Help me with my 9 month old please

[Moonfeather]

DS is 9 months old, he is a very busy FOMO baby, he’s been crawling for a couple of months and is now cruising furniture and trying to stand independently. He’s never been a great sleeper, I breastfed for 8 months but for months he would refuse to feed during the day and then be up hourly all night catching up. As soon as we moved him to bottles he slept longer, but it’s still so hard and we are so sleep deprived.

This is his routine:
5.20am - awake for the day
6.30am - breakfast
7.30am - milk
8ish - 9.30am nap
10.30am - milk
11.30/12 - lunch
Anytime between 1 and 2pm - nap for 30 mins
3.30pm - milk
5pm - dinner
5.30 - bath
6pm - milk
6.30 - asleep

He usually wakes any time between 10 and 12 and has a bottle, and then he has another bottle at some point during the night. He’s getting increasingly difficult to get back into the cot so it feels like we’re up for hours every night. I’ve tried lying down with him in my bed but he doesn’t settle there either.

Is there anything I could be changing to help? The 5.20am wake up is annoying but not disastrous as DH has to get up early for work anyway but he’s also shattered.

I think his after lunch nap needs to be longer if at all possible. 30 minutes isn’t much.

Keeping him up a bit later might move everything back a bit.

I’d be night weaning as a starting point. Decrease the amount in the bottles over a period of days/weeks and move the calories to the day. I sympathise with the 30 min napper. I had one of those. Nightmare getting through to bedtime

Agree with the first reply. He doesn't seem to be getting enough sleep. This can activate their autonomic system response (adrenaline) causing a rebound effect, then hinders the rest when sleeping at night.

Id try and aim for 2.5-3.5 hours of nap time again.

Good luck, remember this period well!

He shouldn't need night bottles so hard as it is those need reducing and then cutting out. He's not sleeping enough in the day either. Night weaning might help reset the daytime routine.

He's not getting enough daytime sleep. My 12 month old has a 2 hour sleep in the morning (3 hours after getting up) and a 1 hour sleep in the afternoon. I'd move the afternoon nap back and bit and also move bedtime back. Mine usually does approx 11 hours overnight and bedtime at 8pm means he's up about 7am. Make sure nursery has blackout blinds and curtains. Are you giving any day time snacks? If he's having plenty to eat in the daytime then he's probably waking for comfort at night. My first did this and I shortened the night feeds, then replaced with water, then dummy only and then the walking stopped