9 month old has stopped sleeping through...help!

[Spidermumkey]

Hi

Hoping for some tips, ideas, suggestions...

Our daughter, now almost 9 months old, used to sleep well at nights. Around Christmas her normal routine completely went out the window, along with sleeping through most of the night. A new routine and a better night-time did settle down.

However, over the last month or so, our daughter has started waking up much more at night and we've found she's finding it much harder to settle back to sleep, either by herself or on her own. A prolonged cough didn't help matters but now she's waking up even if she's not coughing.

Initially we tried giving her 10 minutes to try and settle herself down, but lately we've noticed she's been showing signs of separation anxiety. Reports from nursery suggest the same thing. We are unsure whether to go back to letting her try and settle herself or should we continue with giving her a cuddle and help her back to sleep when she's upset.

So. We're now in a position where our daughter is waking up several times in the night and is usually awake by around 5.00am-5:30 (she used to go to around 06:30). She's also much harder to coax back to sleep and takes longer to get sufficiently settled to leave her.

Anyone been here before? Any tips gratefully received...

Regards,

Susan and Gareth

Sounds like she's having her growth spurts exactly on schedule (6 months at Christmas, 9 months at 9 months ). She could also be teething.

I personally am of the opinion that it's entirely futile to try "sleep training" during separation anxiety. However, you know her best. If she gets more worked-up when you leave the room versus settling down and going to sleep if you stay, then that's your answer. You could switch to gradual withdrawal method, where you stay just close enough to keep her settled, then retreat a little more each night/week/etc until she's back to settling herself.