9 month old sleep has gone to pot - what am I missing? (Except for my sanity?)

[mrsjuan]

Aghhhh. I don't know what's happened to DD's sleep. For the last few months I thought we had it sorted. Daytime naps were fairly easy - wrap her in a blanket, give her her dummy, cuddle her for a bit, put her downa and enjoy 1-2 hours of blissful napping.

Nights have never been great but with help form the ncss most of the time she was easy to get to sleep (put her down sleepy but awake etc etc) and reasonably easy to settle again if she did wake up. If all else failed I could drag her into bed with us and get a good few hours out of her.

Now I am finding it increasingly hard to help her sleep for naps. She is tired, her eyes droop and close but then spring open again. It is taking more and more rocking etc to get her to sleep and then there's no guarantee that she will stay asleep for long once I put her down.

At night she can be up for over an hour (2 hours last night) if I try to bring her in with us she just gets excited and starts blowing raspberries and pulling muy hair .

And then she's whingy and miserable in the day becasue she's tired.

It is like we're back in the newborn phase.

Please tell me if I'm missing something, or if they go through some funny phase around now or if that's it and I'll never sleep again.

btw - not prepared to let her cry for more than a couple of minutes - I know she can settel herself (as long as she has the dreaded dummy) so there mus tbe something else.

Gosh -mammoth post - sorry

Oh my goodness - so sorry about all the typos! Combo of sleep deprivation and a dodgy keyboard.

Anyone?

Please?

Shameless bump.

no idea as my DS is younger than your DD but bumping for you.

I cant be much help either but my DS (nearly 9 months) is exactly the same. The only time i can get him to sleep is to feed him which i am trying to stop at the mo.

The only suggestions i have had from people is to go for a walk and let him sleep in buggy, but not always practical when you have another to look after.

Anyway i will keep an eye on this thread and hope someone will come with the answer (Please)

Glad we're not alone chocohead! DD stopped feeding to sleep when she was about 8 weeks old - hence the dummy!

She will sleep in the pushchair which is useful in the day but not in the middle of the night.

it's as if she can't switch off - I suppose they're growing up now and have more control over their thoughts and actions.

I wouldn't be able to fall asleep in about a minute the way she used to so I suppose I can't expect the same from her. Although I can usually lie quitely without disturbing anyone else

Mrsjuan I'm having similar trouble with my dd (10m) though not quite as bad. I've always fed or rocked her to sleep - neither of my dc's were ever content to be put down sleepy but awake - but in the past week it's like she's completely forgotten how to get to sleep. Bedtime is 15-20mins of her sitting/climbing up, then collapsing on me, then getting up again (because she's Not Tired! Oh No! ) til she falls asleep - wailing/kicking/struggling if I attempt to rock/cuddle her - screams of fury if I attempt to put her down and go...

I dimly recall ds being slightly like this around the same age, I think he just grew out of it. (Sort of.)

No words of wisdom, only sympathetic pat.

phd - yes - sounds very similar. Not sure if I am reassured or not by your son 'sort of' growing out of it

It's not that I mind rocking her to sleep - it's just that she is needing more now than when she was a colicky tiny baby (though without the screams thank goodness!) We had managed to wind it down to just a little rocky cuddle buthey ho, suppose it teaches me not to get complacent!

All sympathetic pats appreciated

DD is the same (9m) we co sleep (cot with no side against the bed)

Her bad sleeping has been since I've gone back to work - last night 12.30am and then 4am till 5.40am crawling all over me, pulling my hair in between collapsing and sleeping for 2 minutes before it starts again!

You have sympathetic pats from me too!

Is this some kind of seasonal thing?? My 11 mo, having slept through the night since 8 wks has started waking every night at about 1 for 7ozs of milk!! Not sure what's going on, except I don't like it. Big sympathetic pat from me too!!

Does she have any teeth? Could she be getting more? Any other signs of teething (i.e. fussy in day, red cheeks, drooling, chewing on fingers, dodgy nappies, etc.)?

No teeth as yet but I guess they could be on their way as she does seem to have been poking around in her mouth a lot lately and we've had a few suspect nappies.

Same again last night but I managed to wrestle her into bed with me after an hour of rocking, giving her milk, more rocking,a drink of water, teething powder, changing her nappy etc etc!

I think she'd happily get up and play but I wouldn't

Definitely could be teeth, then. The poking in the mouth and dodgy nappies are sure signs for us. If it gets really bad you could try pain meds one night and see if that gives her/you some respite?

Also, what kind of timings are you doing for naps these days? Could it be that she is due a "routine" change and she is either overtired or undertired when you're trying to put her down?

She usually has one sleep around 9/9.30 and one around 1/1.30. One is usually approx 2 hours and the other approx 1 hour - it's a bit hit and miss which way around. I think she sleeps better at night if she has the longer sleep in the afternoon but that might just be coincidence.

Last night was not too bad at all - a couple of dummy replacements, up at 4.30 for milk then in with us til 7.

Will try calpol etc. if she seems to be in pain with it. Quuite excited at the prospet of seeing her first tooth!

Another reason may be that we've been stuck in the house more than usual lately so although I've been playing with her etc. I don't think she's as tired as when we go out a lot.

On the naps, our nap timings went major wonky at this age. We were doing similar to you, but it started to go pear shaped - he would often only have a very short PM nap or else fight the PM nap unless in buggy.

What we had to do was to start cutting down the morning nap, to shift the longer sleep to the afternoon. Else he was sleeping too long in the AM, and then getting overtired by bedtime, and having fitful nights.

I started limiting the AM nap to 1 hour until the PM nap started getting shorter or he started fighting it again. Then 45 mins, then 30 mins (stayed at 30 mins for a good few months), now 20 mins. This is all part of the process of them dropping to just one long nap around lunchtime.

You could try some nap re-jigging and see if that helps?

yy that makes a lot of sense - I will try cutting the morning nap down, thank you.

ah, I think you've hit on it MoM - dd has thrown her nap routine completely out the window too. She's been astonishing the last two days (probably just jinxed it - knock wood) but when I first posted she was having 1/2hr in the morning, 1/2hr at lunch and then nothing all arvo. Mind you I know she was overtired at all times, because despite all the tired signs she'd been fighting off my first two or three attempts to put her down .

But it's all caught up with her and she's had good naps today and yesterday so fingers crossed.

Mrsjuan - fwiw - 2 doses of paracetamol = better than one. give one in mid afternoon so you can give another before her (or at least your) bedtime.

Hooray

last night she slept aaaalllll night 7pm - 6.30am - not even a dummy replacement needed!

Probably a complete fluke but she did only have a 45 min nap in the morning.

Whatever the cause it's nice to feel a bit refreshed.

Long may it continue for you too phdlife!

My eight month old started to do the same and I just felt despairing - sleep is soooooo vital to ability to cope!! I decided that perhaps he was hungry and addressed the feeding routine. This seemed to help and he is now sleeping again from 8pm to 5.30 am ish most nights. He is beginning to sleep less during the day though. I think food and exercise are probably the key...Hope this helps!!

Good luck

DS did this and it was caused by him needing to drop his afternoon nap. He just has one in the morning now (which apparently is backwards, but it works for him!) I sometimes let him have about half an hour's catnap in the afternoon if he is really tired, but he's horrible when he's been woken up so I don't like to do that.

Also having dinner at a strict time every day has really helped. And now he is getting older we have a bit of a bedtime ritual where I do his teeth, carry him up to bed, (downstairs bathroom) let him turn out all the lights on the way, I chase him around the room changing him into his pyjamas and clean nappy, then we go to the window, wave "night night" to the street (as just me and him so nobody to say goodnight to) and close the curtains, then we snuggle up in bed and nurse and he usually goes straight to sleep. If he doesn't and he gets excited then I just keep picking him up and lying him back down until he gets fed up and falls asleep!