Babies and sleeping - there's no one method that really works for them all, is there?

[NewLevelsOfTiredness]

I wasn't there for my two stepdaughter's baby stages, obviously, but by all accounts SD1 was a dream. By a year old you could plonk her in her cot, give her a bottle and dummy and leave the room. She'd drink the bottle, pop the dummy in her mouth and settle herself to sleep until the morning. No need for any sleep training to achieve this.

SD2 not quite so easy, but consistent and reacted well to routines.

My little girl is 9 months now and I'm struggling to find any value in any guides or advice because there is no consistency to her sleep at all.

She has routine - we're very good at that. We give her naps and put her to bed at the same time every day. But then the guessing game starts. All the advice I read seem to based on what type of sleeper your baby is. Mine has been the following just in the last three weeks:

• The type that settles easily but wakes up every 45 minutes to 90 minutes throughout the night.
• The type that settles easily and sleeps through until about 2am when she is WIDE AWAKE, happy, and just wants to play - maybe giving up about 15:30.
• The type that wakes up upset and screaming about 13:00 and take an hour to calm again.
• The type that actually sleeps ok through the night but gives a laugh/cry/shout every now and again between sleep cycles to make sure mummy and daddy don't really get to settle into proper sleep themselves.

I mean, there's more scenarios, but it's never the same two nights in a row. She can wake at any time with any frequency. She might be drowsy or totally alert. Happy or sad (with 'pissed off' a recent addition to her repertoire of waking moods.) Is it like this normally and my partner just got lucky with the first two?

Her big sisters have thankfully been complete saints about the disruption it's caused their sleep and shown nothing but delight and affection towards the baby - I wouldn't blame them for being a little annoyed!

DD woke twice a night from 6-11 months for a feed. Mostly went back to sleep quite easily. Some tricky bedtimes but by 12m has slept through (10-12 hours) consistently.

DS (10 months) can't self settle, fights naps, wakes roughly every 90mins, sometimes takes an hour to go back to sleep. We tried the same things and have worked harder with DS but he is wired differently.

You are not alone. My daughter is 9 months old and what works one day to get her down for a nap/bedtime doesn’t work the next! I’m just trying to take each day as it comes at the mo..!

OP, we've had two, both of your final type:

• The type that actually sleeps ok through the night but gives a laugh/cry/shout every now and again between sleep cycles to make sure mummy and daddy don't really get to settle into proper sleep themselves.

Our youngest is 18 months and started up last night at 23.30. I walked into work this morning and grabbed the coffee.

Older sibling doesn't seem to be woken by her, even when we all shared a hotel room when she was tiny, so you might find they're less bothered by the noise than you'd expect.