9 Months... A phase? Growth spurt?

It's probably "just a phase" (don't you hate that catchall!!!). 9 or so months is around about the time separation anxiety starts kicking in. I'd just keep going with your night time routine and doing what you're comfortable with for the night wakings. When it happened here we found C would start waking at the same times after about 3-4 nights and that's when I would leave him a bit longer before going in (up to 10 mins). He would usually start going back to sleep on his own and then we'd be back to normal within the week.

Hope it works out as easily for you!

I think it must be a phase as Isabella has started doing it as well, and she is 9 months tomorrow.
Im feeling the effects of it now, as its been happening for a few weeks now

Sorry if I'm starting to sound like I stuck record but...to be honest I think its because he feeds to sleep. We had waking 5-6 times a night at this but stopped feeding to sleep and taught bubs to self settle. And ever since then she's slept for 10-11 hours with only a dreamfeed at 10 pm and, fingers crossed, unless bubs is sick, it should continue.

Yep, sounds like ninemonthitis to me! All of the babies in my born-in month went through similar issues when our little ones were nine months old - it's a phase, they grow out of it. Symptoms included hard to settle at night, clingy during the day, random night waking, and general random grumpy child syndrome.

Cool. No worries you have probably got lucky. All going well it will fix itself. javascript:AddSmileyIcon('')javascript:AddSmileyIcon('')

But if it doesn't bear this woeful tale in mind....We didn't get so lucky. javascript:AddSmileyIcon('') A lot of my friends with babies the same age had simliar problems to what I did.

My DD used self settled beautifully during the day and fed to sleep at night only too. At around eight months she got so much more alert and aware of her surroundings and freaked out when she woke, wanted to go back to sleep, but was alone and no boob.

If she first went to sleep without feeding she put herself back to sleep without feeding if she woke fully. Then she started wanting to be feed or rocked to sleep during the day too (who wouldn't) and only napping 45 mins. Kept waiting for phase to pass but it didn't. Nobody got much sleep for a month.

Putting myself in her shoes helped me work out how to approach the problem. when they get to certain stage babies learn what to do and how to behave by doing the same thing over and over again. DD is pretty textbook, she needs consistency if the same thing happens each time she catches on and is happy and secure. If we do something sometimes and not others, its stressful and confusing for her. So after a while she wasn't sure what to do and we had a very tired and grumpy baby.

I have found doing lots of going away coming back games really helpful for dealing with clinginess and making a big fuss when I come back into the room.

Good luck and big hugs.

Edited by millymollymandy

we have been going through the same thing too!!! soul destroying!!!!!
for us....i am too tired to deal with it at night so i just feed (BF) him again and again...until recently when i thought f**k It!!!!
it was getting ridiculous..
for the past week i made sure he was all geared for bed, put him down and walk out!!
the first nights were horrible with him crying/grizzling for well over an hour...but a week into it and he is HEAPS better...he grizzled for a few minutes last night and has been sleeping through again for the past 5 nights.
you have to break the habit...it sucks but it helps if you have a supportive person with you.(partners are good if they are abit hard arse, which mine is)
Vanda is realising that he has to sleep now.
by the way....he is my third child so i have others i need to tend to in the evenings . thats why it was creating such a problem for me...
plus as said, i was wearing thin!!

you can go in and shhh them every so often but that just created more issues for us... so i would peek in to see he was actually okay and leave again without him seeing me...

i feel very liberated...plus, dont let them win!!!!!!!

Yep sounds like good ole ninemonthitis to me, I'm one of the other mums in Free Spirit's thread and we all pretty much had a rough ride at 9mths and were glad to see that back of that particular phase!!

Have faith this too will pass xxx