My just turned 9 month old son is usually a great sleeper. He takes 2-3 naps during the day (totaling 3 hrs) and goes to sleep at 6:30-7pm. If he wakes up to take a bottle, he does so only once and goes immediately back to sleep and wakes up around 6:30 or 7 am depending on if he wakes up in the middle of the night or not. For the past week he has been waking to take a bottle and then struggles to go back to sleep. He will stay awake for over an hour! Or, he will fall back to sleep right away and then wake up an hour or two later and be wide awake for the day (at like 3:30 in the am)! My son can put himself to sleep without rocking, he doesn't take a pacifier, and if he has a bottle he is always awake until I lay him down and then he falls asleep on his own. I have tried to make his naps less, thinking that he needed less sleep during the day, but that made no difference except a grumpy baby during the day. I have also thought about teething, but when his 1st 4 teeth came in, it was obvious that he was in pain (now no pain I am aware of). He whines LOUDLY in his crib and sometimes will sit there or will pull himself up. Any and all suggestions on what to do are greatly appreciated. Thanks!
He needs to eat more all day every day (not just before bed) for 3 days (takes time for body to register the change), and then you'll see he won't wake at night. My Aunt has 10 kids and taught me that trick. I thought my baby was full, but sure enough by feeding even more all day for a few days-she never woke again at night. Worked for my next two babies too.
We just went through this. Our baby slept fine until a combination of a cold, teething, and our MIL "helping" his with every whimper in the night had all of us suffering sleepless nights for 7 weeks.
MIL has left, we wait a full 10 minutes before responding to any night whimpering. Wouldn't you know it, baby is able to get back to sleep on his own, and after a few days, has been sleeping through the night.
We are fans of Dr. Ferber's sleep training book. Try it.
He's waking up because it's a habit. He doesn't need to eat overnight, and hasn't in awhile.
If he can get himself back to sleep on his own, let him do it. If you stop going in, he'll be able to figure it out on his own. But right now, he wakes up, and you go in and hang out with him for an hour. How great is that? (for him)
It's a habit you need to break, and he might be going through a growth spurt, yes. But if you keep going in there, you're just going to prolong this overnight bit. Sleep habits change all the time for babies as they grow. You need to be consistent in how you respond.
Let him whine. Once he figures out that it's not playtime, he'll get himself back to sleep.
My first guess is growth spurt... If he's waking up hungry and having a new change in sleep habits but doesn't appear to be teething, that's what I'd go with. I know they go through a major growth right around 9 months. Try feeding him a little more throughout the day, especially before bed time. If it doesn't resolve itself in a few days, then I'd say it was something else.
My son, like yours, is a great sleeper. Nonetheless, there have been various points that he has regresses, or tried to regress in his sleeping habits and do some night waking. These usually happen with milestones or just when he wants to be more social (sometimes for no reason that I can detect!) I handle it the same every time it happens by not responding to him or not changing what I typically did (for example, when he was young enough to need a feed, I would still do that feed, but not respond after that.)
Sounds like you have done excellent so far in raising a good sleeper, good for you! Now, what you need to do is to break this before it turns into a bad habit. He really does not need to eat at night at his age. If you can and want to do one feed and it's not causing problems than that is one thing! But, it DOES seem to be a problem so I would recommend stopping this feed. Eliminating this night time feeding will give both you and baby better sleep. Sitting there and whining are okay. Its even okay if he's wide awake - he will go back to sleep. I promise you he will not starve :) If you'd like, and this ignoring seems to harsh to you, you can respond with a quick bottle or diaper change but then you must leave him alone even if he doesn't want to go back to sleep or even if he wakes a short bit later. I wouldn't recommend this over no feeds at all, but at least you could show him he gets one chance fora feed but there is no other attention. Good luck to you
9 months is a growth spurt month. this is likely the problem. try feeding him more.
