9-month-old still waking up at night every 2-3 hours to nurse

[ecoscapeleah]

My 9-month-old still wakes up at night every 2-3 hours, or more frequently, to nurse. She sleeps in a crib in our room. I have tried cosleeping and nursing while lying down, but it doesn't work for us. Is this normal for breast-fed infants? Any suggestions to help her sleep longer so that I am not so exhausted?

[cschick]

Originally Posted by ecoscapeleah

My 9-month-old still wakes up at night every 2-3 hours, or more frequently, to nurse. She sleeps in a crib in our room. I have tried cosleeping and nursing while lying down, but it doesn't work for us. Is this normal for breast-fed infants? Any suggestions to help her sleep longer so that I am not so exhausted?

There's both growth and developmental spurts around 9 months. There may also be a decrease in daytime nursing with a corresponding increase in night time nursing. My babe went from 1-2 wakings a night to every two hours around 9 months and didn't decrease wakings again until 11 months. (Now, at 14 months, he goes down at 9pm and generally gets up for a nursing at 5am.)

If you need more sleep--try to encourage an increase in daytime nursing sessions, maybe even try to encourage a cluster feeding in the evening.

[Swirly]

My 19 month old still does it too. Some kids just seem to do this longer. At 9 months, it is very typical though, I think.

[MommytoHHH]

My DD just turned one and she still wakes up every 2-3 hours to nurse. She has just in the last week or so started sleeping 4 hours occasionally. I think it's really normal.

[Momtwice]

Yes, it's normal. They often increase their nursing around 7-8-9 months for many reasons, teething, growing, hitting milestones....

[Phoenix_Rising]

My 23 month old toddler still wakes every hour and a half to two hours to nurse. We do co-sleep, for whatever it is worth and have since he was born. I don't think that it is necessarily a breastfed baby thing, I think it is an individual child thing. Are there times that she is only nursing for comfort or does it seem that she is needing to nurse for nutrition every time?

[Ruthla]

Yup, it sounds very normal to me.

How long ago did you try cosleeping and nursing lying down? Just because it didn't work when she was smaller doesn't mean it won't work now.

I'd suggest putting her in the crib at the start of the night, and if she wakes up during the night, after you're already in bed, keep her in bed with you the rest of the night. This way she's in the crib for at least part of the night and she'll spend more time in there the nights she needs less milk, but you're not constantly going up and down on the nights when she's needier.

[runes]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

Yup, it sounds very normal to me.

How long ago did you try cosleeping and nursing lying down? Just because it didn't work when she was smaller doesn't mean it won't work now.

I'd suggest putting her in the crib at the start of the night, and if she wakes up during the night, after you're already in bed, keep her in bed with you the rest of the night. This way she's in the crib for at least part of the night and she'll spend more time in there the nights she needs less milk, but you're not constantly going up and down on the nights when she's needier.

:

our soon to be 2 year old has some nights when she still nurses every 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending upon what is going on. teething, especially molars, have been a huge influence on night nursing frequency. on average though she usually goes about 3 hours between nursings at night.

as ruthla said, i would definitely try the sidelying nursing again. sometimes the proportions of mama and baby don't work for that position in the early months, but as the baby gets bigger things might change.

hang in there, mama!

[runes]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

Yup, it sounds very normal to me.

How long ago did you try cosleeping and nursing lying down? Just because it didn't work when she was smaller doesn't mean it won't work now.

I'd suggest putting her in the crib at the start of the night, and if she wakes up during the night, after you're already in bed, keep her in bed with you the rest of the night. This way she's in the crib for at least part of the night and she'll spend more time in there the nights she needs less milk, but you're not constantly going up and down on the nights when she's needier.

:

our soon to be 2 year old has some nights when she still nurses every 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending upon what is going on. teething, especially molars, have been a huge influence on night nursing frequency. on average though she usually goes about 3 hours between nursings at night. she cosleeps with us and the sidelying nursing has been a true lifesaver, some nights i hardly wake up when she latches on. and since dd doesn't even wake up at all, she just rolls over and latches on in her sleep, it's not like she needs to be attended to to soothe her if she had woken up and started to fuss/cry.

as ruthla said, i would definitely try the sidelying nursing again. sometimes the proportions of mama and baby don't work for that position in the early months, but as the baby gets bigger things might change.

hang in there, mama!

[attachedmamaof3]

My DD is 9 months and that sounds about right!! The only way I get any sleep is to co-sleep....then we can cuddle up, nurse, unlatch and roll apart a bit to get comfortable.

[mommyof2gr8kids]

Unfortunately, not unusual

My daughter slept through the night at two weeks, however, my 11-month-old son generally wakes up every two hours (sometimes as often as every half hour) throughout the night. I have found that it helps if I feed him a fairly protein-intensive snack just before bed. Then he will sometimes (gasp!) sleep four hours before waking. As for the co-sleeping and breastfeeding while lying down thing -- if I didn't do both, I would get no sleep whatsoever! If your child was very young when you tried the lying down breastfeeding, try it again. When they are tiny it doesn't work very well, but once they get a bit bigger, it often works very well. Good luck (and hopefully and you can get some rest -- maybe I can too!).

[tanyalynn]

Here are a couple of off-the-wall thoughts based on my experience with my son (my daughter slept well, it was a bit of a shock the 2nd time around). My son woke (and still wakes, at 17mos) more often when he's teething. But our old chiropractor said he could help with that, and he did! I was shocked (but desperate for sleep, so I said go for it). In general, I think discomfort, which may be subtle (like alignment-type stuff that chiros can do) can prevent babies/toddlers from drifting between light and heavy sleep well. I think it's worth finding a chiro experienced with kids (icpa4kids.org is a good place to start).

2nd really weird idea: we're dealing with mercury poisoning from my fillings, and since mercury messed with melatonin usage in the body, we both supplement. That's helped a lot (working with a HCP on this one, I had no idea my fillings, put in 20yrs ago, could cause this much havoc).

Hoping #2 isn't your problem.

And yes, I couldn't do the lying-down nursing thing for a long time (til kiddo was 5mos old) but we tried it again and it eventually worked (though I can still only do it while lying on my left side).

[amandaleigh37]

I wish I had an answer for you.... my 12 month old is the same way, but usually more often than that. In fact it's 2am right now and we're awake. We do co-sleep and I can nurse him while laying down, but sometimes he has trouble going back to sleep. I really hope this stage ends soon... because I need more sleep than this too

[Enudely]

my 18 month old still wakes up at least that often. It's starting to drive me insane!!! :

[ZanZansMommy]

Originally Posted by Susannah M

My 23 month old toddler still wakes every hour and a half to two hours to nurse. We do co-sleep, for whatever it is worth and have since he was born. I don't think that it is necessarily a breastfed baby thing, I think it is an individual child thing. Are there times that she is only nursing for comfort or does it seem that she is needing to nurse for nutrition every time?

: My almost 2yr old DS is up every 2-3 hrs. It's getting old quickly:

[happyfrog]

sounds like my kid actually.

he's now 20 months old. seems like when my oldest was about 2 1/2, he ceased waking as often - down to one/two times night. i hope and pray that my current nursling follows suit because honestly, i'm exhausted.


i have a feeling your kid is normal. or normal for him/her.

[evies_mom]

Yep, had the same experience here when my dd was 9 months old. At 13 months, it increased to every 45 minutes to 90 minutes between feeds. At that point, even though we co-slept, I was not getting enough sleep to be the mom I wanted to be. I turned to Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution for help. With consitancy and gentility, we started seeing improvement within a few days in a months time she was sleeping through the night. For us, she really had a strong sleep association with nursing to sleep. It really was that- no crying, and she even seems happier during the day as well. HTH

[stacyann21]

My 10 month old wakes anywhere between 2 and 6 or so times a night to nurse. It used to drive me crazy until I just accepted it. Now I wake up, rollover, plop one out and go back to sleep.

[CaraboosMama]

Originally Posted by attachedmamaof3

My DD is 9 months and that sounds about right!! The only way I get any sleep is to co-sleep....then we can cuddle up, nurse, unlatch and roll apart a bit to get comfortable.

: It's back up to that frequency with my 16 mth old too..growth spurts, ttething, etc just kick things up a bit. Cosleeping makes it soooo much easier!

[PapayaVagina]

I would take every 2-3 hours ANY DAY! My almost 1-year old dd wakes up every 45 to 60 minutes (until dawn and then it's every 15 to 30 minutes) all night EVERY night.