How We Sleep Trained Our 9-Month-Old to Sleep

Our daughter is now, 16 months old. A calm and happy baby that sleeps through the night and falls asleep without the fuss.

But it wasn’t always like this…

At 9 months, we started sleep training. I’d say it was more challenging for me. I didn’t want to accept it was the time to do it. In my mind, if I accepted it was time to sleep train, she would become “too independent, too early” and we would disconnect because she’d rely on self-soothing mechanisms. I was wrong to think that.

Back story

Let me give you a little back story: our daughter co-slept with us in bed from birth until 4 months, then at 4 months we moved her into a bassinet next to our bed, and around this same time she hit her sleep regression. Nighttime became a constant struggle for us both. She adapted a habit to sleep for 4 hours, wake up to nurse, sleep another 4 hours, nurse, and sleep till morning time. This was not a sustainable schedule for either of us. In the morning we’d wake up cranky and I was very emotionless throughout my day. It got to the point where I was becoming a person I resented. Thankfully, my husband was able to help me pinpoint the problem (I was sleepless and unrested). We desired to restore peace and tranquility, especially knowing that our daughter was not a fussy baby once upon a time.

I was encouraged by a couple of my friends that sleep training would take effort from all of us but was totally worth the dedication. I am here to tell you all that, yes, sleep training is worth it for the well-being of your child and yourself!

Soo getting into the nitty-gritty of how sleep training went….

Week before sleep training

I want to include a caveat: the week before we started sleep training, we transitioned our daughter into the crib in her nursery room. According to a few articles, this wasn’t the most ideal time to transition a baby into a different environment when trying to sleep train. Regardless, we still did it but with our own style…

We allowed her a week to become familiarized with her room before starting the sleep training. This basically consisted of laying her in her crib for nighttime while singing and playing, letting her fall asleep and then when she woke up we’d bring her to our bed. We spent time in her nursery during the day playing, reading, and exploring the different corners in her room as much as possible. We wanted to ensure that she associated her room with a fun and relaxing sentiment.

Sleep training week

Fast forward to sleep training week, it was a success. There weren’t any blowbacks that indicated an unsettled baby once we started sleep training.  I speculate that she was able to associate her new environment with her new habit, which jointly helped her grow in confidence about her own little inhabited space.

When selecting a sleep training method, there is a ton and honestly, it’s overwhelming. We decided to adapt a little bit of each method to create our own method — that worked for us. I highly recommend taking this approach, as every baby and parent is individual to their own likings, so do what works for you.

We went into this with a flexible but consistent mindset. By being attentive to your child’s response to the changes it can help you select what is working and what isn’t, so be flexible in knowing that one way may not be the answer. The one similarity to most sleep training methods is “to not pick up baby from crib when crying, permit the baby to learn how to self-sooth”. This was one of consistencies we adapted to our sleep training, along with using a white-noise sound machine ever since her birth. I’d say our method was an accumulation of the Ferber method, Extinction method, and Chair method. More detail about each method can be found in this article from Today’s Parent.

Bedtime Routine

We began sleep training by first establishing a bedtime routine. The schedule for our bedtime routine is below (note: depending on the day, some nights this routine deviated):

Adapting the Chair method

I would stand next to her crib and gently caress her hair as she started to doze-off then once she started to close her eyes, I’d slowly move my hand away from her head. I stayed by her crib a few minutes before leaving her room until she was in deep sleep.

(If I noticed she was having a difficult time closing her eyes- I would chat with her. Reminding her that she was growing into an independent girl and re-assuring her that mommy and daddy were watching her from afar and we’d be there in the morning when she wakes up. I don’t think she understood a word I said, but the sentiment was perceived. Use positive talk!! It makes challenging times more enjoyable for everyone involved).

Adapting the Ferber method

Once I left the room, if I heard her fuss during the night, I would give her some time to practice self-soothing before I went into her room to console her. Slowly, the time given for self-soothing would gradually increase into longer time increments (starting from 1 minute to 15 minutes) until she fell asleep again.

Adapting the Extinction method

When she would wake up during the middle of the night looking to nurse (because she had the habit of nursing twice a night) which usually was midnight and 4 am I implemented the extinction method. I have to say, this was the most difficult part out of all the sleep training – trying to get her to sleep throughout the night! It was so painful to hear her cry for 20 to 30 minutes. Mind you- I was flexible using this method. After waiting for 20 minutes, I would enter her room to console her. In the beginning I would pick her up from the crib to nurse her for a little while (worried that she was hungry) and slowly I decreased the amount of time I allowed her to nurse. Other times when I consoled her, I basically had to force her to take her pacifier while humming her lullabies until she settled down. Then I’d leave her room once she was settled.

After 5 days of dedicating myself to sleep train my daughter, she was able to sleep throughout the whole night using her own self-soothing mechanisms. Then 2 weeks later she was able to fall asleep without any fuss on her own during the day for naptime and night for bedtime.

Little by little, with dedication, it is possible. As a mother we can train our children to do more than we think we’re capable of doing. It all takes time, consistency, and flexibility.

Happy to say that we were able to restore a calm and happy home after 5 months of struggling. Our moods are brighter, and our energy levels improved. After a month of adapting this new skill, I could tell that our daughter had this newfound confidence. She was more focused, attentive, and willing to try new things. She started crawling all over the house to discover new areas. She has repeated words and hand motions and has shown to be less restless in her mood.

I am a firm believer that learning one new skill helps develop other learning capabilities, it’s amazing!