Am I the only one that has to spend this long getting 9month old off to sleep??

[sunshine17]

It can take up to fourty minutes getting DD2 off to sleep in the evening. And up to 20 minutes for her naps.

At the moment I have to hold her in my arms rocking her to 'almost' sleep' as soon as i put her in her cot up she pops trying to crawl around/sit up etc even though she's clearly tired - so I pick her up again and repeat! eventually to stays lying down.

The rocking to sleep is just the flavour of the month this month - previously I've had to do such things as make OMMMMM noises (!), blow raspeberries on her back, tickle the bridge of her nose is goes on.....

Is it more normal to just lay them down to sleep at this age and expect them to nod off???? DD1 goes to sleep fairly well with a bottle, this little on has a dummy, but I don't see the point of it anymore as I still have to intervene, Oh! and quite often she only sleeps for 40ish mins at nap time although it has been longer.

Any tips please

Pfrt - normal is a spectrum, don't feel bad!

My DS was very much like this at that age - by around a year old he started to fall asleep in his cot as long as we hung over the bars and patted his back for ages. Then there was a phase of sitting in a chair by the cot for aaaaaaages. Now we read him a few books and sit with him but on bad nights it can still take a good 15, 20 minutes.

Naps also still go back to 45 minutes on occasion but only if he's uncomfy or teething or something. Otherwise they've gradually settled down to 2 hours in the middle of the day. He's 20 months.

He's a crap sleeper, but he's not abnormal, and neither is yours

Does she cry when crawling round the cot?
Only reason I ask is that DS2 does this ever since he could crawl (11 months) and still does now (13 months)
I put him in the cot lying down, he immediately gets up and crawls round or stands up. I just give him a kiss and say goodnight and leave.
He hums a bit and bangs around a bit but he always goes quiet within half an hour (no crying, if he cries I go back and lay him down and shush him). When I go to check on him later he's always laying down. If he can get up, he can get down again!

Oh and I leave a couple of dummies in the cot so if he chucks one out when crawling about theres another one he can pop back in when he does lay down

Would say similar to EdwardBear! You don't have to wait until they are asleep (or even lying down and quiet) to leave - our DS quite often "sings" to himself for a while (sort of chuntering really) before he drifts off, but as long as he sounds contented and isn't crying, we just leave him to go to sleep in his own time and eventually he does.

Even if he does cry a bit, we also try to distinguish between proper "upset" crying, and just having a little whinge on his way to sleep which DS sometimes does. If he sounds upset and it goes on for more than a few moments, we go in and give him a brief cuddle before laying him back down and leaving (unless he's really upset of course e.g. if he is ill!); but if he sounds like he's just complaining a bit, it usually means he will go to sleep on his own very soon, so we don't go in unless he changes to sounding more upset. I learned that going in when he doesn't need it actually wakes him up more!