Tired and Emotional : I cnt seem to get any proper sleep as my 9 month old wakes up every two hours at night.

[Rubyex]

I have tried everything but I am not having any luck! Any suggestions?

[Hidden]

Are you breast feeding?

[Rubyex in reply to Hidden]

Yes but not as frequently anymore . I bottle feed when baby wakes up but sometimes she just wants to be cuddled back to sleep

[Hidden]

Sorry only asked as was thinking about dummies! Have you tried a comforter? Also heard about putting a piece of your clothing in with them, soothes and comforts.

My son is always a good sleeper except when he's ill and it's awfull getting up all the time and that's not regular basis so I really feel for you.

My friend has a girl the same age ad my 3 year old and a nearly 7 yo boy, both of hers don't sleep through the night , the most the 3 yo sleeps is from 7 pm - 10 pm then is up throughout the night, she always seems tired and cranky but refuses to sleep, the older 1 stays up very late and again doesn't sleep a solid good night. think the easy way is let them sleep with you, that's what she does.

[Rubyex in reply to Hidden]

I do sometimes but because I am trying to stop breastfeeding as Well it's hard .once I put her to sleep with me she automatically goes to breast feed.

[Monkeyfish]

I know its quite a controversial thing to say, but sometimes letting them cry for a bit is the only thing that works. I do not go in for just leaving babies to cry though! I have a 22 month old (and another one due in 2 months). Luckily my daughter has always been a very good sleeper at night but we have been through rough patches, usually after she has been poorly, when she wakes every hour or so for no real reason. We found that if we kept going in to her it just reinforced her waking up frequently. it even got to the stage where we would have to lift her out of the cot, read her a story, sing her a song and then put her back in! The only way to break the habit was to let her cry. First of all we left it a couple of minutes, went in and soothed her (without taking out of cot which led to BIG tantrums) and when calm left the room. Next time left it 3 or 4 mins and the same thing. It took a couple of nights and i felt AWFUL but....she then stopped waking up! Now we are quite strict on night time wakings. If she is ill we obviously go straight in but we still wont get her out of the cot unless she has been sick or the like. No real conversation or songs. If she is not ill and wakes up we leave it as long as possible and usually she settles herself back to sleep, if not we go in.

Thats just how we do it and found to be the best way for us. With another one on the way i cant be having my daughter up all through the night. We certainly dont leave her to cry for hours and if she seems really distressed we go in and comfort her. Sometimes you have to be a bit tougher for a few days to get results but its not everyones preferred way.

Good luck with it! x

[Rubyex in reply to Monkeyfish]

Thank you soo much.

[Hidden]

My friend didn't breast feed so don't think it's just that reason as I said just asked in regards to dummy / bottle, I only did for 8 weeks! My son had a bottle, dummy and comfort blanket, now just has comfort blanket now.

Another friend who breast fed till lo till she was 2 slept upright with baby as it's the only way she slept ! She now has 4 and didn't breast feed the others more than a few Days / weeks and none of the others got treated like that, she just didn't have the time! She never had a routine of any kind with 1st 1 either put in place or child led .Think she had a routine of sorts now,

ask you health visitor if they have any tips.

[Mum2one]

I don't have any great suggestions but thought I would reply to say I feel your pain as I'm going through exactly the same thing with my LO who is also 9 months. It's exhausting especially now I'm back at work. He is formula fed during day and bf morning & night. For his first four months he was a great sleeper but now seems to be getting progressively worse!

Although he has eczema and has been teething which explan some of it, I feel that he is not able to self soothe and is relying on me to get back to sleep too much. When I'm off work over Christmas and have more time I'm going to try the method described at netmums.com/baby/sleep/pick... from the baby whisperer book. To me it seems to make sense but whether or not it will work only time will tell! If I make any progress ill post it up here.

Good luck and hope we both see an improvement soon!

[Rubyex in reply to Mum2one]

Looking forward to your post. Thank you

[Megzey]

My second son never slept through until he was 9 months, we would hear him crying or waking about 3am then go through and feed him but he would only take about 2 ounces. It was the same time every night so we decided to ignore him and then he finally got out of the habit. I know exactly how you feel it is so draining but it will get better. We used to rush in to save him waking our other son up.

[Rubyex in reply to Megzey]

It's soo tiring and when I do get a bit of time having noisy neighbours dnt help. I do try to not give in but I 've a 6 yr old and dnt want her to wake up as a result of baby waking up. I will try harder lol thank you

[Hidden]

Hi Rubyex,

Thank you for sharing, as this is a very common issue for parents. You might find this article interesting about Megan Fox experiencing the same thing with her infant son. Rosie Dodds, our senior policy advisor here at NCT, also has a piece in the article uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/mega...

Hope you get some sleep soon

Best wishes,

Alice x

[Rubyex in reply to Hidden]

Thank you

[char17000]

My son wasn't quite as bad but then again he had nights when he was worse than this at times - as a single mum i found it exhausting! He's 15 months now and still doesn't always sleep through the night. I found this past 6 weeks he's been much better since I changed his routine a bit. I put him to bed at 8 every evening so he's a bit more tired - he goes up tired but awake with a 9oz bottle, i put his night light on and some soothing instrumental music on low volume and if he wakes up I give him a bottle of water or squash and he goes back to sleep and doesn't wake up again. I used to just pick him up all the time and cudddle him back off but then he'd wake up every hour or so and I couldn't do it anymore. I stopped getting up to him and just let him cry it out - it worked, took about 3-5 nights but it was worth the guilt of letting him cry. Give it a go and see if it helps - if your daughter gets used to you giving in and cuddling her back to sleep, she wont know how to get herself back to sleep and she'll wake up specifically just to get cuddles. Good luck

[Rubyex in reply to char17000]

I know being a single mum it just gets a bit tiring, and I worry about waking my 6 yr old up when baby gets up. I think I just have to be stronger not to keep picking herup eevery time she wake-up. Will take your advice thank you and try a diff routine.

[char17000]

I found the guilt was the worse but luckily enough I didn't have older children to consider. When he would wake up, I would call a friend or relative if I knew they were awake and talk to them while he was crying so I was distracted from wanting to go upstairs. It really is worth the few nights just letting them cry, your daughters old enough that she should be OK to be left to cry it out and you'll soon see the difference. Let us know how it goes hun, all the best

[Megzey]

How are you getting on with your nights sleep or lack of it???

[Rubyex in reply to Megzey]

I have gotten a good sleep for the past four nights . I changed her feeding routine and she has only woken up twice each night. Feel a lot better thank you

[Rubyex in reply to Megzey]

Hopefully it improves from there x

[mumofone2009]

Hi I had the same problem with my daughter who is 3 now and who is a brilliant sleeper at 9 months I had her keep waking up my midwife give me the adivce of popping a warm hotwater bottle under her sheet 10 minutes before she was due to be put down for bed and also put an item of clothing with my sent on or her dads sent then when she was due to be popped in her cot we took the hot water bottle out and out and put the item of clothing in and she slept from 7pm until 7 am the next morning hope this helps

[Rubyex in reply to mumofone2009]

Thank you

[Rubyex]

Just Want to say a big thank you to every one who has contributed to answering my question, all suggestions taken onboard. Thank you all. Hope you all have a very merry Xmas and a fab new year xxx