Baby won't sleep more than 3 hours

[Dotty1000]

Please help with any suggestions...,
I'm exhausted and due back from maternity leave in a few weeks.
Baby is 9 months old has good bedtime routine goes down no problem.
She has 2 naps during the day between 1-2 hours again goes down no problem and wakes up happy.
Every single night she wakes about every 2/3 hours we put her dummy back in and she goes straight back to sleep.
She's perfectly capable of putting her own dummy in but won't do it during the night.
Have tried letting her cry it out but she just gets hysterical, stands in her cot and difficult to calm down.
Also she's in our bedroom but we don't have the option of her own room, any daytime noise/light doesn't disturb her daytime naps so not sure it could be that during the night.
Please any advice I don't know what else to try....
Also she's not hungry eats plenty and milk and hasn't needed milk during the night for a long time now

This.

OR mother exhausted and needs to return to work. Her sleep is being disturbed multiple times per night. Baby wakes seemingly due to dummy which has become an unhelpful sleep association.

I also strongly disagree that the sleep is marginally better than average at 9 months old. 2-3 hour wakings are definitely newborn territory.

Absolutely this, routine and consistency is key in getting babies to sleep! I used to do any night feeds, changes etc in a darkened room, minimal interaction. Day time feeds where for bonding but night time was functional. I know some will shoot me down for this approach but all my babies slept through from around eight weeks, top up feed before I went to bed, not a peep from them until around 7am. Healthy sleeping habits are learnt and the sooner you start the easier it is. Sleep is so important for development and health of your baby and also parents well being.

It's considered normal on Mumsnet to have a kid waking hourly from birth until pre-teens. But no, I'd expect a 9 month old to wake up maximum once for a feed. I second the ferber method that a PP sugested or other gentle sleep training technique like gradual withdrawal if that is more your vibe! Having said that, even with self-settling stablished babies still wake randomly here and there, but not every single night and every 2 hours precisely.

My baby is just like this, such a bad sleeper. After being dead against co sleeping for months and months never doing it once i ended up just having to to survive going back to work. She starts her night off in her own cot but when i go to bed I bring her in my bed. She’s 13 months now and im still doing the same. I follow safe sleep 7 and try to make it as safe as possible. It’s not ideal but it’s literally the only way I’ve been able to get sleep.
You could try weaning off the dummy first though. I was really lucky mine self weaned at 10 months when she had a cold and couldn’t really breathe with it in.

What qualifies you to give advice on how to encourage a baby to sleep or how to deal with the sleep deprivation, given you haven’t had to do either?

What I don’t understand about your position is how you know that your baby’s sleep was thanks to your actions and not just your baby’s temperament? Of course I did all the obvious things but my baby still woke every 1.5-3 hours until I night weaned at 8 months and even now at 17m we’re having a bad patch where he wakes and needs lots of help to go back to sleep. I don’t believe you can teach a baby to sleep any more than you can teach them to crawl.

You may disagree with it, but it is in fact true that on average 8-10 month old babies often sleep worse than 3 month old babies.

https://sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/07/24/the-rollercoaster-of-real-baby-sleep/

Because Sarah Ockwell Smith is totally impartial in this debate😂. She approaches sleep and feeding from a very specific standpoint.

I'm not saying any night wakings are abnormal - absolutely not. But look at other guidance e.g. the pediatric sleep council to see what could be reasonably achievable in terms of night sleep at this age.

Sounds totally normal as others have said. Both of mine did this until around age 1 when they suddenly started sleeping through.

Those saying it shouldn't be seen as normal and sounds hellish...it is hellish when is happening to you but there's not much you can do except ride it out really.

Also its easy for people to say, you need a routine. I had a routine but it made no difference..I researched and tried all the advice and it made no difference. In the end they just started sleeping better all of a sudden on their own, I hadn't changed anything.

Newborn babies do need milk in the night though, to ensure they have the best chance of not being underweight. Hence it's advised to wake them to feed for the first few weeks.

Did you have your children a long time ago? Your advice is very outdated and some of it is at odds with recommendations made based on copious amounts of research including lowering the risk of SIDS.

I can only assume you had babies a long time ago which is why your advice is so bizarre.

She was my third Daughter. My first Baby did not sleep much at all.
I put it down to eating like a pig during last part of pregnancy. And I pushed her out at 9 pounds 3 ounces. She was over ten pounds from MOTHERS MILK at Two days . The only time she got upset was after The MEASLES vk. When she cried a lot for a while month. I'm think shes OLD SOUL. Arrived with amniotic membranes over the face. She did very well at school and is very calm .

Was this all a very long time ago?

Only 9-6? 🙄 My youngest slept 7-7 from birth. The reason she did was she was in hospital, sedated for months as a newborn. She got home with a feeding tube so never woke through hunger as I set alarms to feed her. It is not typical behaviour.

Your responses are disturbing quite frankly. Whoopydoo your baby slept, do you want a medal? Also babies arent "ruling the roost", they are babies who have needs that are now met instead of being left neglected to scream.

I quite frankly wonder why some people have children as they clearly cant be arsed with them 🤷🏼‍♀️

OP it sounds typical behaviour for their age and hopefully they begin to grow out of it 🤞🏻

Despite what other posters are saying, this doesn’t need to be your normal. It seems as though the reason your DD is waking so often in the night is due to how she associates going to sleep - which is with the dummy. My DS was similar, but at 7 months we used the advice of justchillbabysleep.co.uk (also has a great instagram account with loads of advice) to wean him off the dummy and learn to self-settle without. We actually replaced the dummy with comforter which worked wonders! All babies are different, but it’s worth a try 😊 Good luck!

Because they all had different temperaments, all developed differently with regards to walking and speech etc but they were all good sleepers. Why are there people out there making a fortune out of sleep training or are they just con artists just taking peoples money for no results? Of course you can teach a baby to sleep, routine and consistency are key as well as making night feeds as low in stimulation as possible. It’s something I’ve carried on now my children are older with time to wind down, no electronic devices for a couple of hours before bedtime, softer lighting. My kids are all great sleepers so I must be doing something right.

@Dotty1000
I’ll suggest something that worked for my little one. I came across the suggestion randomly on FB from a woman who tried it and swore by it… put something that vibrates in the crib/cot/bed. Something that has a timer on it perhaps. I used a cot ‘wedge’ that had a few different vibrate settings. Worked an absolute charm. Can’t promise it’ll get your little one through the whole night but it worked for me!

Its normal. She is 9 months old. She is sleeping well for her age she just needs your help to settle back to sleep. Self soothing for babies is a myth - it is developmental and she will get there eventually. You will be fine, i did it for years, working full time and feeding during the night. I got through it. I'm doing it again now with my 9 month old, she's sleeps worse than yours does, and will be back at work soon too. You've got this.

A 9 month old needs more than one nap a day.

Is your baby OK?? Because that's not really normal. Babies wake to protect themselves from SIDS, it's biologically normal. So not waking at all would actually concern me a lot. They also need feeds during the night for many months, albeit some longer than others. Perhaps she was waking but you decided to ignore as you have mentioned in another message.

Every baby not as bad as every 2 -3 hours though to be fair.
but if it's a quick settle at least it's not the milk burn bum change and battle with spit up and colic , if you look back I am sure there has been progress of some sort saying that p
maybe try different bed times to see if that helps ? As of overtired may make sleep worse ? (Never worked for me but again every child is different )
it is hard when going back to work but hopefully you share the wake ups with partner .
we do night on night off unless it's a really bad night we we did half the night each - bit like wwf we will sometimes nudge the other and tap out due to exhaustion- it helps anyway to share the exhaustion.
our little munchkin is 5 now - slept though the night 5 times . We both work full time so team work is the only way we can survive .

Maybe you are doing something right. However my 5 year old sleeps brilliantly now and guess what i did? I co slept, I parented her through the night, I fed, I rocked, I did everything she needed for a long time. No sleep training or "teaching". She now sleeps 11 hours in her own bed. So I have done something right too. Or maybe they get there in the end now matter what we do, we don't need to force or train anything.

Oh my god that makes you so much better at parenting than me if you did it through the night! 🙄I didn’t realise sleep deprivation was the criteria for being a top notch parent. Well done you 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 By the way do you intend teaching your child to read or tie their shoe laces or are you going with the “they all get there in the end theory” for that too?

How can everyone say this is normal? This is ok whilst you are on maternity leave, but you need to address for when you go back to work. You can’t possibly work without getting a proper nights sleep.
yoh are definitely going to have to wean her off the dummy I am afraid, and whilst you do this you might have to have a few nights sleeping on the sofa. I have had to let both my children cry it out at a similar age after previously sleeping through as a baby. The first one was easy, two nights half an hour & she slept after that. The second was harder, it took four nights of an hour hysterical crying. BUT like you say, I knew she was in a good routine, she wasn’t hungry etc etc. you are doing all the right things.
Being a working Mum is a tough gig. I might’ve done things differently if I wasn’t. But I had to sleep, I absolutely had to for the benefit of my family.
Once your baby realises you won’t get up to put her dummy in, she will sleep. It won’t take more than a week to get this sorted (and likely it will take four days). It will be a very tough week on you, especially as you will have to take the sofa.
At some point your baby will transition from two days time sleeps to one, id really try to get the night time sorted first if you can!
Good luck though & respect for you & all the wonderful Mamas out there!