9 Month old NW!! Never sleeps through night

[kohler14]

Our 9 MO has been having usually 1 sometimes 2 NWs for awhile. His EASY is below.

8am Wake and Bottle 6oz
9am breakfast solids and small amount of rice
10-10:30 wind down and nap
12pm wake and bottle 6oz
1pm lunch solids
2:30 nap
4pm wake and bottle 6oz
5pm dinner solids and small amount rice
7pm bottle 6oz
7:30 bath
8pm bed
9pm dream feed 3oz
3-4am night waking, usually short time, sometimes the same time sometimes different times.

We have tried shortening his naps to 2 1.5 hr naps to help with NW, it doesn't. He uses a pacifier, usually doesn't replug himself. When we go in we hand it to him and say "Here is your soother."  He doesn't wake because it falls out, he usually spits it out himself. The pacifier helps him get back to sleep. He is easily soothed, usually doesn't have to be picked up at all. We are unsure if this is habit and we should try wake to sleep, or if his routine needs adjusting. He is a great napper and usually needs to be woke up. He would take 2 2hr naps if we allowed him. When he was taking these naps he was still having NW once to twice per night. His wind down routines are the same for naps and bed except bath before bedtime. Usually we read a book, sing a couple songs, lay him down and he falls asleep easily. He uses a blankie as well. No other developmental issues, he has both bottom teeth in and no signs of more teeth at this time. Any suggestions or help would be so appreciated. My husband is able to fall right back asleep afterward where as I am usually up for an hour or 2 with a more difficult time getting back asleep. I would say he is a pretty textbook baby, very calm, and most of the time easy. Just wondering where we are going wrong for night time sleeping. Thank you!

[ZacsMumme]

My first thought is that he is UT and needs more A time. Long NW at this time of the morning are often UT. at 9 months 3 hrs day sleep is pretty average, and for high sleep needs maybe 3.5 or a shorter day. I would try two things
1. Push all Atimes to 3 hrs min. At 9 months he should be able to do this A time as a min.
2. Cap day sleep at 3.5 hrs.

Give your LO 3 days to adjust.

I would also only go in at the NW if your LO cries for you Otherwise leave them to it. I kow this is hard, BTDT but it will help in the long run. Encourage LO to replug himself during A time so he learns to do it at night too

What do you think?

Hugs, your doing a great job!

[kohler14]

That sounds great! So will extending A time to 3 hours and capping naps at 1.5 hours essentially push us to a 4.5 easy? I think that would be good actually because it would make all of his A time 3 hours instead of what we have now which is a 4 hour A in the evening. I also think with the amount of food he eats he would be ok having a bottle every 4.5 with solids in between instead of 4. So this is what our day would look like:

8am Wake bottle 6 oz
9:30 breakfast solids and rice
11am nap
12:30 wake and bottle 6 oz
2pm lunch solids
3:30 nap
5pm wake and bottle 6oz
6:30 dinner solids and rice
???7 possible cluster feed??? not sure if I should drop this?
7:30 bath
8 bed

How does that look? It is essentially pushing back the morning 30 minutes which pushes the rest of the day back to even out A time to 3 hours each. Thanks for the reply! Last night's NW was 2 hours...which is rare, but exhausting:)

[ZacsMumme]

EASY looks good. Yes at this age they can usually go longer than 4hrs between feeds earlier in the day and then sometimes closer between that last nap and BT as you have here. are you BF or bottle? My thought is at this age a cluster feed isn't needed really.

give the new routine/pattern a few days so your LO can adjust. You may find with the naps being shorter your LO is more tired at BT and you may need to offer a slightly earlier BT to start with. However at 9 months your LO should be okay - some are doing longer than a 12hr day on 3hrs day sleep

Let me know how things are in a few days !

[kohler14]

Ok after two days on the new EASY he has had 2 NW per night. The first night he did replug himself once so he went back asleep. The rest he hasn't. He is not up long however, usually replug and back asleep in no time. Tonight is night 3...hoping for better results:)

[ZacsMumme]

You really want to get him working on replugging himself. A few things to hep maybe
1) A nightlight so he can see better
2) Giving the paci to his hand not mouth at the NW so he knows he has to put it in.
3) practice during A time.

Your other option is to wean the paci...TBH its a tough age for that though

[katie80]

Hi there, just jumping on here to offer some more encouragement.  I agree with Sara re: the paci.  Keep helping him get to the point of replugging himself.  Also, give the new routine a few more days to work.  It takes up to a week (or even two sometimes) for all the kinks to work themselves out. 

[kohler14]

Ok things have been slightly better since my last post. Still not sleeping through the night. We try to play "replug" during activity time....sometimes he is interested and sometimes not. I have actually been able to get him down easily for naps without it at all. I tried at night and it didn't go well at all. So right now we are not using it for naps and using it at night. He has only been up once each night. Last night he made it until 5am then was up for a little bit and back asleep. I am hoping that if I can keep trying to ween off the paci he will eventually not need it. Any suggestions with this?

[katie80]

One NW at 5 am is not bad. And yay that he went back to sleep!

I think that you probably need to either choose to keep it or get rid of it all together. If he has it at one sleep, he should be able to have it at them all. I agree with Sara that this is a tough age to get rid of the paci, but if you want to it's certainly possible. You'll just have to be really consistent in not giving it to him at night and helping him settle another way, i.e. shh/pat, gradual withdrawal, or PUPD. Or, you can choose to be consistent in making him do the replugging instead of you. It might take a few days for each approach, but they're both doable. I guess I'd go for the replugging as then he has that comfort item to fall back on for bouts of teething or traveling or just having a tough day. It's your call, though!