9 Mo Old Doesn't Sleep

try a different schedule. no tv an hour before bed. take baths, not alot of sugar. take toys away when she goes to bed. put soft music t make him sleep. or ask yourslef what is wakign him up at night? maybe a noisy neighbor they hear things we dont sometimes

Keeping him up later is a bad idea. The more sleep deprived a child gets the less they sleep. You would think they would sleep in later but they actually get up earlier and earlier. And then it affects the naps and it all snowballs. I would read that book the other women suggested or the one we used is Good Night Sleep Tight, The Sleep Lady. She is amazing. It might take a couple weeks to break some of the habits but if you stick with it then your baby will sleep. But for sure read one of those books and stick with it. Especially if your doctor thinks he is healthy, then it is just more of bad habits and sleep deprivation. Good Luck.

My first two children slept through the night at a very young age, but 16 months ago we had another baby and she didn't sleep through the night until she was 11 months old. After talking to friends, family, and her pediatrician, who all gave me suggestions, the only thing that worked was just letting her grow out of it. The pediatrician was right. She just had to grow out of it. She now sleeps from 8pm-6am and either takes 2 shorts naps (about 1 hour each) or a 3 hour nap during the day. I know how you feel, though, I remember when she wanted to play at 3am and wouldn't take a nap long enough for me to even take a peaceful shower during the day.

Added:
I also agree with Erin. She mentioned that putting the child to bed right at the first signal of sleepiness helps them sleep longer at night. Doesn't make much sense to me, but it works. So instead of trying to make your child stay up later at night, so he'll sleep longer in the morning, try just putting him to bed 1-2 hours earlier and see what happens.

My older two children have slept about 10-12 hours a night since they were about 2 months old. When they started eating table food, they used to fall asleep at the dinner table or right after dinner at 6pm and sleep until 6am, so putting them to bed earlier actually made them sleep longer than they normally did (even though they slept enough as it was).

I really hope putting your child to bed earlier will work for you (because that is one thing I didn't try with my third child). I tried feeding her right before bed, a warm bath, running in the yard to make her tired and many more things. Nothing worked. I was pulling my hair out, but for her, she just grew out of it and at 11 months we all slept through the night again!

Hmmm... I have always had good sleepers, and I am sure part of it is just luck or genes... haha! But considering I have gotten poor napper daycare kids to sleep consistently, it can't be all nature. I am very consistent with routines and schedules as soon and as much as possible.

I am trying to think of suggestions. Does he eat ok? I mean, why does he wake up so soon after going to bed and eating, just to eat again? Is he really hungry? I know with my son being very small, we would have fed him as you are, but now that he is caught back up, we wouldn't.

Also, my son regularly wakes up in the middle of his nap. I have to be VERY specific with my family/friends who watch him, that they don't hear him wake up at 1:30 and go get him out of bed. He will babble for 20 minutes and then sleep until 3:00. He will do this some nights as well, brief babbling moments in the middle of the night. But it sounds like your son wakes up crying at 3am... Do you think spending a couple weeks letting him "cry it out" would be too much for your other kids to deal with? I know it would suck for a while, but I wonder if he learned that you were not coming right away, if he might not get up that early any more.

Also, see what you can do about naps. Sleep Begets Sleep. Usually the better a child naps, the better they sleep. I try to follow a routine with my kiddos, such as our big afternoon nap is immediately after lunch. For those that take morning naps, it is immediately after breakfast (we eat breakfast at 8:30 til 9:00... so if you eat breakfast at 7am or something, that might not be best). Now, I have no control over what my daycare kids have at home for routines and whatnot, but I have heard it dozens of times how much better their kids sleep at night after starting to come to my daycare. So that really supports the good nap = good nights theory, but it doesn't mean it applies to ALL kids either.

I have no clue if any of this will work for you. It has worked for my own kids as well as numerous daycare kids, but it can be challenging to "train" (for lack of a better word right now) a poor sleeper to get into a routine, but after those rough couple weeks, you will wonder how you did it before.

And I wouldn't think it is totally unheard of to have a sleep disorder at such a young age. If it doesn't improve, I would totally check into it! Best of luck! I really hope something works for you. I know I couldn't function with such little sleep, especially pregnant!

I second checking out the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child."

I found an early bedtime actually helped my daughter become a better sleeper. She is also 9 months old and sleeps for about 14-15 hours per day (12 straight through at night and 2 naps). I may have just gotten lucky with her, but she started sleeping 12 hours straight through when I started putting her to bed at 7:00 rather than 9:00. I also found that putting her down at the first sight of one of her sleep signals rather than trying to force her to stay up longer helps her sleep for longer stretches. My daughter sucks her finger when she's getting tired - so I just wisk her off to bed once I see that finger go in her mouth. I really believe that with babies, the more they sleep, the more they sleep!

Good luck to you!

Try reading the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". I found it very helpful for sleep issues with my daughter.

Some babies don't sleep b/c of breathing problems...like sleep apnea, large adnoids(sp?) and large tonsils. My daughter started snoring from the moment she was born until we finally had her tonsils and adnoids removed when she was four yrs old. She didn't sleep very long either. I finally took her to a specialist. He identified her large tonsils immediately. The pediatrician never said a thing and I was constantly telling them she wasn't sleeping well, snored alot, etc.

If that's not the problem, you may just have a super bright baby that doesn't require alot of sleep. It's like they are loosing learning opportunities and don't want to miss out! Our second child was like that. Woke up at 3 am every single day. Then it became 5 am. Now, he's 2 1/2 and he sleeps until 6:45 am most mornings. We survived it, but it was hard with little sleep. Good luck!