Help me teach my 9 month old to sleep!!!! (warning: VERY long)

[happymom]

OK, I have posted before about my DD's sleep "schedule", but now it is completely out-of-wack and I am at a total loss. There MUST be some way to train this child, but I am so sleep deprived I cannot even think clearly. Here's the story (sorry if its long...)

I am a teacher- DD was on a decent schedule at the end of the school year last year. Then I was off for the summer and her schedule just kind of evaporated into thin air. My fault, I know. I was not strict about sticking to it- boy, do I regret that now!

So now, I am back to work. My schedule is 8:30-3. I come home for a 45 minute break at 11. DH watches DD at home until 11:45, then DD goes to MIL until 3.

Tell me if this theoretical sleep schedule makes sense to you.
7:30 am> wake up and eat
9:30-11:30> morning nap
11:30> eat
3:00> eat
3:30-5:30> afternoon nap
6:00 > eat
9:00> bath and eat again
9:30> bedtime

Is it too long for her to stay awake from 11:30-3 every day?

I know the bedtime is fairly late, but she is currently going to sleep even later than that and I dont think she will even know its nighttime if I put her to sleep earlier than 9:30. She would probably sleep for an hour and wake up ready to party. This has happened.

Btw, I am not even working on getting her to sleep through the night at this point. I have no problem with her waking up once for a feeding. Anything is better than now- last night she was up straight from 3-6:30 am. SCREAMING. All she wanted to do was eat. I truly do not think she was teething or growing etc. She certainly wasnt hungry. I feel like all of a sudden, since she turned 9 months, something just clicked and she seems to understand SOOO much more. She realized that she can just scream and scream (no tears even! Just screaming!) and I will eventually give in and feed her because at 5 am, its hard to not give in!

So, HOW HOW HOW do I go about training her? I am not a fan of CIO, but I am ok with letting her cry as long as DH or I go in every 5 min or so to tell her we love her etc. That is actually what I am doing right now, she is SCREECHING in her crib as I type this.

For anyone who has read this far, you are awesome. Thanks so much! I'll take any advice you can offer!!!

Sorry this is so long and rambling- 3 hours of sleep kinda does that to me!

[SnuggleBuggles]

We have had nights like that. Luckily it would be no more than three, and often just one, really bad night followed by 10 days of good. I never really figured it out. I remember once, a bit older than your dd, is actually feeding him at 3:30am b/c nursing wasn't working and nothing else was either. He gobbled down his food and went to sleep! It was good b/c I knew that it would get better, at least temporarily. Wishing you the same luck!

The only thing I notice on your schedule is that she only eats 5 times/ day. Are those eating times a mix of solids and bf/ ff or something else? I was still nursing 6-7 times/ day plus 1-2 solid meals at that age. Every child is different though.

Beth

[happymom]

We have had nights like that. Luckily it would be no more than three, and often just one, really bad night followed by 10 days of good. I never really figured it out. I remember once, a bit older than your dd, is actually feeding him at 3:30am b/c nursing wasn't working and nothing else was either. He gobbled down his food and went to sleep! It was good b/c I knew that it would get better, at least temporarily. Wishing you the same luck!

The only thing I notice on your schedule is that she only eats 5 times/ day. Are those eating times a mix of solids and bf/ ff or something else? I was still nursing 6-7 times/ day plus 1-2 solid meals at that age. Every child is different though.

Beth

I didnt mention her nighttime feedings. She usually eats 2x during the night. Now that you mention it though, if she would actually sleep through the night like many babies at this age do, then she WOULD only be getting those 5 feedings. I dont really see how I could add another feeding during the daytime because I work until 3 and fter that she is already eating every 3 hours. I'm not going to feed her more often than that, right? She doesnt really eat muc solid food...but thats a whole other story.

[BabyMine]

At 9 months DS2 was going through a growth spurt and ate like a pig. We were bottle feeding him so when he would cry at night I would go in with a bottle of water instead of formula. He would drink a little then go to sleep. How is she during that long stretch between 11:30 - 3? Is she showing signs of being tired?

[BeachBum]

Are you familiar with the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child by Dr. Weissbluth?
He has a method he calls "sleep training", and the book really has a lot of scientific evidence about sleep.

My interpretation of what he would say about your situation is that bedtime is too late and the morning nap is too long.
To work with the body's natural sleep rhythms you would do naptimes around 9am and then at 1pm, with a bedtime around 8.

As for CIO, I think for it to be effective you really need a plan. You can't just happazardly let your child cry. Think of it as setting them up for success. You need to do everything you can to provide the opportunity for her to sleep at the right times. You also need to be very soothing and getting her almost there on her own. Then just let her do that last little part--actually falling asleep-- on her own.
Around 9 months babies do become so much more aware. That is why it is so important for you to have a good sleep routine in place.
Also, if you do decide to CIO stick with it. It is really unfair to the child to sometimes CIO and sometimes not. They just can't figure out what the heck is going on and often cry more (because sometimes it DOES work).

Hope those thoughts were helpful.

[happymom]

Are you familiar with the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child by Dr. Weissbluth?
He has a method he calls "sleep training", and the book really has a lot of scientific evidence about sleep.

My interpretation of what he would say about your situation is that bedtime is too late and the morning nap is too long.
To work with the body's natural sleep rhythms you would do naptimes around 9am and then at 1pm, with a bedtime around 8.

As for CIO, I think for it to be effective you really need a plan. You can't just happazardly let your child cry. Think of it as setting them up for success. You need to do everything you can to provide the opportunity for her to sleep at the right times. You also need to be very soothing and getting her almost there on her own. Then just let her do that last little part--actually falling asleep-- on her own.
Around 9 months babies do become so much more aware. That is why it is so important for you to have a good sleep routine in place.

Also, if you do decide to CIO stick with it. It is really unfair to the child to sometimes CIO and sometimes not. They just can't figure out what the heck is going on and often cry more (because sometimes it DOES work).

Hope those thoughts were helpful.

Thank you, that was very helpful indeed! Thanks for taking the time to write all that out for me. I do have Weissbluth's book- I actually borrowed it from a friend months ago...its a hard book to get through as it seems very wordy and tedious, but maybe I should look through it again now. Can I just ask you a couple questions based on what you said-
1. Just curious, how did you figure out that she should be napping at 9 am and 1pm? Is that just standard for her age?
2. How long should each nap be approximately?
3. If she's going to sleep at 8, what time should she be waking up? Around 7-7:30?
4. Isnt it a long stretch to go from lets say 3pm (when she wakes up from nap) to 8pm without any sleep?

I definitely agree with your thoughts on CIO. I understand that its unfair to be inconsistent, and I agree that you cant just decide to let a baby CIO without a plan. Did my post make it sound like I was just letting her scream without soothing or calming her? Because that is not the case. I was really tired when I wrote that post (still am!) and was having a hard time putting everything into words...

Anyways, my real question is HOW do I get her to adapt to a very different schedule than she is on now? Where do I start? I cant just put her to sleep earlier one night because she will not be tired and will just wake up after a short period of time. It seems like the most logical thing is to start by waking her up at 7 and keeping her up until her morning nap (right now she will wake up to eat at 8am before I go to work and then go back to sleep until 11am)...and then take it from there. Or do I start by moving her bedtime a bit earlier every night until we reach the 8pm bedtime? That just seems like it would take so long...

Thanks again for all your help!

[happymom]

At 9 months DS2 was going through a growth spurt and ate like a pig. We were bottle feeding him so when he would cry at night I would go in with a bottle of water instead of formula. He would drink a little then go to sleep. How is she during that long stretch between 11:30 - 3? Is she showing signs of being tired?

Yes, she does show signs of being tired and will usually fall asleep for about 20 minutes while on a walk with MIL.

[happymom]

I just wanted to update and ask another question if that ok

So, DD is now sleeping on a schedule beautifully, thank goodness! Basically, we did a modified ferber (I guess) for 2 nights- we let her cry, going in every 5 minutes to pat her back and say "we love you, but its time to sleep..." and go right back out. This went on for about an hour, until she realized we were NOT going to pick her up and take her out. Now she goes to sleep without a peep. We put her in her crib completely awake, and she goes right to sleep. A true miracle!

BUT (of course, there has to be a BUT) she is still waking up twice a night to eat. She goes to sleep about 9 (right after a feeding), wakes up at 12:30 to eat, at 4ish to eat again and then at 7:30 for the day. How to I get this to stop? Do I just not feed her? Send DH in to put her back to sleep? Is it that simple? She certainly doesnt need to be eating twice during the night. I think she has just learned that I will feed her, so why not?

What do I do?

Thanks so much...

[SnuggleBuggles]

How do you know for sure she doesn't need to eat? That's the one that always baffles me. Some nights I know I am hungry. Plus, babies grow so much that they could conceivably be having a growth spurt anytime. It's hard to say that they really don't need to eat.

You could try not offering. Get your dp involved, if possible, and have them tend to baby for at least one of those feedings and see if being soothed in ways not involving food work or not.

Feeding ds in the middle of the night was a quick, full proof way for all of us to get back to sleep asap so I stuck with it. He stopped doing it on his own (of course, he was 15m old t that time... ).

Beth

[happymom]

Well, I think feeding once during the night is reasonable. TWICE is a bit much for a 9 month old, dont you think? She basically doesnt go for longer than 4 hours without eating EVER! She should be able to do one 6 hour stretch for sure. As a matter of fact, she used to sleep 7-8 hours straight when she was younger (about 4 months I think).