Why Being the Parent of a 9-Month-Old is Tough
Let me preface this to say, I don't think a nine-month-old is the hardest baby age. I'm not sure there is one really. Each baby and stage is SO different with unique challenges.
But for us, nine months has been somewhere between frustrating and wonderful. For nine months, I basically let Greyson's schedule be whatever it would be. Meaning, if he woke up at 5 a.m. one day and 6:30 another, his naps would be completely different. The naps were good (1-2 hours usually), but not at a specific time. There was no schedule. This method is completely fine and works. In my opinion, you do not HAVE to put your baby on a schedule (although it might bring more sanity to your life if you do).
I work three days a week and am home with the boys the other days. The lack of a schedule didn't really bother me any until it did. For his first five months of life, he woke up every two hours through the night to nurse and I went along with it. Gradually, he started stretching his sleep to three or even four hours on occasion, which felt glorious and manageable.
But somewhere between eight and nine months, he not only started waking up every 2-3 hours, but after I'd nurse him and lay him down, he would scream and all of a sudden be wide awake. Not ideal at 1, 2, 3 or 4 am... When I felt desperate, I'd either bring him out to the living room to tire him out for an hour (or more) with toys, or I would pull him into bed, nurse a bit more and try to get him back to sleep.
Sometime in the last few weeks, I hit a breaking point. A few nights in a row I was up for multiple hours on end trying to nurse, rock, entertain, change diaper, nurse again, etc. only to have a wide-eyed baby crying back at me each time I put him down for sleep. After one particularly bad night where I was up from 12-4 am (I nearly lost my sh*t that night), I declared it time to start sleep training.
We had generally followed The Baby Whisperer 's sleep methods with Henry and were happy with how effective it was in teaching him to self soothe without letting him cry forever. After a week or so of following this with Greyson, I'm not confident this will be enough. I feel we've made small steps forward, but nothing earth shattering. I am still needing to nurse him a few times in the night (~11, 1, 4/5) after he simply will not give in when Pete tries to soothe him back to sleep.
I think we are also coming to the conclusion that it's time to move the little guy's crib from our room into Henry's room. I'm just fearful that if we do that, we'll all of a sudden have two children wide awake at night (which has happened a few times in the last two months as well). 😁
I'm reminding myself that there is a lot going on in Greyson's development between gaining the skills necessary to walk (he pulls up to standing on nearly everything) and popping a new tooth every few weeks it seems. I hope that this is just a phase that changes soon without much more struggle, but we'll see.
Additionally, with his new sharp teeth on top, the nursing department has been very painful on one side. As in toe curling, cursing to yourself silently painful. I even had to call the lactation consultants today to ask how to decrease the pain and let a puncture on my breast heal while continuing to nurse on that side. Oh the joys of motherhood!
But for all the bad, there's good and great, too! Every morning I wake up thankful for coffee and truly enjoy the ritual of making my pour-over half caff coffee. I love the bond Greyson and Henry have. The way their eyes light up when they first see each other in the morning is my favorite. Greyson is getting close to walking, but for now just wants to be standing at everything, which of course also means falling and bonking his head on occasion. And his deep belly laughs and giggles when his brother does something hilarious are something else.
Okay, I think that about sums it up for now. Nine months has been hard on us and I can't even fathom how in less than three months I'll have a one-year-old.
I hope you're having a great week. Feel free to leave me your favorite sleep book/tip or just a funny "I can relate" story.
But for us, nine months has been somewhere between frustrating and wonderful. For nine months, I basically let Greyson's schedule be whatever it would be. Meaning, if he woke up at 5 a.m. one day and 6:30 another, his naps would be completely different. The naps were good (1-2 hours usually), but not at a specific time. There was no schedule. This method is completely fine and works. In my opinion, you do not HAVE to put your baby on a schedule (although it might bring more sanity to your life if you do).
But somewhere between eight and nine months, he not only started waking up every 2-3 hours, but after I'd nurse him and lay him down, he would scream and all of a sudden be wide awake. Not ideal at 1, 2, 3 or 4 am... When I felt desperate, I'd either bring him out to the living room to tire him out for an hour (or more) with toys, or I would pull him into bed, nurse a bit more and try to get him back to sleep.
Sometime in the last few weeks, I hit a breaking point. A few nights in a row I was up for multiple hours on end trying to nurse, rock, entertain, change diaper, nurse again, etc. only to have a wide-eyed baby crying back at me each time I put him down for sleep. After one particularly bad night where I was up from 12-4 am (I nearly lost my sh*t that night), I declared it time to start sleep training.
We had generally followed The Baby Whisperer 's sleep methods with Henry and were happy with how effective it was in teaching him to self soothe without letting him cry forever. After a week or so of following this with Greyson, I'm not confident this will be enough. I feel we've made small steps forward, but nothing earth shattering. I am still needing to nurse him a few times in the night (~11, 1, 4/5) after he simply will not give in when Pete tries to soothe him back to sleep.
I think we are also coming to the conclusion that it's time to move the little guy's crib from our room into Henry's room. I'm just fearful that if we do that, we'll all of a sudden have two children wide awake at night (which has happened a few times in the last two months as well). 😁
I'm reminding myself that there is a lot going on in Greyson's development between gaining the skills necessary to walk (he pulls up to standing on nearly everything) and popping a new tooth every few weeks it seems. I hope that this is just a phase that changes soon without much more struggle, but we'll see.
Additionally, with his new sharp teeth on top, the nursing department has been very painful on one side. As in toe curling, cursing to yourself silently painful. I even had to call the lactation consultants today to ask how to decrease the pain and let a puncture on my breast heal while continuing to nurse on that side. Oh the joys of motherhood!
But for all the bad, there's good and great, too! Every morning I wake up thankful for coffee and truly enjoy the ritual of making my pour-over half caff coffee. I love the bond Greyson and Henry have. The way their eyes light up when they first see each other in the morning is my favorite. Greyson is getting close to walking, but for now just wants to be standing at everything, which of course also means falling and bonking his head on occasion. And his deep belly laughs and giggles when his brother does something hilarious are something else.
Okay, I think that about sums it up for now. Nine months has been hard on us and I can't even fathom how in less than three months I'll have a one-year-old.
I hope you're having a great week. Feel free to leave me your favorite sleep book/tip or just a funny "I can relate" story.
Comments
Paul still isn't on a set schedule and until he drops to 1 nap I don't think he will be. He is on a set schedule at school as he naps at 10 and 2 (although each nap is only 30 minutes on a really good day, otherwise they can be as short at 10-20 minutes!). On weekends his naps vary and the time he goes down varies. It makes it so hard to make plans so I kind of try not to make plans so I'm not risking having to wake him. But our week days are so dang busy with getting out the door at 6:50 so I don't mind unplanned weekends. My how life has changed since having a baby!
Hang in there, mama. The sleep deprivation is so awful and it all falls on you since you are nursing. I guess that was one upside to pumping - Phil and I could split the nights! And another upside to pumping was not being bitten. OUCH!!