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Sudden napping problems in 9 month old

3 replies

Holly66 · 01/04/2011 14:36

Hello everyone,

I'm a first time mummy and need a bit of advice. DS is not quite 9 months, he will be next Wednesday. Up until last week he was on a quite rigid sleeping schedule and routine (that he had chosen himself) that looked a bit like this:

7-7:30 Wake up + breakfast then playtime
9:30 Milk and more playtime.
10-10:30 Nap (depending on what time he woke up) for 1hr 20 mins.
12:00 Lunch then activities.
2:20 milk
2:30-3:00 Nap lasting between 40 mins and 1 hr 20 min
4:30 walk
5:00 dinner then playtime
7:00 Bedtime

Usually sleeps straight through.

Recently he is fighting the morning nap and its getting later and later. He'll scream until I go and get him up and then i'll try 30 mins later. Today it was 11:20 before he finally went to sleep and i'd had to get him twice and even then he still went to sleep crying.

He seems fine in himself, he's eating like a horse and is smiling and cheerful. He has no teeth yet and could be teething but he does not appear to be in pain.

Our bedtimes have also become a bit difficult recently and we have left him to cry it out a few times but he never normally cries for longer than 5 mins.

He is sitting happily on his own but is not crawling. I do think he is getting very frustrated about not being able to move about more. I let him spend lots of time in his bouncers so that he gets a chance to burn off some energy. He still has 3 bottles a day and is 3 full meals + puddings and sometimes a snack and is on the 90th centile.

Anyone else been through this? Any suggestions?
Do you think he could be ready to drop the morning nap? I think he is too young to do this but all babies are different and maybe he only needs one sleep.

Thank you in advance for all your help.

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
AngelDog · 01/04/2011 19:22

Probably the 8/9 month sleep regression. DS went from napping for 30 mins + 2 hours to 30 mins + 30 mins for about a week, then went back to normal again (phew!).

More info on the regression here, here and here.

It could be that he wants to drop the first nap, but as you say, it is very young (it's unusual before 12 months). I'd expect the morning nap to shorten rather than just disappear completely. I'd give it a week or two and I reckon either he'll go back to napping better or it'll be obvious that he does in fact need just one nap. If he does have just the one, it'll need to start after his first nap usually does but before the second one usually does, and you'll need to make bedtime earlier to compensate.

HTH

Holly66 · 01/04/2011 20:33

Thank you for your reply angeldog. I think you're right it might hopefully just be a phase. Also thank you for your advice on how to cope with transitioning from two naps to one.

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Holly66 · 01/04/2011 20:35

Also thank you for the info on sleep regression!

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