Hi everyone. I hope to find some original advise for my, I am sure non-original situation. I have a beautiful 9-month old baby girl. She pretty much has been sleeping through the night since she was 2 of 3 months old. Not 12-hour stretches, but 5-6 hours at first and now about 9-10 hours. She still does not fall asleep before 10 pm, most of which has to do with my and my husband's schedules (we both work full time), but also her own inner clock. Most nights and naps during the day, once she is down she stays asleep. Occasionally she wakes up during the night once or twice but is usually still half-asleep and it is easy to put her back down. She recently mastered crawling back and forht and pulling herself up to stand (well mostly up to her knees). Maybe this has something to do with how difficult it became for us to put her down to sleep. Before her bedtime, I have had the same routine for a while. She plays (now it is on the floor mat, crawling and stuff), then I turn on her lullaby CD, we bath her, then my husband feeds her her bottle (either expressed breast milk or formula) and then I breastfeed her from our bed. It worked like a charm for a long time. She would hardly breastfeed, but just fall asleep on my breast, after which we would just transfer her to her crib. However for about a month now, she does not fall asleep and moreover starts rolling away from me, getting up on all fours :-) and crawling away. I spend half-an-hour and more trying to actully put her down next to me. Eventually she falls asleep, but it takes forever. Then she would turn over on her belly at night and get up on all fours and sometimes all the way up to a sitting position in the middle of the night, waking herself up in the process. That is not too much of a problem, but putting her down for the night and for a nap in her crib is such a problem. When we try to put her down for a nap inside her crib, she resists something terrible! She keeps getting up, turning over, crawling around even when she is visibly tired. I know about crying it out and no-cry method (not too much in detail), and definitely would choose no-cry solution. I am wondering if anyone has any tricks, suggestions on how to sooth the baby for the night and for naps, how to teach them at 9 months to go to sleep. I realize that I have been soothing her for a long time and now she does not really know how to sooth herself in her crib. Of course it is my and my husband's fault, but different things work for different babies and what we have been doing so far worked for us until now.

Any recommendations? Does anyone have a particular soothing toy or music they can recommend as well?

Thank you!

Hi Anastasia...I feel your pain, LOL. My daughter is 16 months old and since she was a newborn my husband and I have always soothed her to sleep. It started to become a problem with waking up in the middle of the night and not wanting to go down when she reached new milestones. I think it is pretty normal, that once children learn something new they try it out...even if at 2am. Is your daughter teething by any chance? I know that every time Sienna starts cutting teeth it is harder to get her to sleep and she wakes frequesntly during the night.

Anyway, I too hate the cry it out method, but sometimes you have to use tough love. I can't stand to hear her cry and it keeps me up as well, so of course there are times that I resort to rocking her for a few minutes and then put her back down...awake or asleep. Sometimes she will cry for a few minutes, but will fall off to sleep. They need to learn to self soothe.

Til this day Sienna still wakes up in the middle of the night. Sometime she will stay awake for 2-3 hours. That is when frustration sets in. It's difficult to stay calm when it's 2am, you are exhausted and have to keep getting up every 10 minutes for 2 hours straight, but she is cutting teeth and I feel for her.

I can't really offer advise. Sienna now gets one nap a day for about 2 hours, but at 9 months she was getting 2 naps a day. Is your daughter sleeping too long for her naps? Our routine is this...Dinner at 5pm, milk after dinner, quiet time for about a 1/2 hour before bed, 2 books in the glider and then lights out. She gets her bath in the morning because I personally find that after a bath she is more hyper. I do hold Sienna until she is just about asleep, so that when she does go down she can learn to get the rest of the way by herself.

Good luck and you will see that as your little one gets older schedules will change again. You just have to be patient :)

Thank you, Sandy. I know I am not alone and I know deep down that I should have started putting her down in the crib awake for a while now, but it just felt right for her and me to put her down already sleeping. I am also a little selfish when it comes to our night routines, because I work all day 5 days a week (really have no other choice) and only get to spend a couple of hours with her before she goes to sleep so that time when she lays next to me to breastfeed is prcious for me, even if she does roll away and crawl away from me until I am so much more exhausted than she is. And yes, she is teething, but she has been for a while. She has 2 bottom teeth now and I do not feel any new ones cutting through, but it is obvious that teething is bothering her a lot. It is like you said, patience is really the key word when it comes to raising little ones. Thanks again, Sandy. And good luck to you and your angel. 

Dear Amy. Thank you so much. I was thinking about going back to breastfeeding her from the rocking chair and then maybe just rocking her a bit and putting her down. Sure she will probably wake up, but then hopefully will go back to sleep. I will try your method. Thanks for advise.

Hi everyone,

It's comforting to know that this is not an uncommon problem!  Anastasia, I also feel your pain, and I know it is a constant struggle.  I have a 7-month old daughter and sleep training has been so difficult.  After months of soothing her completely to sleep, my husband and I decided to try the cry-it-out method, even though from the beginning I was totally opposed to it (I guess desperate times call for desperate measures).  We read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth.  As difficult as it was for the first week or two, Nia actually picked it up really quickly, and I became a complete convert.  She was on a predictable schedule, as well as sleeping more during the day and longer at night.  I couldn't believe my luck...

And then, a couple weeks ago, she learned to crawl.  And it was all downhill from there.  It was as if she completely forgot everything she learned about falling asleep on her own!  It sounds like Nia has been doing things similar to your little one...which of course makes any parent want to tear their hair out, especially after we thought we found something that worked.  I've read in a couple places that this can happen when babies become mobile...they get so excited about being able to move around on their own, that when they have a little freedom in their crib, they wake right back up.  Sandy, that's pretty much what you said in your post, and I was relieved to read it. :)

I don't want to start all over with crying it out, so now I'm trying what I hope is a happy medium.  I put her down when I know she's fed and tired, and if she starts to fuss, I let her go for a little bit to see if eventually she can put herself back to sleep.  Sometimes she can.  But if that cry escalates into the type that you know she's just getting more agitated, I go in and soothe her again.  Sometimes I worry that I'm confusing her, but I guess we just make this up as we go along! 

Good luck, and thanks everyone.