talk to me about the 9 month sleep regression

[Tattooed Hand]

The 4 month one was really tough and I was very unprepared. DD is almost 8 months old and I keep hearing about the 9 month one. What has been your experience with it?

[emiree]

I'm having difficulties at 9 months...

My 9 month old has always coslept and fed at night, but with barely a wimper or ever a true wake-up. She goes to bed at 7pm, and I don't go until 10pm, and usually she was fine until I went to bed. Sometimes, we'd have to go up and put her back down once.

Well...now she is up every 45 minutes or so until I am in bed with her, and at night comes to full awake and cries more until I feed her or just pacify her with the breast. Her naptime sleep has also become lighter so it is harder to get her to stay down or put her down if I wear her to sleep in the sling.

I would love to hear from others if they have suggestions or how to deal with it. I'm just hoping that it soon passes!

[akind1]

There is a 9 month sleep regression :shock

DS is 8 1/2 months old, I am not looking forward to it!! though I have noticed, like PP, he doesn't sleep long in the bed by himself anymore. Once we are in bed with him, it isn't so bad. He also naps more lightly . . . .I seem sometimes like I am nursing all night. though last night he let me rock him at one point - that is a rare thing.

[LuluMama8]

My DD is now 14 month old and definitely went through a 9 month sleep regression although really things started going downhill at 6 months, hit rock bottom at 9-10 months, and slowly improved by 12 months or so. For a couple months there she woke up every 1 to 1 1/2 all night long demanding nursing(we cosleep) and we tried absolutely everything I could think of (besides CIO which wouldn't work for us philosophically) including suggestions from the No Cry Sleep Solution (which I highly recommend). We tried ending the suck-to-sleep association, room darkening, a lovey, cue words, white noise, DH sleeping with DD in the same room, in a different room, and on and on. Absolutely nothing made a difference besides time. So all I can tell you is please prepare yourself as best you can by thinking about you and DH can arrange your schedules so you can make up sleep as necessary. I felt truly on the edge of insanity with sleep deprivation during this period until my DH changed his work schedule to watch DD from first wake up until first nap (6 or 7 until 9)- my longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep each night! And know that it definitely will pass, regardless (or in spite of) what you do.

[Tattooed Hand]

Wow, Lulumama, that sounds just like my DD during months 4 and 5. I read the NCSS and nothing is making much of a difference. Do you think it's useless to try the suggestions? The only thing that has worked for us has been getting her used to napping on her own (instead of on me). Otherwise she seems impervious to everything else.

[dpelephant]

8-12 months with my DD (now 2 1/2) was definetely a low point. Nothing we tried seemed to work. My DS who is 8 months is already starting to show "the regression"
napping only 30-45 minutes at a crack, waking up at 5am, fully waking at night and not falling asleep as easily and only with nursing. Time is the only thing that seemed to help with DD and I expect the same for my DS.

[billikengirl]

Why have I never heard of this?!?!? We are in the thick of it now and DS is 9 months today. We have crying every hour and crawling in his sleep going on for the past week. I thought it might be teeth.

I'm super tired, but glad to hear it's normal.

[LuluMama8]

I would still recommend trying suggestions from the NCSS just to feel like you are doing something but I wouldn't get too dogmatic about it. And it might just feel better to say, hey this is so rough, the easiest way through this is the path of least resistance which is just to go with your LO's flow and know that it will improve. Sometimes I find working on the NCSS suggestions are really exhausting and it is easier to just wake up a million times, go back to sleep, and not fret about sucking to sleep associations and what not. So I guess just whatever feels better to you: to work on it (knowing it may not do anything) or to just let it run its course.

[memz]

Originally Posted by Tattooed Hand

The only thing that has worked for us has been getting her used to napping on her own (instead of on me). Otherwise she seems impervious to everything else.

I am wondering how you did this, because my DD who is 7 months has pretty much always napped on us.... and I have tried pretty much anything I can think about without much luck...

[Tattooed Hand]

It was really exhausting and it took about 4 weeks to see results. I would nurse her to sleep and then just before she fell asleep, I would remove the nursing pillow and lay down with her. Then, just after she stopped sucking I would remove my boob. She often would start rooting again and then a la the NCSS I would press up on the bottom of her chin. In the beginning it took 3-5 times before she gave up rooting. After she falls asleep, I would slowly extract myself and leave a nice lovey (I use a giraffe blanket) in my place. In the beginning she would wake up when I left or wake up after like 15-20 minutes. But after what seemed like forever she finally started napping on her own.