STTN for a 9 month old? I'm tired. Help.

[PaytonPlace]

I am tired. I feel like all I think and talk about is my sleep deprivation. This has been such a different experience for us because our DD was a great sleeper without any effort and we were spoiled. DS is FF and wakes up every single night for a bottle. He has never slept all night during his entire 9 months. He takes good naps during the daytime, usually an hour in the morning and probably 2ish hours in the afternoon. He goes to sleep pretty easily, on his own, around 730pm-8pm. Then he will wake up anywhere between 2am-4am. Some nights he will wake up twice, around 11pm and again around 3ish. And then he wakes up for the day around 630am. A few times we can give him a bottle and he will go right back to sleep but many times he is up & thinks it's play time (babbling mamamama or dadadada and clapping, etc which is so cute but also so frustrating at that hour! ) for at least 45 mins and longer. He is off the charts for growth (has been since he was born) so it would do no harm for him to miss that bottle. Our ped started telling us at like 4 or 5 months that if we really want him to sleep all night to let him CIO but that method is not for us. I'm totally not a book person when it comes to child rearing, I usually "go with the flow", haven't read every (or any) sleep routine books, etc. But I'm to the point where this is really affecting our lives. He is a happy baby during the day but wow, how unhappy our house turns at night time and then in the morning, there is one tired & grumpy mama. DH & I both work full-time and we have kind of opposite schedules so I don't get a chance to nap when he naps during the day and when DH is home is usually when I'm working so we can't trade off on catching up on sleep, plus we have a 4 y/o to take care of as well. I guess I'm looking for any type of advice for those that have BTDT? Or do I need to just suck it up and get through the next year or so of minimal sleep??

[snoopy5386]

Have you tried watering down the bottle? Just put more and more water and less formula until it is all water? Then hopefully he won't wake up.

[hakeber]

Or don't give him the bottle. Bounce or pat him back to sleep. (eta: only if you think he doesn't need it.)

FWIW 9 months is a hard age for sttn because so much is going on developmentally. Teeth, standing up, talking, refined motor skills...everyday they are learning so much their sleep patterns are disrupted with ever more vivid (and possibly frightening) dreams. I have found that often all dd really needs to go back to sleep is a cuddle. Alternatively, it might be time to revert back to white noise, pacis, or any other soothing technique he likes. DS only STTN if there was very loud white noise nearby (a radio on static or a hairdrier on full blast on the cool setting -- we went through three of these in the first 18 months of his life) until he was nearly two.

Babies, like adults, stir every few hours, but the difference between stirring and waking is usually the baby's ability to sleep through these stirrings. If your baby is usd to sleeping with milkies, he will need to be given other sleep tools.

This site might help: http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth/boo...sbn=0071381392

[Friday13th]

Oh gosh, 9 months is a TERRIBLE age for sleep. DS1 nursed all night and thrashed and periodically screamed. It was hellish and I think some combination of developing tons of new skills and lots of teeth popping through. I remember by his 1st birthday it had gotten much better. So no advice, just sympathy.

[Friday13th]

Oh gosh, 9 months is a TERRIBLE age for sleep. DS1 nursed all night and thrashed and periodically screamed. It was hellish and I think some combination of developing tons of new skills and lots of teeth popping through. I remember by his 1st birthday it had gotten much better. So no advice, just sympathy.

[BathrobeGoddess]

Moved to FBNP

[RiverandJulie]

I hope I dont sound like a jerk here, but I have a FF 11 month old.  He was a preemie and developmentally ~ 9 months. So in a very similar place as yours.  

The nights that he wakes up once and gets up at 6:30 are 'good' nights for us.  We just went through about a month in which he would get up 3 times most nights (teething, crawling, a cold...). DH and I were falling apart from lack of sleep. I work, so I totally understand the no nap thing.  My husband is a SAHD, but our LO only naps in 45 minute stretches-so he didnt get many naps either.

We are now back to waking up only once or twice and sleeping until 7 (most nites, this morning he was up at 5:30).  I am content with this.

For us, the best thing to do is go to bed early and take turns at night. One of us feeds in the middle of the night and the other one gets up early.  We co-sleep, so we both wake up in the middle of the night and in the morning, but one of us is able to sleep for each. 

It is rough, I am tired most of the time, but eventually we will get some sleep? I hope.....

[sageowl]

No advice, but just letting you know you aren't alone.  I'm just grateful that I don't have one of those kids who wakes up every two hours.

[fnpmama]

My boys are both FF (unable to BF due to IGT) and we struggled similarly with DS2.  DS1 like your first had been easy so we got spoiled (He STTN @12 wks) But for DS2 we were getting very tired and we both work fulltime so something had to give.  At a certain point when I knew he did not need the nutrition, I just stopped feeding him at night.  i comforted him in other ways, but he did not get a bottle, I never let him play at all and I didn't play with him, just held, patted, rocked in a dark room with white noise on.  It was tough because he did cry for the bottle, but I was there for him, holding, comforting and after 1-2 weeks he eventually he stopped the 2-4am wakings.  He was and is still an early riser wakes at about 6:30AM for the day,  but since we stopped feeding him he has STTN.

[SeattleRain]

I know you said you're not really a book person, but I really want to recommend Dr. Weissbluth's "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." Full disclosure, they have four different "methods" you can use when you go (or not go) to your baby at night and one of them is CIO and another one is pretty darn close to CIO, so avoid those. We are using the "maybe cry" method, defined that way because we don't cosleep and so I can't respond to his awakenings immediately by nursing the way that a family bed situation would be. He has great advice about how to help your baby get off of the nighttime bottle.

We definitely use white noise and its really incredible how well it works to block out noise. Give it a try, see if it helps. I definitely would try making the bottle diluted, eventually it won't be so appealing.