How do we get our 9 month old to stop waking so often?

[Choirofangles]

I know there’s a regression around this age, but we’re on our knees. He’s never been a good sleeper, but I used to cosleep and breastfeed through the night, which kept us all sane. Unfortunately when he got to seven months, he became such a terrible biter that I’ve now given up BF entirely. In the last month or so he’s also started crawling and rolling round the bed, which is as dangerous as it is infuriating.

A couple of weeks ago we started putting him in his cot, in a room he shares with his three year old sister. He’ll now go down quickly for naps with a bit of rocking and a bottle, and will go down for the initial bedtime settling within five or ten minutes.

However, after that it goes tits up. He wakes pretty much every 30-60 minutes (every sleep cycle?) and wants more rocking or more bottle, or sometimes just screams for ages and doesn’t know what he wants. I suspect he needs to learn to go to sleep without the rocking and milk, but I don’t know how to teach him without waking his sister up, and we don’t have the option of separate bedrooms. We get to a point every night where we give up and he comes into our bed, where he thrashes around and is generally a menace.

Naps are 1 hour from 9am ish, and about 1.5 hours from 1/1.30 ish so I don’t think he’s overtired at bedtime.

Is there something obvious I’m missing or do we just have to wait it out? How could we deal with the self settling issue? His sister was an awful sleeper until her first birthday but I BF her and coslept longer and just rode it out that way. He’s not safe to have in the bed but the current situation with the cot is unbearable

Thanks in advance.

Could you move your 3 year old into your room temporarily to try to get a handle on his sleep?
I was rocking or feeding my DD to sleep then around 8-9 months she was waking so much that I concluded it was because she was waking realising that she wasn’t being rocked or fed to sleep and couldn’t fall back to sleep by herself. I did the fading technique of slowly reducing the rocking and then moving on to shushing her in bed; it only took a couple of weeks but was hard going on that time. I never left her to cry but she would fuss while I was shushing or patting her which would wake another child in the same room

Just to say you have my every sympathy - in a similar situation here and I have no suggestions I am afraid but thought it might help to know you are not alone! 3rd wake up here already!

Thanks for quick replies! I should be asleep while he’s quiet but can’t switch off. Sorry you’re suffering too, barleyreed. It’s brutal. He’s just been settled for the fourth time.

I think that’s a good point about gradually fading out the rocking etc, user. At naptime, when there’s no toddler to worry about, I have been trying to put him down drowsy rather than fully asleep, but at night I chicken out of it because I can’t face the screaming if it fails! Gah. Maybe I just need to be braver and risk waking DD.

Awful night here. DS managed a string of 15 minute wake ups so got dumped in my bed before I even went to sleep, woke loads still, then tried to get up for the day at 4am and then again for good at 5.30. I lost the plot and cried. I don’t want to spend the day with him. I just want to be by myself.

Sorry to hear you’re having a tough time OP.
I took advice from a sleep consultant when my DS was waking constantly, is this something you would consider?

I don’t know really. Did you get one that you actually met?

I assume DS will grow out of it at some point so it’s mostly about preserving my mental health until then, and maybe having a few techniques to try which hopefully won’t make the situation worse.

Can you get your DH to take the kids for the day so that you can get some sleep and relax? Remember there are 2 of you who made this hold and it sounds like it's only you who is getting up.

I know I probably made it sound like that in my OP but he’s doing plenty as well. He did most of the resettling yesterday evening before getting fed up at 10.30pm and bringing him up to me. He did then go to sleep by himself until 6am, but took over at that point so I could try for a bit more sleep.

He’s taken DD out this morning so if I can get DS down for a nap (we’re currently battling) then I can have one too.

Even with all this I still feel like I’m sinking.

I do feel for you, such a difficult time, I have never been more grumpy, an awful night here too last night and DH was away! My eldest also called once in the night for a lost bunny - I have never been so pleased to see DH when he got back at lunchtime! I have a new found appreciation for him :) Good luck tonight! x

We had this issue. DD stopped the night feeds at around 5 months but she was still waking up how many times a night. From speaking to the HV we worked out it was due to not napping enough in the day, and the fact we were feeding her to sleep rather than her self settling. We came up with a schedule, it only took a couple of weeks to work. I know HV get a lot of jip on here but I won’t say anything bad about them! DD is now 13 months and sleeps through most nights. Goes down awake and she might be sat up for an hour or so in her cot babbling away but she does go to sleep on her own. If she cries we of course go into her.

I’ve bitten the bullet today and started trying to settle without rocking. An hour of screaming at naptime, with my hand through the cot bars in case he needed contact and the odd soothing phrase. He did keel over eventually but only slept for 45 mins. Ten minutes of crying at bedtime and he seems to be down. I need a strong drink but I can’t have one.

Well done Choir! Has he stayed asleep! Fingers crossed for you x

He needed a short resettle at 7.30 and again at 10.30, which is a vast improvement on the night before. He then went until 2am, when he ended up in my bed again but did some actual sleeping there rather than just rampaging around. I’m taking it as a victory.