Sleep train a 9 month old?

[Darkestseasonofall]

Please help, I'm at my wits end and absolutely hating being a mother at the moment.

DC 2 is a 9mo boy who is an absolute sleep dodger.

He goes to bed at 7, and is up throughout the night, sometimes as frequently as 2 hourly. He absolutely demands milk, no amount of rocking / offering water etc works. His will is strong, he absolutely won't go back to sleep til he gets milk.

He's been a good napper, but lately refuses naps unless punched in the pram.

I'm due back to work soon and just can't function on the broken sleep.

I've read various websites and blogs etc, but everything is so contradictory.

Please help a desperate woman....

I did controlled crying with all three of mine - and I had real 'velcro' babies who were cosleeping , frequently waking etc
I started with bedtimes - this was easier as I knew they were clean , full of milk and tired- it is tough but after the first two evenings you'll see a real improvement . For mine it was about an hours crying the first night ,(with me going in at increasing intervals) and then maybe half an hour the second night and ten minutes the third.
Make sure your baby is a healthy weight and not poorly but nine months is a good time to sleep train. Once you've cracked bed times you'll find naps and night wakings improve. I had a cut off point which I'd feed after for night wakings and increase this to sleep through.
The stuff connected with stress etc is to do with long term neglect not a few nights of controlled crying - give loads of fuss and cuddles in the day to help with the guilt but in my view helping your baby to self sooth is really important. Any sleep thread you'll find many parents with school aged children still struggling with sleep.
I've been on attachment courses at work and babies and children need good quality sleep and routines to be physically and emotionally healthy . As do mums!

Sorry op missed your update - glad to hear it's worked!

I didn't sleep train using controlled crying, I was too weak to see it through because my baby was so stubborn, I just knew it would take hours and I would cave. However, I did use other more gentle sleep training methods (eg. cold turkey night weaning) that sometimes did result in my little boy crying for a bit. Also, at 11 weeks old he cried himself to sleep in a motorway traffic jam. He hated the car and he wouldn't go to sleep in it, and then we hit the traffic jam and there was nothing we could do.

When people come on here to say leaving your baby to cry gives them brain damage or depression I go back to that day and wonder if I've damaged him for life because he was left to cry.

I suspect the link to anxiety and depression is probably correlation rather than causation. For example, children in abusive households would be more likely to be left to cry, but in those cases any mental health issues later in life would be as a result of the abuse, not because of 3 nights of sleep training or one occasion of being left to cry in the car.

It's not a study but an article of a physician I found recently:
drgabormate.com/no-longer-believe-babies-cry-sleep/

It would be interesting to finally know what exactly happens to babies when they stop crying during CIO. Sleep trainers say they self sooth, opposition says they brain freeze to escape stress.

@oneseriouslytiredmumma have you done it yet, how did it go if so?

I’ve found this post really interesting to read. My little boy is 10 months old. Frequent night waker. Relies on cuddles and being patted to fall asleep at the start of bed and nap times and each time he wakes. I’d managed to get night feeds down to once per night but over the last 3-4 weeks this seems to have increased - he’s breastfed.
My boyfriend has been wanting to sleep train him since 5 months using controlled crying. I’ve resisted so far as he’s a very strong willed baby and can imagine if he cries and protests it could be for a very long time and I don’t know if I’m mentally strong enough to cope with hearing him so upset.
However , I’m due back at work in two weeks and know that his regular wakings every 2 hours through the night won’t be sustainable for me when I’m back at work and when he is spending the day at nursery x

Well done OP! Glad to see your DS has got the hang of it so quickly, and you must feel like an entirely new person after having some actual sleep!

To anyone who is wavering about CC, it really isn't as bad as it seems. Nobody WANTS to do it, but it can absolutely change your life, your partner's life, and your baby's life. If you're exhausted from being up all night, then they must be as well.

My two were both up every 30-45 mins, all night. DD would sometimes stay awake for HOURS before dropping off for another 45mins (after me sitting on the edge of the bed and rocking her vigorously forever). DS wanted to be over my shoulder and patted, whilst he screamed and headbutted me. Neither were fun and I was damn near hallucinating, edging towards serious depression. It was hard with DD because it was all new and I didnt know what I was doing, but it was just as hard with DS because it wasn't new at all, and I could feel the sheer exhaustion happening again (and he was disturbing DD).

DD was 14mo and DS was about 7mo. Three nights each and they slept through. They're 6 and 2 now and we very rarely have anything close to a bad night, and they only wake up if there's actually a problem. If they're sick then they can come in with us, but otherwise they stay in their beds all night. We did have to redo the CC a couple of times, mostly after illness where they'd been in with us, but it usually only took one night to get them back on track.

My DC went from miserable, lethargic kids with an exhausted Mum and Dad, to happy and well rested children with much more energetic parents! Neither of them had any ill effects from it. (I actually asked DD if she remembered us doing CC when she was a toddler, and she looked at me as if I was insane, then aghast when I told her how badly she used to sleep!)

Sorry for the long post, but I just hate reading about families who are up all night like this. It's not fair on anybody, including the baby! Sleep is so important - it's where they heal and grow, and some say process everything they've learned in the day. CC isn't fun, but when it works it's a game changer for everybody.

Good luck to you all

@IloveBeefJerky = troll.

So pleased things are working out for OP

@Darkestseasonofall Still haven’t attempted We’re battling two teeth cutting through at the moment so it’s pretty pointless starting when I know I’m setting myself up for failure.

Nights are still just as crap, even more so now we’re in the middle of another teething episode. Saturday evening DD was awake crying from 10:30 until 4:30, and then awake for the day at 5:20!! I was so tired I called my MIL in tears and begged for her to come and take over for a few hours so I could get some rest. I couldn’t even walk in a straight line I was so sleep deprived.

How are things with your LO’s sleep now? Are you still getting plenty of sleep throughs? And how are you in yourself now, have your moods etc improved?

@oneseriouslytiredmumma I really feel for you.
Is your DP doing his share? I can't remember if you're breast or bottle feeding.
Honeslty once those teeth are through get it done.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say its changed my life. I'm still that low level tired that a woman with 2 young children is, but I'm not angry / delerious / seriously wondering why I had children any more. I now look forward to the dc bed time as I know I can watch some TV / do a hobby or whatever then get into bed and sleep, rather than dreading the night ahead. My relationship with DP has massively improved too.
@Stargirl2707 he probably will cry and be furious but it'll be for 3 nights max. If you're going back to work you're going to need some proper sleep, bite the bullet and do it, honestly your child will be happier as well.

@Darkestseasonofall DP doesn’t help with night wakings. He helps with settling for bed time and naps as best as he can when he’s home and not at work but night wakings are all on me unfortunately (which I’m now beginning to resent him for but hey ho that’s another story!).

Sorry to hound you with questions, I’m just curious to know if your LO had always been a poor sleeper before sleep training or not? Some forums I’ve read suggest that sleep training, CC specifically is only successful on babies who have previously been good sleepers but have somehow managed to fall into bad habits and much less effective on children who have always been poor sleepers. My DD has always been terrible, this isn’t a new thing she has literally been a nightmare sleeper from day 1 so I’m kinda nervous to implement it because if it doesn’t work I genuinely don’t know what I’d do.

She has such a strong will, she can literally SCREAM and ball from hours on end. Our neighbours already probably think we’re assholes, I don’t want to struggle through three hellish nights and then it doesn’t work IYKWIM.

@oneseriouslytiredmumma he was always a terrible sleeper. Obviously the first few months that was to be expected, but then I blinked and he was 9 months old and still behaving like a newborn, having milk every 3 hours by night etc.

I actually think I was sabotaging him learning to self settle, as every time he woke I'd give him a bottle as it was the quickest way to get him back to sleep.
He sometimes falls asleep in my arms now for either nap or nighttime, I'm not evangelical enough about it to wake him and put him down as some of the guidance suggests. But when he wakes in the night he'll give a little croak to see if there's milk, and when there's not he's back to sleep, he honestly doesn't cry.

You both need to be on board with this though or you may crack. As your DP has no vested interest in the baby sleeping through as he does no night wakings (Arsehole) will he be able to support you?

It could be worth just speaking to your neighbours, they will probably get disturbed, but in the long run they'll be better off too when dd sleeps through.

Just a couple of questions if that’s ok @Darkestseasonofall (and anyone else who’s done it),
When you did your sleep training, where you’ve said each night the time it takes for your little one to fall asleep decreases, what happens in the night when they have their usual wakings. Say for example, on the first night of trying it, if they took 90 mins to fall asleep with on/off crying, did they take this long all through the night each time they woke?
Did you do the same for day time naps too for consistency or just focus on bedtime to start with? X

He's been a good napper, but lately refuses naps unless punched in the pram.

8 month sleep regression is brutal but linked to developmental leaps. Time for understanding, not forcing into some arbitrary routine IMO.

We used to jiggle the cot. Sounds batty, but knowing we were there plus the motion stopped her from crying long enough to go to sleep. Eventually it got to the point where we were jiggling for less than a minute and then leaving the room and she would just fall asleep.

I admit that I couldn’t have done controlled crying, however she was only up twice a night at 9 months; maybe if she was up every two hours I’d have been more desperate.

Incidentally, she dropped all night bottles and wakings on her own at 12 months, the same week she walked confidently and dropped to one nap. That seemed to happen for a few of my friends’ little ones too, so might be something for you to look forward to!

@Feminist10101 my little one is 10 months. This is something that’s played on my mind for months about whether to do it or not, whether it’s right for him or not, whether it’s detrimental or not. It’s not a decision taken lightly and I’m still at odds with myself on what to do for best.
But we are not in the 8 month sleep regression. My little boy from the start has always had very broken sleep. I know babies are supposed to wake through the night. But after 10 months he still wakes every 2 hours at best with the occasional longer stint at the start of the night. I’ve focussed on awake times and awake windows, when nap times are best to be etc. I don’t know what else to do to help prepare him at the end of the day for a good sleep.
He wakes through the night and if he’s hungry I feed him, but sometimes it’s just a cuddle and he’s back to sleep again. For these wakings I’m sure if he had the ability to fall asleep by himself he would have a longer stretch.
At 10 months old he shouldn’t have bags under his eyes.
Please don’t assume we are all forcing a routine onto our babies to make life easier for us. I only ever have his best interests as a priority x

Sleep trained my 3 best thing I ever did. Only took a couple of nights. Meant I went from being an exhausted impatient mother to a far more fun one. Kids weren't tired either.
They are all now well adjusted if somewhat annoying teenagers.

@Feminist10101 FFS that's an obvious typo.
@Stargirl2707 so we stopped offering milk through the night at the same time, as it was a huge gordian knot of why he wouldn't sleep. The first night when he woke we offered water, he decided that wasn't worth waking for. We'd go in and shush as per cc method, not picking him up. So go in after 2 minutes, then 4 minutes etc. We only had to do this a few times.
Day time naps the same, put down in the cot awake (but as I mentioned in a pp I'm not evangelical, if he falls asleep on the bottle of in the pram I don't wake him to put him in the cot).
No one really wants to do cc, but equally people want to enjoy their child and be a decent Mam, not a snappy sleep deprived ogre. My days were literally joyless before, miserable baby, me counting down to bedtime etc. Now our days are fun, baby is happier, I'm able to excercise, enjoy time with my DP, feel mentally ready to return to work etc.
It's not a decision anyone takes lightly, but if it feels right then do it. I'm more than happy to answer any questions xx

@Stargirl2707 to answer your question, which I managed to not do despite my long post it isn't another 90 minute trial in the night. Its more like 12 minutes so 2 mins then 4 then 6. Or it was for me anyway. And this happened I think twice the first night, once the second night, and never again since.