Someone on the sleep board wrote a thread about her 7 month old learning to roll. The advanced age for this meant you get loads of additional factors to consider to do with other (non mobility) milestones that will have been met and made it a very difficult ball game to the 3-4 month old (swaddled) baby i was used to through this age.

Same with there major mobility issues. Better younger when there are fewer other factors to complicate matters.

We've going to play around with the cot settings today and see if we can

Sorry, DS climbing over me

We're going to have a play around with the cot settings today and see what we can work out. I've got a feeling we might end up with the mattress on the floor.

I already do the 'firm hand' thing and making sure DS is calm and still for sleep so I'm glad I'm on the right track

Thanks for the comprehensive reply fate - I see now that the first battle is to get her to lie down in the first place and only once she has stopped trying to get up does the firm hand come in. Your children were super early walkers! We've had another two terrible nights - the first few hours are really terrible with her standing and waking herself up every 10-45 min. With putting my 2yo to bed as well I can't even manage to get the dinner cleared away as I'm running up and down all night.

I hope you're having more luck owl. Have you done the same as me and resorted to a mattress on the floor!?