The period from nine months on is such a gorgeous age - your baby will likely be babbling away, perhaps forming sounds or first words, getting their first teeth, learning to sit, crawl or even walk, and enjoying playing games. But these developmental milestones can also lead to huge sleeping challenges, even for babies who have been angelic sleepers for many months.

There are several issues you may face around this age:

• Separation anxiety

• Teething

• Learning to move

• Nap resistance

• Early waking

• Continued inability to self-settle

• Make sure your baby spends time with people she knows and try to avoid leaving your baby with care-givers she doesn't know, particularly at this age. If you need to go back to work around this time, make the transition as easy for you both as possible, by spending time at the daycare/care-giver's place together.

• Gradually increase the times you are apart from your baby, eg the first time at a care-giver or daycare without you should only be for an hour or two.

• Always say goodbye if you are leaving your baby - do not sneak out as this may lead to distrust and further upset - both at bedtime and during the day.

For more information see our articles on ‘Tips on helping your child nap well in daycare’ and ‘Separation anxiety in babies & toddlers’.

Tips for nap resistance:

• Change your baby's morning sleep time until 30 mins later, so put her down at about 9.30am (rather than 9am). If she is still not settling easily, try 9.45am.

• Move her afternoon sleep back by 30 mins until approx 1.30pm.

• Make sure your baby has plenty of opportunity to play and move about, so she gets physically tired.

• If the suggested nap times don't work for your baby, continue to use tired signs such as eye rubbing and grizzling as a cue that it's time to sleep.

• If you have avoided a structured routine until now, give it a try - your baby will almost certainly sleep better!

• If your baby is over one and you have persevered with the above and find that she is still resisting her naps then it may be time to try her on one day sleep. To do this, move her morning nap back to 11am. As she adapts, this will gradually move closer to midday. Bringing bedtime forward to 6/6:30pm can help her adjust and combat overtiredness. You may also find that two naps are required on some days. If this is the case, often a quick nap on the go in the late afternoon will do the trick.

• As with all nap transitions, it can take a few days for your wee one to adapt. Be flexible and persevere and she should pass through the phase relatively painlessly.

Early Waking

Babies of this age can suddenly start waking early, when up till now they've slept till 6.30-7am. Another rude shock for parents!!

The most likely causes of early waking at this age are:

• Baby is chilly in the morning

• Too much light coming in the bedroom windows

• Household or outside noise

• Waking for a milk feed

• Reinforcement as mum or dad gets baby up for cuddle/feed/come into their bed

• The timing of the first day sleep - baby will wake early if the first sleep is too early as this is treated as an extension of their night sleep.

• Baby's evening bedtime, ie if you put your baby to bed at 6pm, they are unlikely to sleep past 5.30-6am!!! Babies of this age need 11-12 hours night sleep so make sure your expectations of what constitutes an acceptable time to start the day are realistic.
  
  

Tips for solving early waking:

• Bedtime at about 7pm

• Move your baby's morning sleep 30 mins later, as above under 'nap resistance'

• Avoid reinforcing your baby's waking, such as giving milk feeds at 5.30am or putting baby into bed with you until a reasonable 'wake-up' time.

• Treat early waking as you would night-waking at 2am - resettle your baby in her own cot, using whichever technique you normally use, such as popping in the dummy or ssshing and patting.

• Try leaving your baby for 10 mins before going in, despite her protesting, to give her the opportunity to go back to sleep.

• Peg an extra layer on the curtains, such as a dark coloured sheet or black-out lining.

• Make sure your baby is warm by using a baby sleeping bag that can't be kicked off. If you use blankets, dress baby warmly enough that it doesn't matter if the blankets are kicked off.

• Play music or preferably white noise on repeat all night, so it covers any disturbing noises from neighbours, birds, cars or in your house.

• Try doing a dreamfeed with your baby ASLEEP at about 10pm for a week.

If your baby has been a good sleeper until recently, any sleep training will likely be very quick. For example, our 9 month old baby had been struggling to settle and waking in the night while he was learning to crawl and getting his first 2 teeth. Once we decided to stick to a sleep training technique (the verbal check-ins technique shown on the Sleepeasy Solution DVD) it took an hour on the first night to get Ben off to sleep. We checked on him at 5/10/15 mins and offered verbal reassurance only. He fell asleep after an hour, slept through and has had no settling issues or night waking in the week since.

See our article on 'Verbal Reassurance Sleep Training' here.

If you are approaching sleep training for the first time or have been previously offering your baby lots of support in the forms of feeding or rocking to sleep, you might find that you feel more comfortable with a gentler approach. Gradual methods will work if you persevere and can be consistent in implementing them although they don't necessarily always mean your baby won't cry. Babies of this age are becoming far more vocal and are able to resist changes more vigorously by yelling, pulling up to standing in their cot and so on but you will be there to offer them comfort and reassurance if you feel this is a more suitable approach for you and your family.

Finally...

So, yes, the phase between 9-18 months can be a really challenging period for baby's sleep! So much is going on and even the best sleepers can suddenly seem impossible to get to settle. We hope the information above will help you work out why your baby is waking. Then once you develop a consistent plan and stick to it, you and your baby will soon be enjoying a full night's sleep.

To help you put your plan in place, complete our 'Night Waking Quiz' and download a copy of our 'Sleep Plan' resource.

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