F**king sleep, what am I doing wrong?! (9mo)

[Bellesjp]

Ok I'll start by saying that dd has always been a good sleeper at night since about 3mo and I think I've been spoilt.. but ever since she had a cold about a month ago she's been an absolute nightmare!

Naps have always been a challenge, she'll only contact nap or fall asleep in the car, but even naps have now got almost impossible! I used to be able to feed her to sleep (bf), rock her to sleep, nope not having any of it! If I dare put her down in the cot she screams the house down even if I'm there in the room. Once she's got herself in a complete state she'll eventually let me rock her off and she'll sleep on me fine for an hour/hour and a half no problem. It's just the fighting sleep that's driving me INSANE!

Then at night, she'll go to bed no problem in her cot, no dramas at all, until the early hours, wakes up about 3/4am then stirs on and off u til 6 when she's up for the day. She then wakes up tired and yup you guessed it.. fights the naps and the whole cycle starts again! Tried feeding her when she wakes incase she's hungry (not had regular night feeds since about 5mo) but made no difference, tried rocking her back to sleep, makes no difference, leave her to it and she'll still whinge and stir every 10/15 mins til morning.

Not sure what I'm doing wrong, I miss her sleeping 7-7 😩 she's so tired and whining all day, help me!!

Current schedule is (well used to be)

Up about 6am and breastfeed
Breakfast 7/7,30am
Breastfeed 10am
Attempt nap 1 - probably finally go off about 11am
12am wake and lunch
3pm breastfeed and attempt 2nd nap - sometimes doesn't happen and I give up
5/5.30 dinner
7pm breastfeed and bed

Does that sound ok time wise? Am I missing something obvious? Did think is she getting enough milk but I can't physically fit any more feeds in and if I try she doesn't want it!

To add, her room is absolutely pitch black with good black out blinds, so there's no chance she's waking up with light getting in!

No expert at all here but looking at your schedule I'm wondering if during the day she is getting overtired? I think at around that age my little one was only up for 3/3.5hrs max.. Even now at 13mo she is only up 3.5-4hrs max (usually). I know they are all different but she would definitely struggle to stay awake as long as your little one is, especially from lunch to 7pm, she would be a moaning, crying nightmare! If she doesn't nap in the afternoon (which sometimes happens to us too) she is ready for bed about 6.

However, mine is similar in that she's still BF but sometimes just will not feed to sleep for naps and she's never been one to go down in her cot by herself or with me present. If she is refusing to sleep and she goes well over when she should be napping I end up taking her out in the pram or for a drive, and this always works. Does your little one sleep in the car?

My kids were both horrible sleepers - so feel free to ignore me completely - but is there a chance she is waking up because she's cold?
I agree that she sounds overtired by nap time which is why she fighting so much.
I know it's not helpful but I promise it does get better!

@GlitteryGreen yes I agree she is overtired but it seems like a downhill spiral where she is getting more and more tired :( I try to get her to nap about 3 hours after waking (apart from first nap as I had read about bringing the first nap forwards for early wakings reinforcing the early wake up?) maybe I should bring her first nap forwards and see? Apart from that I try and start first nap at 10 but it takes so long to get her to sleep it's usually 11-12 then start trying for 2nd at 3, if she goes, today she went at 3.30 so giving her til 4.15 as don't want to ruin bedtime at 7! Guarantee she will still be tired when I wake her up! She needs a good night sleep but don't know how to get one. Yes she will sleep in the car eventually usually, but this week is fighting it and fighting it, I drove her for 45 minutes yesterday afternoon and she was still awake trying to play with her car seat strap! I then gave up as it was too late for a second nap! Perhaps tomorrow I'll try shifting it all forwards slightly and hope for the best. She won't sleep in the pram any more since about 4 months, screams blue murder if I dare lay her down!

@Lazyladydaisy I did think this to start with so have experimented with different combos of clothing but hasn't made much difference. She currently wears a babygrow and 2.5tog sleep bag and her room is around 20 degrees. Have tried less or more clothing and having the heating come on in the night but sadly no change :(

Ah I'm so sorry, it's so hard when they just won't sleep in the day.

For my LO, her morning nap was definitely the shortest wake window and usually still is so I'd definitely try moving it earlier in your shoes, maybe start after about 2.5hrs? Then if she's showing no signs of sleeping after 15 mins I'd bring her back through and try again in another 15 mins - that's what I do with mine anyway. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't🙈

If you can get that first sleep earlier it might help with the afternoons too as hopefully it won't be dragging on so late. Sometimes my baby sleeps through lunchtime and then is up all afternoon, wanting to sleep at 5pm and it's a nightmare. The latest I can let her sleep in the morning is about 12, otherwise she's just not ready to sleep again until at least 4 and it's just too late.

@GlitteryGreen oh yes it's a nightmare when they sleep too late in the morning isn't it then you can't physically fit a second nap in!

I am definitely going to try an earlier first nap tomorrow, I know she's going to fight it but I guess even if it takes longer and she's asleep by 10 she won't be as overtired? Hopefully anyway lol.

She's had 2 hours of naps today which is about what she was having before it all went tits up so hoping for a better night 🙏🏻

The 9 month sleep regression!! I remember it well! It was hellish. You have my utmost sympathy. For us it was because DC was learning to crawl and his development was on fire! After 6 weeks we decided to move him into his own room, and coincidentally (or not) that was the night the sleep regression ended and he slept through!

Is your baby in her own room?

@manchesterchild ah yes she has started crawling as well so maybe that is not helping? She is already in her own room since about 7 months so don't think that will be our magic answer :( maybe we just have to ride it out? Although if it's 6 weeks we're in for a long one but at least there might be an end to it?! Here's hoping!

My boy is now 11 months.

I have to agree with the others - up until 10 months his first wake window was from 6-9. At that point I also fed him to sleep for every nap but also got tired of all naps becoming a fight because eventually he wouldnt fall asleep with a feed and I would have to rock him - he is a very heavy baby so my back didnt make it!

i decided to stop feeding to sleep entirely. He then started sleeping much more at night and day nap became easier too..

At that age, my baby was waking at 7, then having a bottle and breakfast and going straight back to sleep at 8 for an hour/hour and a half. Then afternoon nap after lunch at 1pm. The morning nap was the easiest to achieve, although at 12 months she’s now refusing it! 😭

Thanks @alwaysthinkingaboutfood31 and @Sweetestp perhaps I'm starting naps too late in the day then. I think it's because she had been sleeping til 7/7.30 that 10 seemed a reasonable time to nap and I kept it the same as was trying to encourage her to wake later, but maybe it's having the opposite effect! Will be trying earlier tomorrow and will report back!

@Sweetestp how did you get to nap without feeding to sleep? She'll hardly let me rock her so it's a right battle! Arches her back and protests! Funnily enough I don't feed her to sleep at night, she goes down awake and just goes to sleep at bedtime, it's the naps and night wakes that are an issue..

@Bellesjp that is pretty interesting - that you can put her down in the evenings without a feed! How often does she wake at night?

My DS fed each nap and night time to sleep with three feeds at night and some wake ups in between!

I started with a bed time, i laid him in his cot and sat on a chair right next to him - singing/shushing/patting.. if he stood up, I laid him back down, if he cried and didnt settle with a pat/song i picked him up and rocked a bit but laid him back pretty soon after. Basically repeated this for 45mins until he fell asleep half in my arms, half in the cot, crying a bit but nothing crazy or distressing. For night time feeds I fed hm 30 before bed.
The next day I did the same for day naps except i fed him at wake ups to avoid feeds before night time.
first couple days took 30-45 mins, now it takes 5-10 mins, sometimes 15 max but pretty much no crying, only a bit of moaning. Also i rarely still need to pick him up, only sometimes lay him back down from standing. This is a nice age to do this cause I feel like he gets it!
also if he ever does fall asleep in my arms i can immediately put him down, whereas before i always waited for a deep sleep.

He does still wake at night and is sometimes tricky to settle but not nearly as much as before and he easily goes for 8-9 hrs without a feed (before it was never longer than 3-4!)

Trick to remember is to have a little wind down routine before a nap ie nappy, closing curtains, saying goodbye for sleepy time to whoever is at home, songs… i found it helped when he associated certain routine and cues with sleep. He also has a dummy for sleep and i put 6 others in there.. he holds them for comfort and can easily find one when he wakes at night.

hope you find what works for you!

@Sweetestp thanks for that, I at try something similar at nap time when I want her to nap in the cot! For now I'm sticking with contact naps to actually get decent naps in, but I do eventually want to have the option of both!

That's a good idea about the wind down routine, I don't really have one for naps at the moment so that's probably something I should try. Obviously I make sure she's got a clean nappy but I should probably do it more of a routine!

Yeah it's really frustrating that she'll let me put her down awake at bedtime but not any other time, I guess she just knows it's not bedtime then! I still feed her in her room before bed and sometimes she does fall asleep and I put her down asleep but more often than not she doesnt!

So an update, today we got 2 decent naps in, at 9.45 for just over an hour and 2.45 for 50 mins. She really fought the first one but eventually gave in with a bit (quite a lot) of rocking! Let's hope for a good nights sleep...

It sounds tricky, as your routine is great, so it’s s bit of a mystery.

My DD has some small cuddly toys, and twinkly lights with music. If she occasionally wakes up early, she plays with her toys and watches her lights for a few minutes and goes back to sleep. Her routine is:

7am up and solid breakfast (organic oats - which apparently help babies sleep)
8am nap
9am up and dressed
9:30 bottle
11am nap
12:30 solid lunch
2:30 bottle
3:30 sometimes she wants a nap
5pm solid dinner
5:40 bath
6pm bed and she falls asleep immediately and stays asleep

I read once that they go down easier at night because they have naturally higher levels of melatonin then.

does she rub eyes/yawn at all in the morning when you decide to put her down for her first nap?
i know she is still so young (and your routine looks a lot like my DS’s when he was 9/10) but maybe its worth waiting for tired cues even if it means putting her down a bit later (i know this goes against all the first posts about having a shorter wake window first thing in the morning) but maybe she is dropping a nap.. especially cause you say she resists the afternoon nap.

When i trained him to sleep in his cot i waited for him to be very sleepy so he actually just wanted me to put him down!
He now sleeps from 10:30 - 12:30 and only again at bed time 18:30/19:00.

I think her breakfast is very late and throwing the day out a little. If she’s up at 6/7 why isn’t she eating till 10?

Definitely try shorter wake windows. The guidelines were 2-3-4 but my little sleep fighter likes to be different so did 333 but he has finally started sleeping through the night finally at 13 months. Really hope you figure it out, I know the hell of a fighter of sleep and also only napping for 30 mins at a time😭

Just a quick update, I don't want to jinx it but things seem to be improving with the earlier naps so Thankyou those who suggested!

We've been doing first nap at 9/9.30 which she's definitely tired enough for, just don't think I was persistent enough before and thought she wouldn't go. Then she's been having an hour/hour and a half and waking up happier, where as before she was waking up crying and still tired. Second nap at about 2/2.30 for probably another hour.

Not had as many night wake ups and sometimes is sleeping through to 6.30am (clings onto the nearest piece of wood!)

@JeezWhatNext she has breakfast about 7 :)