Daytime naps 9 month old

[albazavi]

Just looking for some advice on daytime naps for 9 and 1/2 month old DS.

We've been working on nighttime sleep for the past few weeks and are starting to get much more consistency- normally 7-7 ish or just before with one get up. Him getting more night time sleep seems to have changed what he needs in the day and I can't work out what he needs.

His daytime routine for the last few weeks has been aroun this:

6.30-7- wake and bf ( both sides)
8ish- breakfast- large portion of porridge and fruit.
9ish- nap (30mins- 45mins) - gets really whingey if left for more than 2hours
10.30- snack, yoghurt and wafers/ flapjack or similar
12-12.30- lunch- finger food and fruit
Nap sometime in the afternoon (about 3hrs after waking)- normally can get just over an hour with intervention (rocking or stroking back to sleep)
2ish- bf
3.30-snack- fruit and rice cakes or similar.
5ish- dinner- carb heavy dinner (spat Bol + rice pudding sort of thing)

6- books, bath and bed (down between 6.30 and 7)

Sorry- that's ended up being really long. This week he's been really grouchy and not sleeping during the day for more than 30 mins. He's also fighting being put to sleep (rocking and going down into his pod. I know I need to change things up to get longer naps but don't know where to start.

Thanks

[FATEdestiny]

You mention resettling the lunchtime nap to make this nap longer, can you do that with the morning nap?

The 234 schedule that you seem to have naturally fallen into aims for two 1.5h (ish) naps.

Wake
2 hours later nap for around 1.5h
3 hours later nap for around 1.5h
4 hours later bedtime.

This is all baby lead, of course. Its just an approximation to give you an idea. It might be that your baby prefers a 1h morning nap and a 2h afternoon nap. Or maybe two 2h naps and a 224 schedule. You just follow baby's lead, which is what you seem to have already been doing.

Your morning nap needs lengthening, as you mention. It seems to be one sleep cycle at the moment. Movement and dummy help most with resettling, I find. So at first stirring (or even just before stirring, if I can anticipate when baby might wake) I'd reinsert dummy and bounce the bouncy chair or rock the pushchair. Resettling back to sleep is harder in the cot, but is not impossible. White noise and some stroking may help.

[albazavi]

Hi FATE,

Thanks for the reply. You were a help when we were struggling with controlled crying.

At the moment, nothing works to resettle- rocking, feeding, shushing. It doesn't seem to matter where he is- nap pod, on me or in pram or car seat. Half an hour comes and that's nap over.

Happy to go with what he wants (and that's how we settled into 234), but something's wrong with napping at the moment and can't work out what.

Was wondering whether it's best to try and teach him to nap in his cot like at night but don't want to be tied to the house!