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Why Is My Baby No Longer Sleeping?

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During sleep regression, your baby will go from sleeping soundly to waking up multiple times during the night. Lasting between 2-6 weeks, there’s a good chance that your baby has experienced sleep regression before – many babies go through a sleep regression around 3-4 months as they transition to a sleep schedule that is closer…

Here’s What You Need To Know:

  • At around nine months, your baby goes through a period of sleep regression.
  • Sleep regression is a temporary phase that usually occurs in conjunction with other major milestones, such as a large developmental change or growth spurt.
  • Sleep regression shouldn’t last longer than 6 weeks.
  • Keep a consistent bedtime routine, take your little ones on walks, and keep them full before bedtime to combat sleep regression.

The Lullabies Aren’t Cutting It

At around nine months, your baby goes through another period of sleep regression. It’ll make you question all the effort that you’ve put into getting your baby to sleep through the night. It’ll also make you super tired. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Sleep regression is a temporary phase that usually occurs in conjunction with other major milestones, such as a large developmental change or growth spurt. One big one: crawling.

The average baby will learn how to crawl around 9 months old, and it opens up a whole new world of exploring. As a result, babies get so excited that they wake up in the middle of the night wanting to crawl some more. Below are a couple tips for getting through the 9-month old sleep regression.

Keep a Consistent Bedtime Routine

This means keeping bath time, storytime, and tuck-in time around the same time every night. Adding a soothing activity to your baby’s nighttime routine may be beneficial as well. We recommend swaddling, a bath, and/or baby massage.

Adjust Their Naps Accordingly

On nights when your baby spends a lot of time awake, allow them to nap longer the next day. If sleep regression is causing your baby to nap less during the day, try adjusting to a slightly earlier bedtime.

Take a Stroll

Vitamin D contributes to overall health, but it also helps babies get a good night’s sleep. Studies show that sunlight exposure promotes nocturnal melatonin production earlier in the day, which helps them sleep soundly later.

Keep Their Bellies Full

Some babies are much hungrier during periods of sleep regression, as they usually coincide with developmental and/or physical milestones. Make sure your little one is full at bedtime. Diet plays a starring role in your baby’s sleep cycle.

Beneficial Foods:

Raspberries: Raspberries contain loads of magnesium, calcium, iron, folate, and vitamin B6, all of which contribute to brain health, and a good night’s sleep.

Spinach: is rich in tryptophan. (Yes, the amino acid in turkey that makes it really easy to snooze post-Thanksgiving meal.) Tryptophan helps in the production of melatonin – the body’s ‘sleep hormone’!

Blackberries: are rich in magnesium, a macronutrient that plays a key role in better sleep, stress reduction, and mood stabilization.

Bananas: are rich in serotonin and melatonin, both important for sleep.

Chickpeas: are high in protein, iron, potassium, fiber and vitamins K, C and B-6. This makes them a great source of tryptophan.

  • Milk
  • Eggs
  • Fish
  • Sesame
  • Shellfish
  • Tree Nuts
  • Peanuts
  • Wheat
  • Soy

Summary

Your nine-month-old is becoming more and more mobile every day. They are beginning to crawl, pivot, and pull themselves up. All these new skills are processed during REM sleep, which can cause them to move around in their sleep and wake themselves up.

While it may feel like sleep regression will last forever, fear not, it typically lasts 2-6 weeks. You’ll be back to bragging about your “good little sleeper,” in no time.

About the Author

Arianna Schioldager

Writer.

Sources

  • Mead, M. Nathaniel. “Benefits of Sunlight: A Bright Spot for Human Health.” Environmental Health Perspectives, vol. 116, no. 4, 2008, pp. A160–A167. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40040083.
  • Murkoff, Heidi, and Sharon Mazel. What to Expect the First Year. 3rd ed., HarperCollins Publishers, 2015. (Page 417)
  • “Office of Dietary Supplements – Vitamin D.” NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 15 Apr. 2016, ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-Consumer/.