9 Month Old Won't Sleep Thru Night

Hi Cathy,
I definitely don't have the answers, but wanted to commiserate. I'm a single full-timing working Mom of an amazing 28 month old daughter. She was exclusively breast fed until 6 months and then we continued to BF after that, but added solid foods too. I thought that we would wean at a year, but I decided to let her lead the way. At present, we still nurse in the morning and right before bed (never thought that I would want to do this before having her!). We live in a tiny one bedroom, so her crib is right next to mine. After being woken up a few times/night for the first 17 months of her life (plus the countless other times that I would wake up on my own b/c I'd hear a noise from her), I decided that something had to give. That was when I eliminated the during-the-night nursing that she asked for and stopped nursing in the bedroom altogether (so that she wouldn't associate the bedroom with that). After realizing that we weren't going to nurse during the night, she very quickly began to wake up less often and I began to have some nights when she would sleep through the night (8ish-5:30) and others where she would only wake up once. It was really unpleasant for a couple of nights (Due to her crying, I actually had to leave the room and go lie on the couch in the living room), but got better quickly. I'm sure that many moms who have kids who "slept through the night" from a young age believe that I lost my mind to let things go on as long as I did, but it worked for us. I was (am) so sad that I couldn't spend the day with her and, as beyond tired as I was, wanted to be available to her as much as possible at night and in the morning to reassure, calm & love her. I'm not sure if you're a stay-at-home mother, but you'll know when it's time to change the night-time boundaries. All the best! Signed, fellow exhausted NYorker :)

If she's eating the way she is during the day then that middle of the night feeding is definitely out of habit/cuddle time. I went through the same thing with my two. By 9 mon, me and DH were just exhausted being sleep interrupted 1 to 2 times a night. We sleep trained both kids at 9 mon and though that one week was rough, it's been bliss ever since.

Since she's exclusively breastfed, I would suggest a sippy cup of water when she wakes up. That way she'll get something but it won't be what she wants. After a few days of that, she'll give up the fight.

My daughter fought much harder than my son did and there were a couple of days DH and I were back and forth consoling her for hours before she would give up and go back to sleep. When she would wake up, we would offer the bottle of water. She'd give it back and we'd keep giving it to her or her pacifier until she cried herself all out. Not easy for me 'cause I hate to hear my babies cry but I knew it was necessary for our sanity sake. But like I said, it took a good week but after that, they both started sleeping in their own rooms for 11 to 12 hours a night. HTH!

Maybe try that last meal a little later and put her down a little later then if that doesn't work maybe you do need to try the sleep training. My daughter did the same thing and I got up with her and nursed her, I felt bad letting her cry. She was exclusively breast fed until 13 months.

My baby woke up hungry every night around 1am for a long time. I started to wake her up right before I went to bed to feed her and change her diaper. If you try that and it works, at least you'll only get woken up the one time in the morning!