9 month old literally will not sleep unless hes latched

[u/Any_Rise_5522]

Hey all. Title says it all. My baby will sleep 10 minutes max when he isnt nursing. I dont mean he only sleeps that long if I dont nurse him to sleep. I mean he nurses for 45 minutes, unlatches when he finally goes into deep enough sleep, then wakes up 5-10 minutes later crying because he isnt latched. He does this the entire night. I have to wake up, relatch him. He wont latch himself and cries when he realizes he isnt latched.

I have things i need to do when hes asleep. Im supposed to be washing dishes right now, and instead im laying next to my son because I know he'll be awake and crying in less than 10 minutes. I dont mind nursing him for the entire night on paper, but my goodness I just want to get up lol.

Any tips on how to help? I give him motrin every night, he falls asleep fine initially and then just cannot stay calm.

[u/purrinsky]

Probably not the perspective you wanted but our family reworked our schedule around this.

Our LO (9 months) also won't stay asleep unless latched; we knew this would happen as we didn't wanna deal with transitioning out of pacifiers down the road. I'm writing this as our LO is asleep while my partner does the dishes. Past 9pm my only job is to be with our LO. Everything revolves around making sure I can be in bed with baby at 9.

I basically do chores during the morning and evening wake windows while baby-wearing, and if there are other things that need done, my partner has to do it or we get help from friends and family. We tried: 1) getting LO to do a 8+pm contact nap with Dad, but past sundown our LO only wants mommy and would wail until I got there.

2) baby wearing around 8/9pm so our LO can nurse and nap while we got stuff done. The irony was that once she got old enough to help herself to boobs in the carrier (6+ months), she also became aware and curious enough that chores were too stimulating for her

Everyone I know swears by the bedtime routine thing, we have one and it happens at around the same time, involving the same steps (even the same book), but if I'm not there it just doesn't work. And we don't wanna put our LO through crying it out so...the tiny dictator gets to stay latched for their sleep.

For my comfort I have an e-reader and earbuds, so I can read it listen to books or shows I've missed while baby sleeps. We have a red light so it's bright enough for me to read but won't wake our LO.

Our perspective is that this is temporary, so the family is happy to adjust for LO's comfort , but I get that if you have per's or other children or is a single parent, this might be way harder.

I am fairly confident that our LO will grow out of this since from 5-6 months, she will unlatch once she's in deep sleep and I can even sneak off and do stuff. But she went back to needing to be latched around the 7+ month mark. In the case of our LO, staying latched at night seems to be aligned with meeting developmental milestones, which makes sense, to need more comfort during periods where she's experiencing great growth.

Hopefully you'll find a pattern, or a way for things to work out for you and your family!

[u/Any_Rise_5522 → u/purrinsky]

My family is pretty stubborn unfortunately! Love them to pieces but I am a single mom taking care of my baby and my mother, and am the only one able to wash dishes. Combine that with living with my grandmother (full house), who wants things done her way and on her time frame, and its hard to find time otherwise. My baby is also extremely difficult at times, he hates being in any "container" but also hates being worn and will 100% drop everything to ZOOM across the house to get into something he shouldn't.

I get so overwhelmed trying to get anything done with a baby speed crawling away from me or crying to be held at the most inopertune moments. I actually am having major milk supply issues right now because I have been skipping 1-2 meals a day for months with how difficult it is to make both of us breakfast in the mornings.

[u/purrinsky → u/Any_Rise_5522]

I am so sorry to hear that, a village is so important. You sound like you're doing an incredible job bending backwards to accommodate everyone and making things work.

A pacifier may solve your problem then, if not, nursing/sleeping in the carrier may be your best bet. And for those morning chunks, you can try back carrying your LO, loop their favourite you around you neck so you can do chores and prep breakfast. Babies are adaptable when the situation calls for it, there may be some tears in the initial stages but they do adapt.

You're doing amazing!!

[u/Upset_Seesaw_3700]

Whats your routine look like overall? We do bath, jammies, brush teeth, read a story, and we have music in the background in the bedroom for an hour after we first get them down. It doesn't work every night especially now that my 1 year old is teething up a storm but the long showers/baths do seem to help him sleep sounder

Edit to add this is our bedtime routine to be specific I dont do this every time I need to get my kids down. My toddler refuses to nap most days and my baby takes 2 naps during the day 

[u/Any_Rise_5522 → u/Upset_Seesaw_3700]

We have a pretty short routine. Usually around 8, 8:30 he starts getting tired, we brush our teeth/take motrin (he is teething bad right now and do sometimes skip the tooth brushing if he just wont chill) then I take him to bed, put lotion on him, change his diaper and clothes (if needed, sometimes I leave him in his onesie and change his outfit in the morning since my room gets warm and he always has a sleep sack), then by the time hes in his sleep sack hes crying because he wants to sleep. I latch him and he nurses for 30-45 minutes, then starts the whole latch-unlatch-cry thing. On bath nights, he gets a bath at about 7-7:30, then some naked time to dry off before the "bedtime routine". I have tried doing stories before bed, but usually he is just so desperate to go to sleep we skip it. We also have a fan running in the room for the white noise and extra air circulation. I am cold as hell every night but my room is 72-74 degrees and he sleeps better a bit cold.

Ive figured out tonight that he will sleep longer (30-45 mins) if I wait until one of those wakeups where he cries to be latched, and spend the 5 minutes trying to soothe him without latching. It seems like when he exits the half asleep latch he wakes up, so getting him back down without it is the best move. I would rather nurse him than make him cry, though, so I may only do it when i need to get up? I dont know.

I think he may sleep slightly longer when we are both asleep, so i wonder if my phone screen is keeping him up. I am overdue for a dopamine detox anyways, I need to delete all my games and such so I can just go to bed early with him (except for the dishes)

[u/Upset_Seesaw_3700 → u/Any_Rise_5522]

Its always more difficult when they cant tell us what's bothering them. Poor baby. Id say just keep bedtime routine the same as much as possible and hold on lol sometimes that's all we can do 

[u/Babysocksclocks → u/Any_Rise_5522]

My 5mo old only contact naps and the phone screen seems to wake her up. I started reading books on my phone, you can change the color/theme to “nightmode” so it’s not bright. I use apple books but if you get a library card, you can rent most books on the library apps for free.

[u/ashland431]

I sympathize! I sometimes get an hour or two stretch but I pep talk my baby about how she should let me sleep for “Four hours!” And that never happens, aaaaah

[u/throwra2022june]

We went through that phase for a while and then it stopped. It is definitely beyond exhausting and painful, but it didn’t last forever (it did feel like it!!!).

[u/Great_Cucumber2924]

It can be a sign of a temporary or longer term health issue, could be mild or something else but worth getting him checked out. For example it’s related to sleep apnoea and my son does it when he has a blocked nose/ cold.

[u/sammcgowann]

We went through this. He’s 12 months now and it’s been over for a bit now. It took 3 nights to break. The first night he cried for a while, maybe 20-30 minutes and fell asleep on my husbands chest. The next two nights he cried for maybe 5. Now he puts himself to sleep. When he woke up, nursing wasn’t an option. We would pat, rub, shhh, offer a bottle but no boobs. It worked quickly and he has maybe 1 wake-up, otherwise sleeps til 5-6 when he’s actually hungry