Does it get better? 9 month old wakes every 30Mins! Can’t sleep train:(

[sowgirl]

Please… someone tell me it gets better 😂.
my son has never been a great sleeper. He suffers with cows milk protein allergy so that used to be the cause of his bad sleep. However now he has a habit of breastfeeding to sleep … and he does this every 30/45 mins every single night.
i know, everyone’s telling me I have to sleep train and I have tried multiple times. I just can’t do it I physically don’t have it in me. From the moment I put him down in his cot he screams, stands up and is so distressed he vomits. When I go and get him he’s shaking with tears down his face 😢😢
I really just am after some comfort from anyone who’s ever been in a situation like me? Do they ever get better by themselves or do I have to sleep train, because I really don’t think I can !

You've been trying to switch from him falling asleep actively suckling in your bed to putting him in his cot - just way too much.

Don't let him fall asleep feeding. Unlatch him and rouse him and just cuddle him instead or get DH to do the cuddling in your bed and you go elsewhere.

Don't feed to sleep day or night as that is the association you need to break so he doesn't need to suckle to nod off.

Have you tried a dummy at all?

@sowgirl my 9 month old now screams when I put her down for a nap, partly due to separation anxiety I think. But you should be able to feed more during the day to avoid reverse cycling. If you have to feed at night I would sit up and feed instead of lying down just to break the habit of latching for 5 mins and falling asleep.

Hey OP, I have a 10 month old with cmpa. He is on nutramigen formula and it does smell awful! He starts the night in his cot (but this is very new) and then co sleeps with me when he wakes up about midnight. He still has a bottle in the night too, but his basic routine is

Wake up around 7ish, breakfast half 7.
Bottle at 9am then a nap at about half 9. On a good day he will sleep 1.5-2 hours ish.
Lunch around 12, bottle about half 1, then another nap at 2ish. He only has a hour here as I have to pick my older kids up from school, but he could definitely do more/longer nap gap. Then dinner around 5pm, bottle and bed 6:30pm ish.

Personally I would try to wake him earlier to start his naps earlier. I always find my DS sleeps better at night when he has enough day time sleep so I wouldn't cut any out. He wakes more when he's over tired.

I tried to sleep train but he screamed so now I stay with him, holding his hand or singing a quiet song. He is usually asleep in 15-20mins but I do have to lay him down a few times! Definitely look up gradual retreat.

I hope you get some sleep soon, I know how exhausted you must be

@mishmased thanks for all this - i really appreciate all the advice, I didn’t realise they had a bad sleeping spell at this age. I think I can wait it out abit longer - Co sleeping isn’t bad I’m just concerned that nobody in our household is getting decent sleep.

Well maybe his dad is

Also could he be teething? Try giving some calpol just to cover any pain from teething.

Do you have a partner? What happens if he does night wakes? Will DS go back to sleep without vomiting then? If that works, I'd reduce (eliminate) the night feeds, and tank him up during the day.

Can you make the first nap longer, and have the shorter nap in the afternoon?

FWIW, My CMPI none sleeping baby stopped night feeds at 9 months, but didn't let me sleep through for several more years. He's at secondary now, and still doesn't sleep through reliably... I hear him chatting to himself some nights. Thankfully I don't need to do anything other than roll over and put a pillow over my ears now!

Yeah, I agree it’s too much - I went of health visitors advice to get him in his cot.
He won’t take a dummy unfortunately. I wish he would !

His dad would try to, but DS will only go back to sleep if he’s breastfed :(

Thanks for all the comments everyone! If anything it’s so reassuring to read all the lovely Advice

My first was a nightmare sleeper. later diagnosed with ADHD/Sensory issue but obviously didn't understand this at the time so kept wondering what the f**k I was doing wrong when trying various 'tips'/routines to get baby to sleep. When I had number two I stopped stressing over routines, stopped trying to put the baby down, didn't attempt sleep training and although baby2 wasn't a great sleeper either it removed most of the stress and I got slightly more sleep myself. I ended up allowing naps in the sling from the beginning (baby was rarely off me), we co slept for most of the night. So my advice is step away from the schedule (if it's not working now why would it suddenly start?), don't bother with proper sleep training. Try and just do whatever it is you can to get through the day and find the joyful moments. Eventually it will change for the better just accept it might take longer than expected.

This is really nice advice @wolfy2. I do think I go through phases of caring and not caring. I just know I have a event in the summer that I’ve been waiting soooo long for. Fingers crossed I’ll be able to leave him for one night - he will be 13 months by then

My eldest very nearly broke me completely around that age with non-sleeping. She had problems with reflux (never medicated till she sort-of grew out of it - though I was horrified to discover when she was about 11 that some symptoms had continued to be part of her normal).

What you describe, having to feed to sleep and waking repeatedly in the night, sounds very similar to what I remember. In retrospect, I think she hadn't learned how to self-settle and instead of rousing slightly each sleep cycle and going back to sleep, every time she roused she would then wake completely.

The good news is, when I bit the bullet and decided I was ready to focus on helping her learn to fall asleep in her cot, her overnight sleep pattern was transformed within a few days - I hadn't expected how quickly things would improve nor the extent. (not saying we didn't still have night wakings but far far fewer)

So, my suggestions based on what worked for me.

1. Think about what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, what you need to be able to do it. Until you've worked all of that out, give yourself permission to just keep coping as you are. The night I started, I had committed myself to this as my only priority for as long as it took.

2. Have a set of "sleep cues" that you can use consistently. For us that was a combination of, verbal reassurance ("Mummy's here, time to go sleep" or somesuch), using a dummy, cuddly toy, and a wind-up music box. The latter was really useful I think, as you could turn it on and leave it to stop, and if you needed to go back in later you could just put it on again. We used that and also classical music CDs at bedtime for years. As a teenager she switched to audiobooks ...

3. What I did was based on what felt reasonable - so leaving her to cry then returning wasn't an option for me. To start with I focussed on what I needed to change - which was for her to be able to fall asleep without being picked up. So I put her down and rested a hand on her. Then tried removing the hand. If she got upset, reassure verbally, hand back on her. Repeat, then try to move a little way from the cot. Etc till I was outside the door (short distance, it was a small room!). Like I was on a long piece of elastic, always ready to return, lie her back down, restart the music box, reassure, then gradually retreat if she was settled.

The thing that totally amazed me was how fast this worked for us. Within about 4 days ... I think when they are older than 9-10 months it can take a lot longer; but really hope that you can get good results rapidly too.

I think the total personal commitment helped as well; helped in having the patience to know I was going to stick with it, and probably helped me stay calmer than I might sometimes have been. It's a long time ago now so can't guarantee my recollections (DD currently overseas on a gap year lol). Remember that babies and children really value consistency. But also remember that we're none of us perfect and will always "slip up" sometimes no matter how noble our ideals and goals!

Very very best wishes for figuring out what "success" needs to look like for you and your son, and for rapid progress towards it once you have everything in place (externally and internally!) to be able to try. Sending thoughts of mental strength!

I see someone has suggested teething. That can really disrupt their sleep as it’s so painful. I couldn’t get my daughter to take calpol and in retrospect I wish I had bought some child paracetamol suppositories as we probably would have all got a lot more sleep! I ended up co-sleeping with her so that we got a reasonable amount of sleep. It was tough tho. Hugs xxx

@sowgirl none of mine (I have 3 kids now) ever took a soother, I bought loads for babies one and two and only bought two for number three. I just accepted some babies don't take it.

If you're happy with co sleeping I would continue to do it. He could co sleep with DH (with my first DH got the most sleep) while you sleep in a separate room and go and feed him every 3 hours at night if you like.
I had to do this when my second was around 17 months as I had to work away 4 nights a week. He slept with DH for weeks until I left.

People expect at 9 months for a baby to not feed at night and yea there are breastfed babies that do not feed at night but they are in the minority. My older two (eldest with allergies) fed at night and eldest I night weaned at 21 months and younger baby earlier as I had to work away.

It will be very hard to go from feed every hour to not feeding which is why I suggested trying to start feeding every 2 -3 hours at night in another couple of weeks.

I think the question to ask yourself is how much sleep do you need for now and work from there. Try and make sure to eat well. It so exhausting.

Yes I've been there. It got a lot better by 18n, and at 2 she started mostly sleeping though 12hrs a night, without any prompting from me.

Best of luck.

And my 9 month old is still awake. Gradual retreat is failing terribly. Bloody 9 month 🤦‍♀️

Thanks everyone. ❤️

Definitely try ending all naps no later than 3.30pm. So two naps much earlier, or, if ready switch to one nap (this is the hardest transition though and they're not usually ready till 15months).

Try a large bottle of formula before bed and cutting out feeds elsewhere and upping food.

A structured bed time routine if not already in place.

Good luck! 💕

What I mean though OP is that he’s not waking cos he’s hungry. It doesn’t matter if he’s more full on formula. It’s that he’s waking and using boob to get him to the next sleep cycle, not because he’s so hungry that he needs to feed every 45 minutes. So even if you fill him up on formula before bed then he’ll probably still wake and want to feed back to sleep because it’s the only way he knows to get back to sleep.

Could you leave your partner to it one night? I think you'll have to go cold turkey on the boob at night if you want him to sleep.

With my dd I agreed in my head she could have the boob at 7pm ish and then not until 10pm ish and then not until 5am.

Eventually I stopped the 5am feed and then the 10pm one but she was over a year old by then.

Co-sleeping did not work for me, it just meant neither of us got any sleep as I was constantly waiting for her to wake up and she was constantly wanting boob.

OP I was you!! But I don’t think I can help. I tried everything but nothing worked. Read all the books etc etc.

For what it’s worth, my experience was:

• age 1 to 3 months: woke every 3 hrs. No colic. Easy peasy.
• age 3 months until age 1.5 years: suddenly woke every 45 minutes.
• sometime after age 1.5 yrs: gradually sleeping in two-three hr blocks. I can’t remember when that happened cos I was so tired, obvs.
• age 2 yrs and 10 months: suddenly started sleeping through the night, I hadn’t changed anything.

Sleep training did not work. Stopping breastfeeding did not work (and I massively regretted stopping 😢). We had the perfect routine; it didn’t help. Earlier bedtime, later bedtime, more naps, less naps, whatever - nothing worked.

I came to see it as a disability.

I know how broken you are by this, and I wish I had better news. All I can say is that this is not your fault, and that the mums with babies who sleep well aren’t doing something better than you - they’re just very lucky.

Good luck xxxxxxxxxx