6-9 months...your advice!

[csemum]

My DD is about to enter this zone. There seems to be so many huge changes at this points (solids, crawling etc). Please could you post any tips you have for this age 'bracket' Also, please could you let me know what your sleep schedule is if you have one... my little girl has very long naps during the day and I'm pretty sure this isn't necessary as she gets older. Thank you!

Move everything you don't want damaged out of the way now, sort trailing wires, get a stairgate up. Do it now before she's mobile enough to grab it all. Grow eyes in the back of your head, make sure pets have a safe place to escape to because tails will be pulled.

Then sit back, take a deep breath and enjoy it because when they start moving your while world changes again.

Don't worry if she becomes really clingy for a few weeks. My DS has just come out of this phase now 7.5 months. He's suddenly reached loads of milestones. I was worried I would have to carry him around with me until he went to school!!!

Sleep/feed schedule: before 6 months DS had 30 minute naps 4-5 times a day. But now its wonderful:

Wakes at 6:30/6:50 breastfeed in bed
Solid breakfast 7:30/8:00
Down for nap roughly 2 hours after waking 8:30/9:00. He sleeps for a minimum of 1.5 hours, sometimes 2.5 hours!
Breastfeed when he wakes up 10:30/11:00
Solid hot lunch with pudding at midday
Down for nap 12:30ish
Sometimes sleeps for 1 hour/ 30 minutes/ 1.5 hours!
Wakes up and plays before feed at 2pm
Catnap or sometimes longer at 4:30ish for 30 minutes
Tea (toast/veggies/fruit) at 5pm
Quick snack breastfeed at 6pm to get through bath!
Bath, milk, bed from 6:30pm
He sleeps from about 7pm until 6:30/7am with no feeds in the night.

However, his afternoon naps have only just started getting longer so I am thinking he might be starting to transition to just 2 naps a day.

Does your daughter sleep through the night? If so then I wouldn't worry about he naps in the day. She'll probably transition on her own and stay awake for longer between naps when she's ready.

Almost the same as above - 8mo DS. Though we've just dropped the late-afternoon nap (in the vain hope that he would sleep for longer overnight...) Still has anything from two to eight feeds overnight (last night he wanted five feeds between 9pm and midnight - I was practically in tears of overdrained exhaustion).

Worth bearing in mind that human babies are born 'half-cooked', as it were. Some developmental theorists think that actually human gestation is about 18 months but because we have such enormous heads we have to be born early and helpless. By 9 months old babies know their names, can sit unsupported and in many cases move themselves around, eat nearly all food, have some teeth - in general are in a similar state to the way most animal babies are born. So there are enormous changes during this period - they're developing faster than at any other time during their lives. The basic message is - don't expect it to be predictable or the same from week to week!