My 9 Month Old Won't Sleep Thru the Night

Hi C.,

I really think these things coincide together: eating/sleeping. I think the 1st thing to do is get on a good eating/sleeping routine. I'm home child care provider and a mother of 4. The ages of the kids I watch are 13 months, 14 months,18 months and an almost 3 yr old. I then have my 2 youngest kids at home which are 16 months and almost 4 yr old. So anyway here is how are day runs
7 am my kids get up and get dressed and readt for the day
7:30 breakfast
9:00 am morning naptime, usually an hour to an hour and a half
10:00 am After morning nap I would add in a small snack, ie cheerios, crackers, fruit puffs, something like this
11:30 am lunch time
12:30 - 2:30 afternoon nap, in your case I would let her sleep until she wakes up it shouldn't be pass 3:30 or so.
3:30 - 4:00 pm afternoon snack, once again something small but enough that she will make it to dinner.
Now depending on how your house runs depends on what time you have dinner.
But lets say you start dinner at 5 pm so you eat by 6 pm.
So 6 pm dinner, clean up the kitchen.
After dinner and you get the dishes done I would get started on her bedtime routine. And do just like you have been bath, bottle, bed, you could add a 4th B in there and that would be a book.
Once you get her in bed I wouldn't peak in on her unless you heard something. Also you could get a fan or radio and out it in her room so there is some constant noise.
Now if she wakes thru the night I would stop giving her the milk, as long as she is taking in enough during the day she really doesn't need this. So you could do it to ways: 1) cold turkey, to where when she wakes up during the night time you tell her "no it's still bed time, give her the pacifier and walk out of the room. or 2) Go in and give her the bottle but you start making it less appealing to her. So if it is formula or breastmilk cut it down by 2 ounces and add in water. Each night you go in there make it less and less BM or formula and more water, eventually she will no longer take the bottle.

Now there are 2 things that I would like to point out. 1) if you go with the pacifier you will make her more dependent on it at night
but if you go with option 2) and just give her the bottle but if she throws it down you don't give her the pacifier but she finds it you might be better off.
Now while you are doing this you need to up her intake of food during the day. So if she is on 3rd foods you may want to start introducing table foods and things like this.

I think that if you up her intake of foods, add in the 2 snacks a day and, have a set time for all meals, have a set time for 2 naps. And give her her bottles at each meal- you might see the amount go down at each time but she will be eating more. I think you will start seeing her sleep through the night.

Also make sure she isn't cutting any teeth. And if she is I would alternate between tylenol and motrin and use the Hylands teething tablets.
I hope all this helps, W.

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12

Hi C.,
Brooke's T-shirt Idea is Great!! Your scent is the most soothing comfort to your sweetie right now. She is going through very many growth changes at this time, unfortunately they all happen in the crib. My husband and I also do not support the "cry-it-out" method due to brain development studies. The less stimulus you provide, though, the better.
I encourage, a soft touch on the back, soothing pats and soothing "shushing" tones, gently placing her back down if she is up, no talking and as tempting as it is, try not to pick her up. Oh, and one thing to keep in mind--a 4 to 5 hour stretch of sleeping is considered sleeping through the night for any child under the age of 2. I wish you well, it will and does get better. From a mom of a once "waker-upper" and what we deem "an anti-sleeper", they do eventually sleep longer--my little guy now sleeps on the average of 10-12 hours. He even survived through potty-training. Waking up, going to the toilet, and falling right back to sleep, without missing a beat.
Life gets keeps getting more charming. With each stage a new stage and a phrase I will share and have shared with others, that was shared with me; "and this too shall pass."
God Speed, M. N.

It seems you already have advice I would say worked for us. You may have already tried this during your transition, but you could put a shirt under her sheet so she can still smell you faintly when you are laying her back down. My 10 mth old also has challenges (in 3-4 days spurts) with waking in the night and all I can figure it is his teeth because usually after some teething tablets and chewing on his teething ring he will settle down after a bit. Also, when he started crawling, standing up, etc, he woke up quite a bit, which the books say is normal. Hope this helps and you start resting soon.

congrats on breaking the sleeping with mom and dad habit! a general tactic might be to start limiting your contact with her at night, the first time go in and comfort her, but don't pick her up, lay her back down and pat her a bit but then go ahead and leave. wait a little longer each time, and hopefully she'll get it pretty quickly. kids are smart, and i'm sure she'll catch on quickly that she needs to stay in her bed to go night-night, and mommy and daddy stay in theirs. definitely if/when you do go in, leave the lights off, and speak to her as little as possible. with my son i made a mental rule - no looking back. we had to teach him that daytime was playing/cuddling/fun time, and nighttime was sleeping time. hope things settle down for you quickly!