Help - 9 month old wide awake at night

[Anonymous]

DS biggest sleep issue has always been getting him to go to sleep (he is a night owl). We have gone through many changes in his sleep pattern, as I am sure is normal. For a while now his routine is to go to sleep around 7:30, and often wake up a few hours later, have a bottle and go right back to sleep (sometimes he doesn't wake for the bottle). The last couple of nights, he has fallen asleep as normal, but then wakes less than an hour later and is wide awake. Attempts to soothe him back to sleep or feed him fail. He is wide awake - laughing, babbling and smiling. However, if he is put in his crib, he cries. DS naps regularly (2 naps a day). He has been crawling for a few weeks and just started pulling himself up.

Have others experienced this and what did you do about it? We are not good at letting him cry for very long, but maybe it's time to leave him longer. TIA!

[Anonymous]

Have you tried to just wear him out during the day? He might just be in the habit of waking at night. Try to keep him awake later and tire him out. ( also it might help to really fill his belly up so he won't wake up because he is hungry. )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try to keep him awake later and tire him out.

I think this is not great advice. My experience and everything I've read and heard from other moms says the early bedtime is sacred. Sleep begets sleep - good naps and early bedtime will go a long way to resolving some night time issues - but not all of them. It sounds to me like it is a developmental sleep regression and you'll either have to wait it out or go the sleep training route - we haven't done that so I can't speak to its effectiveness in this situation. What we do is try to keep it as mellow as possible and not really engaging w/ ds, eventually he gives up and goes to sleep.

[Anonymous]

OP here - DS should be tired. Yesterday he did not nap much as he has just learned to pull up to standing in his crib and this is how he is spending much of his nap time at day care. Usually his afternoon nap ends around 2:30, so he is staying up from then until 11:00, with maybe an hour of sleep that entire time. How can he not be tired!?

I think it is developmental sleep regression (as I said he has been crawling for a few weeks and just learned to pull up), so what do we do? When he is wide awake at night, do we leave him in the crib (last night he did not cry, but was wide awake playing in his crib) or let him crawl around until he is tired?

[Anonymous]

Not sure there is a "right" way to handle it, but if it was me, if he wasn't crying, I certainly would not go to him. I also did CIO w/my DS around the same age (he was a frequent night waker - once every 1-2 hours all night) and having sucess with that, I would advise leaving him even if he cries (or going in to reassure and then leaving). but, it is what you feel comfortable with and what you feel will work with your baby.

Good luck.