9 Month Old Having Trouble Sleeping

I also had the same issues, my 9 month old son used to co-sleep, but now he is sleeping beside our bed in the playpen.. (the crib wont fit in our room) and it is working wonderfully. He still wakes up once or twice at night, but since I am right there he doesn't seem to get as upset. Usually now I just give him the pacifier and help him lay back down, and he'll fuss a little but he drifts back off to sleep quickly. I also sometimes nurse him just once a night still, and only if it has been 4 hours or so since bedtime, which is 8pm.
I'm not sure I agree with cutting out the night time nursing, but that is just my opinion. I am trying to nurse until at least 1 year, and it is supposed to be their primary nutrition source and food is to supplement.

This is the age where they go through separation anxiety also. So, this, along with teething might be part of your problem. Also I loved the baby sleep book by Dr Sears, and although we wanted to get our son out of our bed, I like his other thoughts regarding attachment parenting. I did try a variation of CIO 'the baby whisperer' for a few weeks and it just felt so wrong. This part of their life is so short,what's wrong with nursing and cuddling? Your teaching your child that you are always there for them and I feel once you let your baby CIO its hard to regain their trust. Teaching your baby to sleep is different that forcing him to sleep which is what CIO does... he has no other choice. Use the father( if there are no breasts, it may be easier), or sing songs, rock, walk, etc. Our baby loves when we stroke the inside of his hand, or he likes to play with my fingers, and often, he'll be laying down, with the pacifier and go to sleep while we are doing this. You can teach your baby to sleep without nursing.
Anyhow, that is the general theory about the book, it just makes me feel calm and his theories just seem "right" and instinctive to me.
Tylenol worked well for out son too for teething, but it only lasts 4-6 hours, so I really didnt feel like getting up to re dose him in the middle of the night! I hope this helps!

You've gotten a lot of responses but I just wanted to second the posters who said try an earlier bedtime. It's amazing but it often works. He may be overtired and getting wound up by the time you're putting him down. Also, if you're nursing it may be making him crazy that you're in the room and not nursing him--especially if you've coslept in the past. That's the way my son is. He cant' calm down if I go in to soothe him and don't nurse. Could you have your husband go in instead of you? Another thing you could try is nursing him a bit earlier in the routine and not letting him fall asleep. My son stopped waking up 40 minutes after going down when I did this. He occasionally calls out once or twice but I don't have to go in and he falls right back to sleep. He does cry some when I initially put him down but it's rarely more than 5 minutes. If you try this your son may cry a little more at first but give him 10 minutes. You may be surprised. Hope some of this was helpful! Good luck--Sleep is so hard!!
K.

TBPH, I am not a big CIO person either. But I will tell you that we are doing *modified* CIO. This is baby number 3 for me and, I'll tell you, I need my sleep more then I did with the other 2. What we do is 2 minute soothies instead of 5 with the normal CIO method. We do a max of 20 minutes before we pick him up. If he needs his diaper changed or nursed he gets picked up before the 20 minutes is up. We've been using our modified method for about a month now, and he (our youngest son) is happy with how we are doing. My DH and I are happy to because we are getting better sleep to be more effective to the rest of our family. BTW, my son is 8 1/2 months old.

sounds like my son. When he was teething he had a really hard time sleeping. I would usually be able to put him to sleep, but then about 2 hours later he would wake up. I would get him back to sleep & he would wake again a few hours later. I got tired of waking up every few hours. So, after his first wake up I would bring him into our bed & he would sleep with us. He would still wake up, but he would fall asleep faster. Every night when we put him to bed we still started him in the crib & one night he slept most of the time in his crib. The next night he spent the whole night in his crib.
Some things we did to ease his pain....we used nighttime baby oragel all over his gums. On really bad days/nights (when he was chewing on his hands all day) we would use tylenol.
This pattern would repeat everytime he started teething. But after teeething was over he went back to his old sleeping patterns.
He also had trouble sleeping again when he was around a year old. At that time he wasn't teething, he was just going through a mommy phase. He couldn't sleep b/c everytime he woke up & didn't know where I was he got scared. Again we brought him back to our bed (this lasted for a few weeks), but once the mommy phase started to fade he started sleeping better again.
One other thing you may want to try is putting him to bed earlier. My son usually goes to bed between 7 and 8pm and wakes up between 7 and 8 pm. He seems to have a harder time falling asleep if I put him to bed later.
Good Luck.

Hey T.,

Do yourself a favor: keep an open mind and read Ferber's How to Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. Yeah, he's the guy associated with "Cry It Out," but unfortunately, that term doesn't appropriately summarize his method. It's truly unfortunate that people are quick to label his method as such.

Like I said, read his book. It looks daunting -- long -- but you don't have to read the whole thing because certain chapters deal with night terrors, etc... . The man is an expert when it comes to sleep, and he explains sleep cycles and sleep dependencies in a clear, easy to read fashion. Once you understand a little about this and about what he proposes (getting rid of pre-conditions -- rocking, feeding -- in order to get your child to sleep), it all makes sense.

I read his book and followed his method when my daughter was four months old. It took three days or so. Over the course of those three days, the longest amount of time I waited to go in and remind her that I was there for her was about 10 minutes. Today, my daughter goes down in her crib awake. No crying. No fuss. She goes down at 8:30 PM and falls asleep on her own. She sometimes wakes up at night, but will put herself back to sleep. Again, no crying. (Well, unless she's sick in that case I go in and figure out what's going on.)

Good luck. Again, keep an open mind.

T. :)

Hi T.,

I am sorry your little one and you are having such a hard time. I have gone through similar phases with my daughter who is now 15 months old and I have to say that looking back I can now tell when she is teething or not feeling well and as a result has increased night wakings. She co-sleeps with us. I had tried the CIO, but only half-heartedly really and could not go through with it. Nursing, which I am still doing as my daughter also had milk and soy intolerance, helps calm her and put her back to sleep. It does extend the night wakings as even when she is feeling well she wakes up once at night to nurse, but in general she sleeps well. Only you know what is right for your son and your family and following your instincts will pay off. I don't believe that babies cry to "manipulate" I think it is a real need, but you can help your son self-sooth in many different ways what to try is up to you. At this time it sounds like your little one is teething, having gas pains, and/or possibly going through a growth spurt which can disrupt sleep patterns. Whatever you choose make sure it is something you can commit to 100%, I can tell you from experience that waffling makes it harder! Good luck.

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It is hard when your baby is in pain. my son was the same way when cutting teeth at eight months. i would take him and put him in the bathtub with you. sometimes when my son is hysterical and nothing else works that seems to do the trick. he loves the water and playing in the tub. the bath may calm him down befor ehe goes to sleep. give the baby the tylenol but also give him some teething tablets. the hylands teething tablets are great and all natural. they seem to calm the beast.do not feel bad about letting him cry,he needs to learn how to self soothe. good luck.

Alot of moms write in on this subject. Every once in a while you have a child that does not sleep thru the nite. My son was one of them. When he turned 3 he finally started to sleep thru the nite.It was always one thing or another,After months of sllepless nites and feeling like I was having a break down my husband and I decided that we would bring him in to bed with us.From then on he would still wake but I had a bottle ready and within seconds he would be back asleep. he just needed to be close to us.I had tried the crying it out but it did not work for us.I had spoken to a group of close moms at the time who were breastfeeding and had a family bed and they convinced me.After that we all slept and were a much happier family.he is 13 now.and started going in his own room when we bought him a bed.He never liked the crib.
Goodluck!

Maybe you could start during the day trying the procedure that you want him to follow for putting him down to sleep, so that he gets used to it for the night. Make sure that he has a clean diaper, isn't hungry, gets "tummy time" which would be time to move around and exercise which will invigorate him and make him tired. Even keeping him awake more during the day so that he will be extremely tired by bedtime might help. Hopefully you find what helps.

The road is long, lonely, tiresome, frustrating, etc. But, it is what worked for me. I finally had to let me daughter cry it out. Her sleep cycle was much like your son's, where she'd wake after about 35-45 minutes. She'd freak and do anything and everything to let us know she was up and wasn't happy. But, after a few nights it does get better and they finally learn how to self-soothe and fall back to sleep on their own. I found going in to comfort her only frustrated her and I both - she'd think I was coming to get her, so when I left she'd somehow find a way to cry even harder.

Don't get too excited though... this may happen another time or two down the road, again. Just keep doing it. It does get better, but it might seem worse until it does get better, only because you hate to have to listen to them cry. I remember sitting in my bed crying, listening to her cry. I was mad, frustrated, and sad all at the same time. But it did finally stop, when she knew she'd have to fall back to sleep on her own.

Hi T.,

My advice is to stick to your guns and DO NOT do the things you are trying to eliminate (night time nursing, rocking him to sleep, taking him into your bed, etc.) The fact that you "give in" sometimes and do them is most likely confusing your son. He doesn't understand why sometimes they happen and other times you are refusing and this makes him upset-he wants and needs for you to do those things so that he can get to sleep. If you really want to cut out night time feedings you have to make the decision to stop and never look back.

My advice is to start his bedtime WAY earlier. When my daughter was 9 months old, it was the time I decided to cut out the night time feedings and get the girlie able to sleep all night on her own. I made the decision and stuck to my guns. I started bedtime around 7:30 or 8, I did nurse her right before bed as a part of her bedtime routine, but she did not nurse to sleep. It took her 2-3 nights but I also had to use the Pick-up, Put-down method in the book "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems". This method seemed crazy to me, but I wanted to sleep again, so I tried it and I couldn't believe it worked! It lets your baby know that you are there for them, but teaches them to get themselves to sleep on their own. I now have a baby that sleeps through the night, and I really wish I would have cut out night feedings and done the method months before I did!

Good luck to you!

T.,

I skimmed through some of the responses you've already gotten and have to throw my .02 in. Cry it out, for lack of a better term, works for some kids, but it didn't work with my eldest. If left alone, she would cry longer and louder til she made herself sick. You have to do what you feel is right for you and your baby. The Mom who suggested gas may be on the right track. The kicking and squirming do remind me of that. Try the Tylenol, the teething tablets, and the Mylicon gas drops too. None of those will hurt him. And if nursing at night helps, I don't see why your pediatrician told you to stop. Do whatever you feel is helping so that you can both get some sleep. If he takes a night time bath, try lavender in the tub. Do you have something in his room like a fan or humidifier for white noise? That can help too sometimes. Good luck!

There are two things you need to do to ease your own mind, which is all that it takes to fix this.
First, make sure you feed him to absolute capacity during the day all day long, not just right before bed, so he is well full and won't sleep lightly or wake up because of hunger. He is plenty old to make it through the night, just make sure he's REALLY FULL.
Second, after your initial good night routine and final nursing, you need to walk away. The "Cry It Out Method" has been given a bad rap-largely because of the name. It should be called the "Enable Your Child to Feel Comfortable and Happy Falling Asleep Alone Instead of Needing Help Method". I actually think causing the child to depend on a parent all night to keep sleeping is more cruel to the child. I feel parents who do this are comforting themselves more than the child. If the child felt comfortable and secure, they would be fast asleep. When a child is put down for good from the very start, it's not traumatic at all. Both my kids went to sleep on their own from the very beginning, because we put them in their cribs after a nice night routine and walked away from the very start. My son was a bit harder, but even on the nights he cries for a few minutes, he knows no one will be coming in, so he goes to sleep quickly, it's just something he does for himself sometimes. If he REALLY keeps crying, I know he's still hungry or wet or something, because otherwise he falls asleep quickly, and he never wakes up during the night. You can still achieve that, but you'll have a big adjustment period since he's been trained to need you all night. Especially since he got used to the co-sleeping in your room. This all makes going to sleep himself in his room much more traumatic. You were doing your best, and being caring and generous-but it's time to take back your sleep, and let you baby be a man! Use your kind loving mama spirit to remind yourself, that even though he is crying now, he will be much more happy and secure once he sleeps peacefully on his own. Its for his own good. Crying is not hurting him, as long as you know he's safe and full and dry, you have to let him be. You may want to cut down the extra comforting gradually, since he is so used to being comforted, maybe make half the trips in to his room and cut out taking him to yours for a few days, then remove a few more until after a couple of weeks, you don't go in anymore at all.
You're not hurting him! Be strong!!!! Whatever you do, don't give in after a crying battle, or this will get way worse. If you can't follow through, just continue co-sleeping etc until he grows out of it (my friends son grew out of it at age 6). Get him used to a more festive happy morning custom or something to replace all the night time stuff. GOOD LUCK!!!

Hi T.! I love the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby. It has really helped me with my son. I feel your teething pain. My son is 13 months and still waking up because of the pain. As for crying, I didn't mind trying it, but we may have been lucky and it took two nights of whining, not all out crying which I have a hard time with, for him to learn to fall asleep on his own. Just a thought to keep in mind, in the book it says babies should be going to sleep by 8 pm. The later they stay up, the harder it is for them to go to sleep. My son goes to bed at 7 pm and wakes up a little after 7 am. Hope this helps and good luck! It's so hard not to get the needed sleep!!!

I have an 8 1/2 month old right now...and I wasn't a fan of the cry it out method either...but at around 6 months I just needed to get my sleep! I am a part time working mom who gets up at 4:30am and was in major need of sleep. What I did was any time she started to cry (and I knew all her needs were met), I would let her cry for 3-5 min...check on her to make sure she knew I was still there/comfort her, had her pacifier, laid her back down, and then left. (tops 1-2 minutes in the room and I did not pick her up or take her out of the crib). Then I would wait 8-10 min and do it again if she was still crying, then wait another 17-20 min. She never cried more than a total of about 15-20min and wouldn't let her go more than 20 minutes (after about 2 or 3 days she was going to bed just fine). That might seem like a long time...but she started sleeping better, and she now knows how to go to sleep on her own when she's tired, but still not alseep. I also put her to bed around 7:30pm and she sleeps to about 8am. Nap time is better now too. I put her to bed when she starts rubbing her eyes, and she doesn't have to fall asleep just because she is nursing. This is something that worked well for me, so if you feel comfortable, you can give it a try. I hope things start working out so you can get some solid sleep. I know how it is to be sleep deprived and it isn't fun! Good luck!

CIO or the modified Ferber method did not work for us. Our 6.5 month old daughter is too high strung for it - CIO would literally wind her up. Then we read the No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. She offers MANY good ideas for how to teach your child to self soothe/put self to sleep. One idea was to have a lovey for the child. Our daughter now sleeps with one. Granted her sleeping isn't 100%(I'm usually up once a night with her replacing her pacifier - we're working on this), but she can and will put herself to sleep and stay asleep for a longer period of time. Some of the book is available online through excerpts if you're interested.

Hi T., I skimmed through the other responses and it looks like most of the responses are methods for coping with teething pain, but when you mentioned that your son kicks his legs around, I wonder if it could be gas? My daughter had a huge problem with this, and still does sometimes (age 2). If you check the Gas-X section, there are usually several brands of baby gas-x (Milocan, Little Tummies, etc.) that are safe for an infant. Unless you know it's teething, you might want to try that? If it's not gas, this medicine will just pass out. It's only for the belly, not the bloodstream. The books sound interesting too. All I know is it was my sister and brother-in-law who watched my infant squirm, and both said "MILOCAN" We were very grateful!! Good luck!

Hi T.,
I have an 8 1/2 month old and have a friend with a 9 month old boy with the same problem as you. I read the Baby Whisperer book for advice to get my daughter to sleep when we started struggling at about 3 months. The key, in my opionion, to having a good sleeper is a baby who knows how to put himself to sleep. You still have to create the right environment, make sure they are tired and ready for sleep, but the actual falling alseep needs to be their job. It doesn't work when you lay them in their cribs already asleep. You need to try putting him to bed sleepy, but not asleep. My first child, now 5 years old, wasn't able to fall alseep until he cried for 15 minutes. He was like clock work. I would set a timer, because I didn't want him to cry for longer than that, but every night the timer would beep, then the crying would stop and he would be out til morning. At 9 months it will be a little challenging to break bad habits of nursing and cuddling to sleep, but that just means it may take you a week to teach him to fall asleep on his own rather than one or two nights. I'm not sure how you would do this without a little crying. It is never to late to train a child to sleep on their own and so great for both you and baby that he learns to do that! Througout his life their will be noises or rolling over or things that wake him through the night and he should not be waiting for you to walk through the door to put him back to sleep. You will feel a world of difference once your baby has masterd this important skill. My oldest child is an incredible sleeper and we have the added luck that he can stay alseep through anything, but as my younger child appears to be a lighter sleeper and wakes easier to noises, I'm no longer a believer that you can also train your child to sleep through "anything." :) Good luck! Hang in there. Once you start getting some rest, you may also feel better about letting your baby cry a little. If it is too hard, try shutting his door and taking a shower for ten minutes while he is trying to go to sleep for night time or a nap. Your baby will be safe in their crib... it is okay to let them cry. Just my opinion. Good luck.

As much as you don't like the "Cry It Out" method, it works. Your son needs to learn how to comfort himself. It is an essential development skill for him to learn. Believe me, listening to your son cry is harder on you than it is on him. It will take some time, but if you stick to it, it will work. When doing this method, the worst thing you can do is check on him. As soon as you go in there, you have ruined whatever progress you have made. He will get so tired from all the crying that he will lay down and go to sleep. Keep in mind that this is not going to be solved in one day. It may take several days for him to really learn to comfort himself.