Have I got a unique baby sleeping problem?!

[Guineapiggiesmalls]

I hope not, but I can’t find any advice to help!

My 9 month old baby goes to sleep like a dream - our bedtime routine is 20-30 minutes, we put her down awake and she’s asleep within five minutes. It’s once we go to bed that the nonsense starts.

A normal night is two wakeups, one around 1am and another at about 4am. A bad night, like last night, she’ll be up 5 times before deciding she’s up for good at 6am. She wakes herself up screaming and doesn’t self-settle (although I know she can!), so I usually end up feeding her to sleep. It’s always me who does the settling, I’m still on maternity leave and she’s breastfed so it makes sense for me to do so, and I don’t mind at all. Sometimes she can be up for as long as an hour.

I’ve googled this (a lot) and can’t find any advice, mostly it seems to be suggesting methods to get them to sleep in the first instance. Maybe I’m searching for the wrong advice? I don’t know if I should be trying to let her cry it out, or send her dad in, or something different. From 7 weeks she slept through, but the four month regression just went on and on.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? How did you get the hallowed ‘sleeping though’!

What are her day time naps like?

To add, I know some people would bite my hand off for two wakeups a night. I’m just frustrated because I know she’s able to sleep through but currently isn’t.

AT around nine months, babies go through a period of separation anxiety. It's when they develop an understanding of object permanence, the idea that you still exist when you're away from them and it can cause all sorts of sleep issues. She'll get through it, hang in there.

I think good and bad nights are normal. I doubt there's much you can do this young, as they wake for all sorts of reasons (teething, developmental leaps, tummy ache, growth spurt). You could night wean from 12 months, but bf babies, in my experience, wake like this for a long while.

I was still BF 6-9 months but I decided to stop feeding through the night after 6 months (well nourished babies, I felt confident it wasn't hunger and I didn't want to comfort feed, controversial I know, perhaps not how I'd do it now but it was who I was then and tbf it worked) so my DH would go in and settle instead, as soon as they realised they weren't getting milk they very quickly adjusted, and were both religiously sleeping though by 9 months.

This chart shows it isn't a constant improvement with a babies sleep they go through so much in the 1st couple of years and their sleep reflects that. Even though you know she can sleep through thats great but there is something stopping her just now teeth, seperation anxiety, a milestone, jags, a cold coming on etc logical when you think about it shit when you have to deal with it every night.

Mine were like that so we coslept and both got sleep

Thanks everyone. That graph is interesting, definitely illustrates my experience of baby sleep so far!

I wonder about sending my husband in for a few nights, see if it makes a difference. Perhaps my first mother’s day would be good timing to suggest it too!

9 months is one of the biggest regressions, they're learning to do so much their brains go into overdrive.

I kept hearing about the 9 month regression around the time both of mine were that age, but that was when they really started to sleep properly, I wonder if that was their reaction to the difficult time!! It was when we stopped BF, I thought they were naturally ready to stop but I realise now that's actually a common time for babies to get a bit fussy and withdraw from the breast for a while.