9 Month Old Waking at Night

Andria,
I don't have any great advice but i know where you are coming from. I made the mistake of letting my son sleep in bed with us at around 6 months and it is a terrible habit to break him from. He is now 16 months and we are still working on keeping him in his crib. We usually turn on his crib light that plays music and give him his pacifier. This is working about 75% of the time and the other 25% I either take him down stairs to rock him, then put him in his crib or sit by his crib and pat his back until he falls asleep. Good luck

Decide what would be best for your whole family in the long run (usually it's not having a baby in your bed) and stick to your guns. Every child is different (my 2 certainly are) so there is no set solution.
My oldest would scream until he threw up every time we tried to let him cry it out. We ended up using stuffed animals, a fan (for white noise), and "pretty" (calming) music.
With my 1-year-old, now he usually just needs a drink (we keep a water bottle by his crib) or a diaper change. Very rarely does he need to be held.
Here are some things we found help with both boys:
*When they are not feeling well a humidifier can make a world of difference! I was amazed at how well it worked when we started using one. Vicks also makes a child-strength vapor rub that can help open his airways.
*Medicate. I'm not saying drug your child to make him sleep. I wouldn't do that. What I mean is with ear infections, teething, growth spurts and increased activity a little Tylenol can make a big difference in his comfort level. Also, if he is eating a lot of solid foods he could be experiencing gas. Gas drops work very quickly and you can use them after ever meal and before bedtime if needed.
*Make sure you hold them and give them lots of attention before bed. For the baby that may mean cuddles and looking through a book or a quiet activity with mommy or daddy.
*Feed them several small meals before bed time. When my baby was younger he would wake up because he was hungry and would not sleep until he was fed. I read somewhere that you should start feeding them a couple hours before before bedtime. It worked for us.
*I'm sure you've heard this a million times but get a good bedtime routine going and follow it every night. We didn't do that with our oldest until he was 3 and that created a lot of problems. We started right away with our second and, while he's not a perfect sleeper, things go much more smoothly.

Good luck! If feel for you!

I went through a stage with one of M. 9 month olds that we have just corrected within the past few weeks. First off, if you are nursing or feeding him to sleep, STOP!!! Nurse him (keeping him awake), then do your bedtime routine (reading, diaper change, etc). When you nurse a baby to sleep, they associate sleeping with being with you, so when they wake & you're not there, they cry for you. If he happens to fall asleep while nursing anyways, gently wake him. The first night I put M. daughter down after the storytime and she cried for about 8 minutes (I was set to go in after 10), then fell asleep. She woke up at 4am & I had to rock her. The second night, she cried for 10 min, M. husband checked on her & patted her (did NOT pick her up). She cried for about 3-4 min. more & fell asleep & slept the rest of the night. Since then, she's only been up in the middle of the night once.

If you are not putting him to sleep by feeding him, then I'm sorry to ramble on about this. Maybe this will help someone else!

Hi, Andria - I had the same problem with my little guy right around the 9 month mark...although we waited until around 11 months to do anything about it! We bought a book called The Sleep Easy Solution. It really worked for us, so thought I'd pass that along to you.

Good luck!
HLG

The sleeping issues seem to stir people up, and at the risk of judgement upon myself, here's how I handle it at my house: my 15-month old son wakes up at night quite often, and used to go back to sleep quite well if I held him for a bit and laid him back in his crib. Now he goes back to sleep pretty well, but wakes and cries to be held again as soon as I lay him down -- unless it's in our bed. Because I work full time, my decision has been to put him in bed with us, and everyone goes back to sleep. Sometimes it is less than ideal because he is restless, but mostly it works really well. (I just can't afford to lose an hour of sleep hoping he'll cry it out...) Both of my daughters did similar things at this age. They are now 5 and 3, and they have really good sleep habits, so I'll let my son do the same until he grows out of it too. Good luck!

You could try going to his crib and just shushing and patting him. Letting him know it's ok, but you'll be up a while. Just remember, do not pick him up, just pat and shush. If he cries and gets very worked up, you can pick him up, until he calms down and then back in the crib he goes.

My first was very stubborn and got to the point where he'd wake at night and want someone to "visit". We tried several things and they all seemed to work for a bit, but eventually, I'd be in there for 2 hours, he'd lay there and not fall asleep, but cry if I left.

I know you said you don't have the heart to have him cry it out...and I know it's a hot topic out there...but if all else fails that may be what you have to do. We had to do it with my son and we did it at 9 months. He's old enough to realize he's not being abandoned. when we did it, my son cried the first night for about an hour or so....hard not to go in, but you can't...the second night is was less and the third night even shorter, he was sleeping on his own through the night by the end of the week.