Talk about the 9-month sleep regression

I had a request to put up a post where you guys could talk about how you're dealing with or not dealing well with the 9-month sleep regression.

To recap, this is the period encompassing the developmental leap at week 37 and the one at week 46. Very very often there's also some teething mixed in there, and learning to crawl and/or pull up and/or cruise and/or walk.

Which means you've got a brain working on developmental stuff that won't let the kid sleep, a brain and body working on movement that won't let the kid sleep, and maybe some random shooting or throbbing gum and jaw pain in there, too.

In other words, you're going to have to accept that the kid just can't sleep straight through until some of this is over with.

(We haven't even mentioned how this sleep regression can affect other stuff, too, like naps and mood and clinginess and what they'll eat and won't eat. Some kids who keep sleeping at night just wig out during the day--that's their particular reaction to the developmental spurts.)

Which means your plan shifts from Get Kid To Stay Asleep to Maximize Sleep For Everyone Else. This is not the time to pretend you know what's going on or that you have it all under control. This is not the time to say "your job is this and mine is that." It's the time to divide up the schedule so everyone gets 5 hours at a stretch if possible. If one of you has to go to sleep at 8 pm and take the 8-1 shift so the other has the 1-6 shift, do it.

Here are the important things to remember: Lots of us have been through it. You will get through it. There is nothing inherently wrong with your child--this is normal. Hideous and demoralizing, but normal. You're doing a good job.

Now, commiserators?

Comments

[BrooklynGirl]

Yes, we're in the midst of this. My daughter will be 10 months old tomorrow, and though she's never been a good sleeper, she's going through (another) rough patch right now. As soon as she's even a little conscious, she pulls herself up to a standing position in her crib and (I think) can't figure out how to get back down. She's also teething.

She goes down at 7ish and is generally up at 11 and then every 1-2 hours after that.

The only thing that's helped me is this: she's used to napping in her stroller so often after one night waking, I'll put her down in the stroller and she'll actually sleep longer there since she can't pull up.

I'm curious about what other commenters will say.

[Carri]

Our daughter is almost 8 months, so I'm curious if this is what might be going on. Although - to be honest - she's never been a "great" sleeper (if "great" means more than 4-5 hours at a stretch). She's still breastfed and that's really the only guarantee that she'll go back to sleep. Even then, she'd rather be in our bed. I'd love to hear from someone on the "other side" of all of this that we're not making matters worse by continuing to feed on cue, because much of what I get from everyone else is that we are teaching her bad habits.

[sleepy but getting by]

Our 9 month sleep regression has lasted since 4 months. Or has our 4 month sleep regression lasted until 9 months? If I had slept more than 2 hours straight in the last 5 months I might be able to answer that.

We are just muddling our way through right now. Bringing munchkin to bed with us helped for a while but all of a sudden he kicks IN HIS SLEEP constantly. I wish he would just get the crawling thing down so he will stop practicing all night.

On top of that I am expecting that first tooth to pop in any moment now and he was running a fever all weekend. We are also in separation anxiety overload.

My husband is a police officer and can help at night when he has the next day off but really needs some decent sleep to make it through a 12 hour day dealing with the bad guys. I work outside of the home too but my sleep is generally sacrificed for his. I never would have imagined how little sleep I can function on. Just functioning, not thriving but functioning none the less.

So no tips here just gripes. I just keep reminding myself that this too shall pass.

[abcd]

@ Carrie, no answers, just reinterating the need to get that question answered in my mind. My lo will also only go back to sleep with breastfeeding (unless you want an hour of crying and a sobby mess of a baby). Being this exhausted makes thinking clearly really difficult and so I don't know what to believe or do. Am I teaching her that whenever she comes to during the night (which is frequently), she needs to be fed back to sleep? I know we should just get through it...but I can't ever see her sleeping through since the best she has ever done is 4 hour stretches. By this age, I really thought I'd be getting some sleep!!!

[z]

Our 9 month ended at around 11 months and then we had 2 blissful months of sleeping through the night- 1 5+ hour stretch. So first have hope that you have some good sleep coming your way.

What got me through the 9-month regression which drove me insane at the 4-month regression was even if panda didn't want to nap. I would put him in a safe place in our bed or on the floor or wherever and lay down myself for an hour or however long I needed too. Knowing that he was safe allowed me to doze and he was usually content playing around and then eventually falling asleep for naps.

Nighttime- the only way I have survived all regressions is having a husband who will switch off on the soothing process.

[Pam]

Hi to Carri - I'm on the other side. As soon as my daughter (now 15 months)learned to pull up on furniture, she pulled up in her crib. The first night as I woke to screaming, I thought it was adorable that she was standing. Presumably the screaming was because she couldn't figure out how to lie back down. This happened every night for 3 months, 1-2 times a night (it stopped being adorable). Then, magically, one night, sleeping through again, no intervention from us.
So I have no tips - just it will get better.

[sheSaid]

Really perfect timing for this. We've got teething, perfecting rolling, working on crawling, working on pulling up and at 34/35 weeks we are just hitting that next dev. And last nights sleep DISASTER seems to spell a change headed our way.

After 45 min of nursing (he's asleep until I start to move) trapped in bed while I just want 30 min to myself I gave up. Cry, play, perhaps dad can take a turn... but I bowed out.

Also biting while nursing? HELP!?

[abcd]

@ sleepy but getting by. Wife of a police officer here. Same problem with 12 hour shift thing. It gets so lonely dealing with the nights on your own, doesn't it? I also get no rest from co sleeping. There has to be another way. I keep considering sleep training but do not think I can go through with it, so I keep hoping that one day, things will get better...that this too shall pass. I know we're taking about sleep regressions and that sleep training during a regression is apparantly difficult, but at what point, when the kid has NEVER been a great sleeper, do you say it's time something is changed? How do you separate a baby that has developed 'inappropriate sleep associations' from one that is just going from one regression to another?

[andrea]

We had a horrible, HORRIBLE sleeper from 4months - 10months. Started with the 4month sleep regression, and ended with the 9month sleep regression (in the middle there was messing with reflux meds and he was not sleeping at all, but at least he wasnt in that super-alert-sleep-regression-state where a bird chirping 4 miles away would be enough to end whatever semi-relaxation he may have had going on).

4month sleep regression I thought I was going to die. I also thought I could "fix" it.
What got me through the 9month regression was knowing that it would go away on its own. So I dealt with it for a month or so, and coming out on the other side of it... WE HAVE A BABY THAT SLEEPS! He sleeps like all those people I hated so much from 4-10 months kids sleep. We put him down at 8 and we dont hear from him til 7am (some of that has to do with getting his meds right finally, but some of it has to do with getting through that regression as well). Its wonderful. However, I know it'll all change the next time he hits a developmental spurt. Oh well.

I dont think there are any tips other than to try to grit your teeth and bare it. Things WILL change. If I, someone who has never in my life been able to function on less than 10hrs of sleep, can get through waking up every 20-30 mins for 6months straight, so can you. And once its over, you will feel SO SO SO much better. You forget quickly how horrible it was. It was only a few weeks ago for me, yet I already find myself forgetting the hell I went through.

[flea]

For both my kids - the crap crap crap sleeper and the decent sleeper - the 9 month sleep regression was the worst. For starters, it seemed to last forever - not a quickie like some others, more like 2 months (starting before 9 months). Pulling up wasn't an issue, but crawling was, and teething. And in both cases co-sleeping became really problematic at this age. We moved Casper to a crib, which didn't help but didn't seem to make it any worse, either; with Dillo we just kept him in the bed and coped with the thrashing and wiggling as best we could (mr. flea slept on the couch a lot.)

I've got no advice, just whatever gets you the most sleep, and it will end. (And then start again at some later point, like my impossible 20 month old who got used to sleeping with me in a hotel room bed over Easter and now wants desperately to kick me in the neck all night.)

[pnuts mama]

@ shesaid- oh, the biting during teething was the WORST! i used a tip from here back then that whenever pnut would stop sucking and start fooling around/biting i would immediately remove her from my breast say "OUCH! that hurts mommy! no biting!" and put her down, and walk away. of course she'd cry and i'd come back in a minute and say "do you want to eat?" and give her the other side. this took awhile (probably a week or so) but she started associating biting= no boobie and i guess made the decision that boob was better than a bite. we were also giving her plenty of crap to bite/chew at that point to relieve the gums.

*ALSO* i would like to say something about the whole teething disaster- whenever pnut would teeth (which really seemed like a constant process that began early and never ended for months) it was like she was a completely different baby- she was so miserable and would NOT LET ME PUT HER DOWN and honestly the first few times i really thought it was going to kill me. it took me forever to make the connection that she was in pain and not just turning into this horrible child that was always miserable. i know that mouth pain happens to be my weakness as well- i have a somewhat high tolerance for pain, but it's awful when i have anything tooth or gum related, and i would never hesitate to not take something if i needed it.

when i finally talked to her pediatrician about it, he recommended giving her tylenol to help her through the pain (and he is not one to jump at giving *anything* unless needed)- but this made such a tremendous difference in her whole demeanor and ability to get through those days i just wanted to mention it. i know lots of us are averse to giving stuff for whatever reason, but this really made the difference- helped her sleep longer, enjoy the day more, not bite me, etc.- of course get the ok from your ped, but it's just something that would have helped us much sooner if i had even thought to consider it. just throwing that out there.

[Slim]

OK, totally ignorant of police shift scheduling, but do they get weekends off? If nothing else, you need to make sure that you are getting rested at some point during the week. The rest of the time will still suck, but knowing that you are X many days away from getting some decent sleep can help you hang on a little (and schedule the more challenging stuff -- big meetings at work, drs appointments) for early in the week, when you're a tiny bit less insane.

Also, my sympathies to people whose babies have always been crappy sleepers but are now even worse -- I had one of those, and he is now a great sleeper. But we were about a year and a half in before that happened, and even if I had known "Two years from now, this will be better," it wouldn't have helped. I would have cried, as I did so often.

Hey, have I crossed the line between "commiserating" and "delivering unwanted depressing news"? Sorry.

[wynlatte]

Monkey turned 8 months yesterday. Eight teeth are out and looks like he's working on two more. Teething started at 4-1/2 months and obviously has been non-stop. He finally rolls both ways and is now contemplating how to get started crawling so that's been screwing with sleep too.

Reflux has also been worse than ever so we've started Zantac and now that we've upped dosage on that, I think it's working. Yeah! Only 2 wake-ups last night! I can't remember the last time that happened. For the past 3 months or so, a good night was 1 wake for a bottle and 3 for...whatever reason - where he needed to be held and comforted back to sleep...plus 3 wake-ups for pacifier. On the 3rd pacifier-wake-up we would then do about about 3 hours of co-"sleeping". I call it sleep. But it was several hours of him twitching himself awake every 15 minutes then reaching out with eyes closed until he found my face, give me a couple of smacks to be sure I'm really there and then back to sleep for 15 minutes. In the last week part-time co-sleeping stopped working. (Aw, darn...) But at the same time he made it clear that we're back to two night feedings. But hey, I actually get some sleep between bottles so who cares.
Oh, and no problem with the first nap of the day but after that...nap strike. It suuuucks. A tired, no-napping, teething, whining crankypants is...ugh.
I'm a SAHM with Monkey plus two teenagers and a husband who works 24 hour call offshore (offshore oil rigs). He can be called out at a moment's notice and is gone until his part of the job is done - anywhere from 1-5 weeks (usually about 2 weeks at a time). So there is no sharing of nighttime shifts when he's gone and Monkey won't sleep. But I'm still alive and kicking. Thought depression was going to have hold for a while. But it seems to have lifted and thank goodness for that.

[SarcastiCarrie]

I like ibuprofen for teething because it lasts 8 hours (practically overnight!) and supposedly relieves swelling.

Also, on the pulling up front...this tip will not stop pulling up but might make it hard enough for a new puller not to be able to do it: get a size L or XL halo sleep sack or other baby bag and put the child in there before bed. It certainly limits mobility and keeps them toasty warm during the night. It also makes sleep crawling harder. And heck, I bet it would cut down on sleep kicking for co-sleepers too. Winners all around.

[bree]

I didn't realize it went on so long ... my son's 45 weeks old now and I thought that meant my current sleep battles couldn't be due to the regression. I think he is almost ready to drop one nap in the day, from three to two ... the problem is the 'almost'. He's been rubbing his eyes and yawning, but just wants to play when I put him to bed. Then I take him back out to the living room and he starts yawning again. His nighttime sleep has gotten marginally better though ... he's now sleeping two or three hours at a stretch some nights. Oh yes, and the other doozy is that he wakes at 4:30 and is AWAKE. It takes him an hour to get back to sleep. He howls if I leave him in the crib with some toys. If I take him back to bed with me he crawls all over us and thumps on us until that hour is up and then he conks out for 40 minutes. Then it begins again until I give up and get out of bed. If the regression lasts until 46 weeks, maybe we're almost at the end though ... hopefully it will get better from here...

[electriclady]

Our 9-month regression started at 7 months, when baby started crawling, and lasted until, I'm sorry to say, around 11 months. She went from waking once per night (down at 8, up once anywhere from 2-4, up for the day at 6 or 7) to waking every 1-2 hours. Those first couple months of the regression were particularly bad because she'd pull up half-asleep and then not know how to get down, so we'd have to go in, rock her to calm her, then put her back down (every. hour.). And she'd wake up SCREAMING, not just that little muffled fussing that we could let her work out on her own.

In our case, it was definitely mobility-related--she was working on a lot, what with the crawling and pulling up and cruising and almost walking. She started walking for real at 10 months and the sleep settled down a bit (back to 1-2 wakings a night) around 11 months. Of course, then February hit (the Month of Endless Colds and Also Cutting Four Teeth Simultaneously) and it all went to hell. But still not as bad as October and November.

[Annie]

Question for everyone:

My girl (ten months next week) has also never been a great sleeper. Her not-great sleeping has come in various and sundry forms, the current one being this: It takes *at least* an hour of nursing/ rocking/ walking in the Ergo to get her to go back to sleep at night. So even if she only wakes up a few times (not always the case), that's a lot of time spent out of bed for us. (And on some truly horrible occasions, she will simply be up for hours at night, like 3-5, aaggh!)

We have tried gradually walking her less, but then she just wakes up when we put her down and we have to start all over and often she's riled up and the whole thing takes even longer.

She has never fallen asleep in her crib by herself; we nurse, rock and walk her down for her naps and at night. We plan to try letting her fall asleep in her crib by herself in a few weeks, but frankly I'm assuming it won't work.

I would be happy to co-sleep if that would solve the problem (and we did co-sleep, for many months) but at this point she sleeps much better in her crib and is in fact more likely to fall asleep from the walking than nursing in bed with me (which turns into romper time, 9 times out of 10).

This has been going on since about 6 months, I'd say. Has anyone else dealt with this? Could she just outgrow it? Is it a separation anxiety thing? She is cheery and independent all day long, so maybe this is where the anxiety goes? Most people, of course, tell us we are creating a terrible habit and rewarding her for waking up with the attention, etc., but I'm hoping for a spontaneous change of behavior.

Thoughts?

[Jill]

Ours started at 6 1/2 months and hasn't stopped. :( He's 15 months now. He was a stellar sleeper before, hit some sort of unending list of "reasons" for not sleeping - moved to his own room, teething, solid foods, crawling, walking, more teeth, getting sick, more teeth, separation anxiety, God knows what. But we just have learned to cope (I guess) by me sleeping with him after around 3AM. We get some decent sleep then, and that's that. I haven't gotten a 5 hour stretch of sleep since probably last June.

So yes I'm a survivor of it. But for us it hasn't ended. And I'm not a CIO mom, so other than that, I'm sort of at a loss. We're trying some things nad I think we're making some slow progress. But I'm tired.

[Jill]

@ electriclady - you might be surprised on the falling asleep in the crib thing. My guy never fell asleep on his own either, and I REALLY kick myself for not trying it earlier - like before he could stand up. Anyway, we started it probably a month ago... I'd wait til he was REALLY groggy and then lay him down, and kneel by the crib and shush, pat, let him rub my arm, whatever it took. He'd stand up and hug me and then I'd pat his pillow and he'd lay back down. Over and over - it took a long time the first time. Then less and less. Now it takes a few minutes and I don't really have to touch him. I still am putting him down pretty groggy. But I'm fine with that. I keep HOPING that this will help him learn to put himself back to sleep. And occasinally, I have heard him wake up and watch him in the video monitor as he digs his face into his pillow and goes back to sleep. The key for him I think is to NOT stand up. Once he stands up, it's all over.

[hedra]

9 months was an issue with each of my kids.

G - that's when I started going to bed the same time he did. His first stretch was 4-5 hours, every one after that was SHORT, and getting shorter toward the morning. If I was to get at least 4.5 hours (my minimum to function), I had to go down when he did. Period. It was still hell, but it was survivable. We gradually eased off that, but then returned to it with B, much earlier - he'd just stay up until everyone was in bed, otherwise.

B - nursing strike at 9 months. Flat out refusal. I had no idea how difficult it was to not give in when he was bawling in hunger, refusing to eat solids (also teething), and refusing to nurse, and just wanting a bottle. It lasted three days, but it felt like someone was slowly ripping my skin off the entire time. Only it was a more profound soul-wrenching pain than that. It felt like a personal failure, personal rejection, and more.

M+R - biting plus twin jealousy feeding behaviors. That was the beginning of the 'feeding frenzy' events, where I'd be literally attacked to nurse. For the biting (mainly M, some R), I'd put them down. I couldn't always stand up, as the other one was usually latched on (If one was nursing the other got angry and had to nurse, too - and nursing 'angrily' isn't fun for mommy...). I also always IMMEDIATELY picked back up when they indicated distress over being removed and put down (though I did insist that their feet hit the floor first). They didn't need it to be 'Mommy gets up and goes away' (some kids need more time or distance, or pattern the process on the sitting in the nursing spot, etc.), it was just 'done and down'. I knew it had really worked when one day I got nipped by M (in what was clearly an accidental nip), she let go, began to bawl her heart out, and climbed down off my lap without me asking her to (I was even saying I knew that was an accident, we're okay...). Likely, it had worked too well (I aim for 85% success - I've found that if I get 100% compliance, I've caused more problems than I solved. A solid B response suggests to me that they're still in there, and I haven't supplanted their will with my own.). But it would have been hard to tell how much less was needed, and they seem to have forgiven me.

Sleep was probably also an issue with all of them, but I have so little recollection of sleep issues with M+R that I'm not sure which things happened when (soooo fuzzy about that stuff)... often they had different reactions to the same stage - try having one waking on an every 2-hour schedule, while the other is doing 3, 2, 1 hour increments. AAAHHHHHHHH! Add in that one wanted to nurse all night long, while the other wanted to huddle in face to face with me... um. I regularly ended up feeling like I was just alternately pissing one off, then the other, then the first, then the other... sequentially NOT meeting their needs, woo! Sigh.

For B, I don't remember likely because he was really a very good sleeper, and cosleeping in a crib sidecar was easy with him. He was a worse cosleeper later, when at 2-4 years old he 'slept like a helicopter' - rotating endlessly all night long. And I don't mean just rolling over, but going from head at one end to head in my side and feet in DH's back to kicking us each in the head to feet in my side, head in DH's side...). Nine months, what I recall is the nursing hell, not the sleeping.

Teething was a separate whole issue - my kids teethe early (3-4 months to start, 4-5 months first tooth), and each tooth takes forever, so by 3 years old, they're right at the normal target age for eruption. They also each reacted differently - some reacted to the movement of the tooth as it shifted in the jaw (2-4 hour spans of intense ache, I remember that part of childhood myself), someone else reacted to the near-eruption stage (the bite-and-rub thing), and someone to the actual cutting through. All of them also reacted to the 'rising' movement after it was cut - that is, the teething wasn't DONE until the tooth was all the way out and at its final position. And then another tooth would start... sigh.

So we had the ones who would cry for a couple hours, clearly teething, and just as I decided it HAD to be the teeth, and reached for the tylenol, the tooth would settle again and they'd be fine. And we had the ones who compulsively rubbed their gums on anything for weeks, until the tooth cut through. (They overlapped - some had two of the reactions.) I think it was B who was a 'stealth teether' - he hated the tooth movement (both below and above the gum) but didn't much notice the cutting through point - it was just 'oh hey, look at that, a tooth!' without warning for that particular moment. Oh, and they also have fibrous gums (great for later in life, not so great for teething), and it helped to rub something like a wet washcloth on the gum to help break down the gum over the rising tooth. Firm, textured teethers, vibrating teethers, we were teether central. The only thing they didn't really get much into was frozen - they liked cool, but not frozen cold. And at least one really would rather rub herself (or was it himself?) on me while nursing. Ow ow ow ow ow.

Tylenol also our friend. For the tooth movement especially, that aching thing. The actual movement pain is short-run enough that I'd only have to use it once a day every couple of days, but I had to catch it when I spotted the issue, ASAP. Otherwise, I might as well just wait for the tooth to stop moving on its own.

Solid food eating also went down the tubes with teething. NO CHEWING.

Oh, the other thing at 9 months for us was the change from 'you feed me, mmm, food!' to 'I have an opinion about how and what and whether food goes in my mouth, how it got there, where it came from, and how much I was involved in the process... and I will be very clear about my opinion but won't tell you what you did that I didn't like, and if you don't do it a way I'm comfortable with, I'll either throw it or scream or just quietly decline to eat at all.' Twins was actually a big help for that, as I just could not focus on each of their eating behavior. And we were in the early stages of trying-to-get-a-diagnosis rounds for B at the time, so I was a bit distracted around that.

[Sherry]

@ Annie -- You probably don't want to hear this, but I was doing the same thing -- walking, walking, walking -- until I (well, my Mom) decided we needed to let her cry a bit. The first night was tough with 35 minutes of crying. My Mom stayed in the rocker in her room. Over the next couple of weeks, she sometimes would cry just a touch and sometimes cried up to 12 minutes. But it really did the trick for us. I think it made her happier, too, in the long run. I know every baby is different, though. Maybe I just got lucky.

[hedra]

(that is, the less I bothered myself about the feeding, the better they did)

@ Annie, G went down best if he was walked or rocked. We fortuanately had been given the advice to buy a rocker-recliner we could SLEEP in. Which is what I did, a lot. Sleep, rock, sleep, rock. Better than walking. BTW, for him the issue was physical discomfort - both silent reflux and a spine issue (long labor in a poor position for him as the likely cause). He did get better - 2 weeks after he had chiropractic started, he was sleeping through the night. He was four. Years. Old. I so wish I'd thought to try to find a physical cause sooner! (Not that chiropractic is the answer for every reason, it could be many things - but those long 'need a physical sensory stimulation to sleep' sessions that don't seem to change or go away may be related to needing to overcome a negative physical sensation somewhere. B had chiropractic early, but was already sleeping well, and M and R both had chiropractic early and for M the issue was reflux plus dietary issues, and R was kind of average - opinionated, but average sleeper.) Anyway, G sleeps well now, despite needing to sleep on me, on the rocker recliner, for eons.

@abcd, you can't separate whether they're 'sleep associated' or 'regression-spanning' until after the fact, if then, IMHO. Not without a professional, anyway. For me, the answer was 'how much will I regret using the other assumption if I'm wrong?' I have enough friends who had kids with various sleep patterns to know that you can work through a lot later. Sleep associations can and do change. So, I ended up with 'comfort first, try to change it when it seems easier to change' and always 'sleep by whatever means' - which meant sleeping in the recliner, going to bed when G did, staying in bed with the twins until I'd had 8 hours of sleep (even if that meant getting up at 11 AM or 2 PM), having DH take the baby while I napped (on weekends), etc. Priorities were 'my sleep' and 'baby's comfort'. Not 'baby's sleep and my psychological comfort'. Keeping them separate (my sleep from their sleep) really helps clarify what to do. For example, I coslept with G for the first few months. But at one point I realized that he was waking up exhausted - he'd crash for his first nap literally 30 minutes after he woke for the morning. I realized that he needed something other than cosleeping, so we tweaked and tweaked and tweaked, meanwhile trying to maintain sleep for me. Now, part of his issue ended up being totally separate, but I have never regretted the decisions we made to comfort him first, and maintain my sleep as a separate activity. Good luck!

[Amy]

Wow! So I was just searching here last night for a 10 month sleep regression b/c suddenly #3 who has ALWAYS been thrilled to be put to bed at 6:30pm... is screaming each night at bed time for no good reason (he still doesn't sleep through the night, but with the other nursing issues--see below, I'm happy to get up and let him do some non-nutritive sucking). And he's gone off nursing to boot... doesn't have the patience to wait for the let-down... which means I resort to the bottle... which just exacerbates the reluctant let-down... and so the cycle goes. I know it's a phase... I know self-weaning won't kill him (and daddy was just requesting his boobs back)... but his going to bed so easily and happily nursing at bed time was the ONE thing baby and I had going for us in an otherwise hectic life.

Oh, and there's the food thing... no more baby mush. Wants chucks... but not green chunks... nothing green anymore. And doesn't want me feeding him with a spoon... he'll do it by himself, thank you. And what he doesn't want gets swept off the tray... when I can remove myself from the frustration of it all, it is fun to watch them become little independent beings. But even little independent beings should go to bed and sleep!!

[Marian]

Our 9 month regression started around 9 1/2 months and ended around 11 1/2 months. It was way worse than any other time. Baby girl REFUSED a second nap so she'd be a tired mess by the time I got her to bed at 6:30pm (which I started really looking forward to). It also involved night waking but it affected her much more during the day. Sigh. It does pass but feels like hell while you are going through it.

[Michelle]

Ha! What a timely discussion for me! My daughter will be 9 months on the 6th and her sleeping went to crap last week...two nights where I spent more time in the rocker with her than in my own bed.

I suspect teething is our main issue. Pumpkin only has 2 teeth (bottom) so those top two are getting ready to break through any day now. She has had some fevers the past couple days...Tylenol and Motrin have kept it under control and we were fever-free last night so I am hoping we can avoid a doctor visit...

Before this past week she was a terrific sleeper (after we got through the 3-4 month sleep rebellion). But I am also in the minority on this site - she is no longer breastfed (I made it until 6 months) and we do not co-sleep. I also believe that babies need to learn to fall asleep on their own.

For both Pumpkin and my son (who is now 2) I would feed and rock before bed - sometimes they would fall asleep and sometimes they wouldn't - burp them and then put them in the crib. There was some crying, some nights there was a LOT of crying. But my son had horrible colic so you can't really scare me with the crying anymore.

After a few nights they will get the point...and amazingly, they figure out how to put themselves to sleep. I don't let them cry if they are sick or having some other issue that might make sleep difficult (such as teething in the past few nights) but on nights where they have eaten well, don't have any temp, cold, teeth, etc I trust my intuition that tells me they are fine and just need to learn they CAN fall asleep alone.

[allie]

@Annie - I have to respond, because your little one sounds so much like ours - also 10 months old, happy all day, and we would spend an hour or two walking, nursing, and rocking to get her to sleep. Like you, I had just assumed putting her down in the crib would not work and nursing her in our bed usually did not help because she she ended up wanting to play. My husband and I were getting to resent this process so much, dinner would get cold as one of us spent the endless time getting her to sleep. One night my parents were over for dinner. I went upstairs to put her to sleep, thought I was successful, came down, and what did I hear on the monitor but her crying already. I turned to run back up because I knew she would just get more and more upset and my mom said, just let her cry for 2 minutes. So I waited (under protest). Then I went up, put her pacifier in and laid her back down. And she basically closed her eyes and fell asleep. I don't want this to sound like a complete fairy tale, but it is really so much better now. Now generally I nurse her for 10 minutes or so, lay her down, leave, she cries, I come back in 2 minutes exactly (I set the timer because time feels endless with her crying) to give her the pacifier and she falls asleep. It only works at night (naps are still a waking nightmare) but it works.

Anyway all of this it to say that I think in retrospect that we were basically keeping her awake with all of our attention at night trying to get her to sleep - the walking and rocking and nursing had an effect like being in the bed with us - just a little too stimulating to be able to really sleep. And I think the reason why we still have trouble with naps is the same - it is just a little too light out, she knows there is stuff going on and can't tune it out. I just realized this is ridiculously long for the small amount of information it imparts, but you should just try it, it might work and it has totally changed our lives for the better.

[hedra]

@Sherrie, Sometimes the answer IS that 'mom, you're keeping me awake' ... it's hard to know. I think the Ferber book is helpful on figuring out. (I didn't want to sound like I was condemning anyone else's process, just trying to state what I could live with, myself.)

[Jen]

My 10 mos. old went through some sort of issue at 9 mos. Teething/pulling up/ lighter earlier in the a.m. and so was waking up for the day at ungodly hours.

Then, DST hit and the dark mornings came, and that was it. Poof! Gone. I realize I'm lucky and also that this is the status quo until it's not again. But, we couldn't do anything but wait it out.

How did we cope? My daughter does not tend to get super wound up when she is left alone in the crib (mercifully). And, unless she was really crying, we just let her "talk" or "fuss it out" until we were ready to get up. Sometimes she'd fall asleep again. Sometimes not. I understand that will not work for everyone.

My thoughts are with everyone who is coping with this.

[DCRanger]

Thankfully, we're well on the other side of the 9 month regression now (although we're in a particularly hellish point in the interminable 18 month regression these days). Yes, 9 months was bad, although for DS, it manifested as having an awful time falling asleep. Not much waking during the night - we used the Carter's sleep sack pajamas (because I thought they were cute!) but perhaps, as SarcastiCarrie noted, it had the unintentional effect of making it tough for DS to stand up in his crib.

However, at his usual 7:30 bedtime he'd cry and scream and flail for 2 or 3 hours. I had been trying to do Baby Whisperer sleep training for months and wasn't making much progress, but when DS started the bedtime craziness at 9 months, NOTHING worked. I was in tears every evening (esp. because DH was traveling for work most of the time, so no relief there), went in search of help on the Internet, and that's when I found Moxie! Since she suggested that motion really helped, I gave up the sleep training & started taking DS on car rides at bedtime, which worked like a charm - I then transferred him, sleeping, to his crib. I think I would have lost my mind if we'd stayed in his room for hours every evening. Around 10 months, the evening screamfests ended and I decided to just feed him to sleep. I too was worried that he'd always need to be fed & rocked to sleep but it was so much less stressful for me than sleep training, and helped me to enjoy DS so much more, that I went with it. Somewhere around 15 months, DS stopped falling asleep on his bottle and we just tried laying him in his crib, and he actually fell asleep by himself! So in his case, time, rather than training, took care of the issue...at least until we hit the 18 month regression, at which point it all went to hell again. But this too shall pass...the only question is when!

[Joceline]

I don't want to hijack this thread with a question about ~4 month regression, but I think this applies to any sleep regression, so here goes:

My son is now 5.5 months, and since right about 4 months, he's been having classic 4 month behavior as described by the lovely people here . I mean, this stuff happened right on cue. So why, oh why, when I ask the many other people I know with babies about the age of mine how their kids are sleeping (looking for commiseration), do they always answer "Just fine. He/she is sleeping through the night as usual"?

I guess what I'm asking is are these people lying? Are their kids waking up in the middle of the night and the parents are somehow magically sleeping though it? Is it a minority of kids who actually are affected by these regressions and mine just happens to be one of them? Because, honestly, I don't know one person in real life who has fessed up to being up all night long with a 4 or 9 month old for weeks on end, as we have been doing, and if it weren't for Moxie and everyone else here saying that it's normal, I'd be feeling like a really bad parent and beating myself up over why my kid doesn't sleep right now. Instead, I'm really damn tired, but I feel like this too shall pass and I'm enjoying my happy, beautiful baby as much as I can during the day with bleary eyes and a foggy brain.

So thank you so much, people whom I have never met, and also, what is up with these real life people?

[Sarah S]

This should bring some hope to all you moms going through sleeping issues right now. My daugher, A, (now 12.5 months old), was a difficult sleeper right from day one. When she was two weeks old she had night and day completely messed up, and would literally be up all night and sleep all day. By the time she was 6 months old she was STILL getting up every 2-3 hours to nurse. I tried every strategy (with the exception of controlled crying/cry it out, i never did try that) and nothing seemed to help. She co-slept with us till 6 months, and transitioned to her crib at that point, but still continued to wake frequently. At 10 months it was down to a twice a night wake and nurse routine...which was somewhat tolerable, but still not desirable!

Here's the good news: My daughter learned to walk at 11.5 months old, and literally the next night she slept through! From 7:30 to 8:00!! I couldn't believe it! So basically, at that bull about a baby never learning to sleep until you sleep train them is just that...bull. I didn't do any sleep training, and my daugher slept through magically when she learned to walk. I know for her sleeping through the night was a milestone she had to reach (much like crawling and walking are) and I don't think sleep training would have helped her too much. Atleast not in the long run.

SO it can happen!! I was one of those moms who thought my baby would never sleep through the night. And this too, shall pass!

[flea]

I started lying to people about whether or not my first child was sleeping through the night by about 3 months. People would ask so expectantly, and I felt like a failure if I told them the truth, and frankly nobody who was asking wanted to hear the truth, so I started saying, "Oh, she's doing fine!" So yes, some of the people are lying. I lie to my MOTHER a lot about how well my children sleep. Because if I tell the truth she thinks I am a bad mother.

[Shannon]

OMG, this sounds like my 13-month old. She never went thru this until recently. On the other hand, she is just now starting to hit the "I'm almost ready to walk" stage, so I guess that's what is going on. I just never thought it would take this long for her to go thru a sleep regression like this.

[cagey]

Thank you, Ms. Moxie! I was going to sift through your archives today on this very topic.

My 8.5 month old "easy baby" daughter was the Queen of Naps until a a few weeks ago. Until a few weeks ago, she never woke me up at night. I had never had to pace the floor with her. Now?? She is NOT sleeping at night light she used to. Squirmy wormy ALL NIGHT LONG. Fortunately, we co-sleep, so the disruption has been minimal and it is easy to comfort her, but still - she has trouble settling down ALL NIGHT LONG. And yes, she just got her first tooth a few weeks ago. And yes, she is trying to crawl. Argh.

In addition, I am waiting for her 2.5 year old brother to just finish cutting his two year old molars already. Squee!

Innernets, hold me.

[Jojo]

I have no idea how I survived the 9 month sleep regression. I have few memories from that time period. I know I came to work. I know that I survived it. I have no idea how.

The only thing I do know is that it won't last forever.

[taylor]

@Joceline - same here. My daughter is 6.5 months and her sleep hit the skids at about 3.5 months and hasn't been back since. It has gotten particularly brutal in the last month (sorry to say) and all the real life people i talk to have babies who sleep straight through from 7am - 7pm ! It has been totally frustrating (especially as hubby is buying into it and thinks we should be doing CIO and that I am a wuss for not doing that). I am super thankful for Moxie and her commentators because otherwise i would feel pretty damn lonely in addition to being mind-numbingly tired!!
So not looking forward to 9 months!!

[abcd]

I think that the trend for weaning at 4 months was an attempt to explain why loads of 4 month old stop sleeping as well. 'Oh, they keep waking, they must be hungry' kind of thing.

I also think that 4 months and 8/9 months would probably show as spikes if we graphed WHEN people sleep train.

It's good to see that it is possible for a baby's sleep to get better without sleep training.

[pnuts mama]

@ jocelyn- YES, MOST OF THEM ARE LYING. or, they lucked out and got a kid who isn't regressing now, or will have another issue (maybe food related, who knows) at another stage while you are cruising through. maybe they'll have a toddler that now matter what form of discipline they try just will.not.respond. to anything. don't sweat it. everyone goes through *something* with their kids whether they are willing to admit it or not.

i was also thinking about annie's question- i know i nursed the pnut to sleep til she was at least a year old, closer to 18mos. i mean, out cold conked out in my arms asleep, if she was even a whiff awake then she'd wake up screaching and we'd go through the whole gd process all over again. it was the most excruciating thing for me to endure some nights when all i wanted to do was be *anywhere else* but there. i wish i could pinpoint the time when we started introducing the lullaby cd/birdie crib soother thing into the mix, it must have been around a year, just to start a 'routine' to get her to get herself off to sleep.

we did the binky thing, too- for me it helped my identify whether my kid who has a love for sucking was indeed still hungry or just wanted some oral soothing. many nights i'd wake up to the crying, stumble over to the crib (3 feet away), find the binky, pop it back in, and be done. some nights i'd have to pick her up and cuddle her back asleep w/binky. worst case scenario was whole nursing process to conk back out.

i will say we were once at a couple's house who have a little guy a few months older than the pnut and they just brought him in his room when it was bedtime, did their routine and walked out 10 minutes later- i couldn't believe we'd ever get to that point. but we did. i swear to you i never thought we would but we did. so i give you hope. i hope.

[paola]

The 9 month regression was by far the best for us. We had sleep trained at 7 months so the reminder was pretty recent. The only thing that sucked during this phase was her clinginess around 8.5 months (seperation anxiety), whcih the poor dear really suffered big time. I remember a first birthday of a friend of ours in the garden- lots of people, lots of movement. She cried the whole time and clinged to me for dear life. My heart went right out to this tiny little person begging me not to abandon her.

Am I allowed to mention that the WORST regression for us has been the 12 month one? - god it was bloody awful. Went hand in hand with her learning to walk and so lousy sleep, lousier naps.

[attiton]

@Joceline: I have been given a very good sleeper. She has her regressions, sure, but they are nothing compared to the stuff I have read about here and have witnessed first-hand in my family. Please understand that I do not feel this is something to gloat about. I recognize that this parenting thing is a rocky journey from beginning to end. When people ask me how we are sleeping, I just say, "Fine," and change the subject.

I also know that it wasn't my awesome mothering that made her a good sleeper. Partially because I wouldn't know "awesome mothering" if it smacked me in the face, but mainly because it was clear from the beginning that she was just born this way. I take no credit for it and count my lucky stars all the time.

For those of you with tiny ones who are "reading ahead," your little one could be a good sleeper, a so-so sleeper or a crappy sleeper from your point of view. Every parent's definition of "good" will be different and every baby's response to sleep is going to be different.

If you have a good sleeper, you certainly shouldn't worry that your baby isn't having the sleep interruptions that other people's babies are having.

Conversely, if you are struggling with your little one's sleep patterns and the people around you are saying, "I don't know what you're talking about, my kid sleeps just fine," consider not talking to these people about this subject anymore. Such comments are just plain insensitive.

[paola]

@Joceline

hey I've noticed that a lot with Italian mothers. They say 'oh my kid never naps but has no problems sleeping thru the night.' They then go on to say that they put their little 4 month olds to sleep at 11.00 and so you suddenly get why these kiddies sleep all the way thru the night

[sue]

@joceline - they are lying liars who lie to you. don't believe 'em and find some people who are willing to be honest with themselves and you.

@paola - holy crap I know what you mean about 12 months. W will be 13 months this week and I'm really about to pull my hair out. we have this deadly combo of learning to walk/learning to talk/teething/sleep regression/milk supply plummeting and it's no fun for anyone. though it is cute when he crawls/cruises around the house finding everything that's yellow and yelling "yellow!" at the top of his little voice.

9 months was no great shakes either, but I think I've just about hit my breaking point at 12 months (my breaking point being when I hand the baby to my husband and tell him I'm done and he has to deal with nighttime issues now) In fact, the baby is with my husband at work right now because I just couldn't cope with to screaming kids on 1 hour of sleep.

[Moxie]

FWIW, my first one needed to be nursed back to sleep every time, and at that stage I was convinced I was doing the wrong thing and getting him hooked somehow. But then at 11 months he wouldn't nurse down to sleep again. So my N of 1 is that they stop nursing to sleep when they're ready to anyway.

[paola]

@Sue

add to that constant nursing (8 times in a 12 hour period) and over the top eating regression (only ate oatmeal, yougurt and fruit for 6 friggin weeks!!). Urgh!! Glad it's over finally (mine will be 15 months at the end of the week)

[Stephanie]

This is a very timely discussion. My little girl will be 10 months at the end of the week and we've been struggling with sleep ever since we went to visit my parents for Christmas (we live in Germany and they live in California, so the time zone thing killed us - all our schedules were out of whack).

I had been under the impression that the 9-month regression was *only* the 37-week developmental milestone. I didn't realize that it encompasses the 46-week one as well. This explains so much! We had made a lot of progress getting our daughter to go to bed at a regular time, sleep several hours at a time (SSTN is something we haven't dared to hope for yet), and not wake up in the middle of the night wanting to play. Then it all went to crap. Right about the time she began crawling and cruising. After a few tortuous weeks it got better, and I thought we had left the 9-month regression behind us. But now it's gotten ridiculously hard again. Especially naps.

• We're lucky if she takes 2 catnaps a day.
• She's constantly waking up on all fours or standing at the head of the bed (we co-sleep).
• When I put her to bed I nurse her down, but if she's done nursing before she's really sleepy, she's up on all fours and trying to crawl over the bed. The only way to avert total disaster is to snuggle so close to her that she can't really get up to crawl and then just hold her for about 5 minutes of screaming until she succumbs to sleepiness.
• She won't eat mushy food any more. She wants to feed herself and has complete disdain for spoon feeding. Unless of course she's flinging the food that WAS on the spoon behind her.
• The fact that she's suddenly eating dramatically less solid food means she's nursing more. But the fact that it happened so suddenly means that my milk supply hasn't had a chance to catch up yet, and my nipples are totally ravaged.

She's 43 weeks old, so if this is all better in a few more weeks, I will be sooooo happy!

[MRasey]

My kiddo is 5 months and it seems like we're never going to sleep again. Although, to be fair, she was sick A LOT in daycare which totally screwed things up.

Anyway, putting my (retired) massage therapist hat on, here's the thing, unless those neural impulses are muted, overwhelmed with other input, or otherwise exhasuted, the babes don't sleep. (And yes, nerves can technically be exahusted, they can only fire so much before they have to regroup.)

We've gone back to swaddling and I actually sleep with one arm across my babe's legs in the cosleeper so she won't kick herself awake. It's not the fact that I physically restrain her so much as it's the counterpressure that distracts her nervous system from the impetus to kick-kick-kick.

I also rock her a lot--rocking/vibration is a great way to overwhelm/distract nerve impulses (in massage therapy this is the technique that gets nerves to stop making muscles contract into tight balls of pain). It gives so much sensory input, the body can't process it all and gives up. I used to tell my clients that muscles don't know what to do in an 'earthquake' and relax as a default.

We'll also be doing the infant massage to quiet her motor impulses although we haven't needed it yet. (Just FYI every kid I've massaged falls asleeps and poops, massage is a great tool.)

However, none of this works for buzzing brains so my babe still wakes up a lot and is generally restless at night now. Still, at least we have shut off the motorboat.

M

[MRasey]

My kiddo is 5 months and it seems like we're never going to sleep again. Although, to be fair, she was sick A LOT in daycare which totally screwed things up.

Anyway, putting my (retired) massage therapist hat on, here's the thing, unless those neural impulses are muted, overwhelmed with other input, or otherwise exhasuted, the babes don't sleep. (And yes, nerves can technically be exahusted, they can only fire so much before they have to regroup.)

We've gone back to swaddling and I actually sleep with one arm across my babe's legs in the cosleeper so she won't kick herself awake. It's not the fact that I physically restrain her so much as it's the counterpressure that distracts her nervous system from the impetus to kick-kick-kick.

I also rock her a lot--rocking/vibration is a great way to overwhelm/distract nerve impulses (in massage therapy this is the technique that gets nerves to stop making muscles contract into tight balls of pain). It gives so much sensory input, the body can't process it all and gives up. I used to tell my clients that muscles don't know what to do in an 'earthquake' and relax as a default.

We'll also be doing the infant massage to quiet her motor impulses although we haven't needed it yet. (Just FYI every kid I've massaged falls asleeps and poops, massage is a great tool.)

However, none of this works for buzzing brains so my babe still wakes up a lot and is generally restless at night now. Still, at least we have shut off the motorboat.

M

[mamaloo]

For some reason I've never been very good at noticing trends in my personal life. So, I read a post like this and go "Doh!" I've even mothered a child through these things once before!

My son is 9 months and 2 (or so) weeks (I'm such a slacker I never counted weeks with this baby) and a week or two ago, right when he started pulling up on the furniture (and your leg, doors, walls...)I wondered what the heck was up with the fact that he was suddenly waking up for a bottle in the middle of the night. And he was super clingy, though didn't want in a sling (acted like it was an acid bath!).

When I read these posts and have my little epiphany - that explains it! - I just marvel at how much of an amateur I am at this parenting game!

[sleepy but getting by]

@abcd Police wife nights are so lonely. I know I am doing what is best for my family by letting him get the sleep he needs (he does help on his days off) but it SO HARD not to get resentful of him sleeping soundly in the next room when I am up for fifth or sixth time that night.

I lost all faith in sleep training "experts" when they said you have to put them down awake but sleepy or they'll never learn.

Munchkin at first nursed down easily. Then he need two hours of rocking to go down. I was not cool with that so I started putting him down sleepy but awake with a pacifier. I wore out the carpet going back and forth to his room comforting him back to sleep just to have him wake up in 5 minutes. Then he started nursing down again. He was out in minutes and stayed asleep.

Then he went through a period where he would not nurse down or let me rock him or anything. Then out of frustration and needing to cool down myself I just laid him in his crib and he fell asleep.

That lasted for a few weeks and now we are back to nursing down btu with it still light outside at 7:00pm I have to put him in our bed with blackout curtains pulled to keep him asleep.

I made no changes that I am aware of in those time periods. He did the changing and I'm sure he will do a lot more changing. So I have a really hard time believing the whole if you nurse/rock/pat them to sleep now you will have to forever line.

[Colleen]

@ Jocelyn--IMHO they are lying like I now do (just smile and nod) to avoid the constant "well you'll have to ferberize them" mantra I hear in my neighborhood. Why so many people are so concerned with how long my baby sleeps is beyond me. I am pretty sure they couldn't give a damn with how well I'm sleeping. It may be my punishment for saying that my baby didn't cry when he was very little (he's now 8 mo), which he did not. I was smug--now, not so much.