9 month old and naps - should I intervene or go with the flow?!

[Obsidian]

My 9 month old DD was in quite a nice pattern of naps, which seemed to suit her and us quite well. Roughly:

Wake up between 6 and 7
Nap 10ish for 30m - 1hr
Snack when she wakes up
Lunch 12.30ish
Nap 2ish for 1hr/1hr30m
Milk when she wakes up
Tea 5ish
Bed 7

Over the last week she seems to want to sleep for much longer in the morning - yesterday was 2 hours!! I really don't like the idea of waking her up (and assume she needs the sleep?) but if she sleeps from 10 until 12, it's then really tricky to get her to have another nap, and if she doesn't sleep at all between 12 and bedtime, she's a grizzly mess and won't eat her tea. Yesterday, I tried leaving her and she slept 10 until 12. She then had an early lunch, milk at around 3 and then a 30m catnap at 4pm. However, she was then AWFUL at bedtime - really upset and wouldn't be put down, which is very unusual for her. Not sure if this was a coincidence or to do with the different naps??? (She was lovely all day and seemed well rested)

So, my question is, DO I WAKE HER after say 45m in the morning, so that she (hopefully) has a longer early afternoon nap? Or do I leave her and try to 'go with the flow'!! Generally I am a fan of routine, but I would always prefer to follow DD's natural patterns. I also wondered if she might be almost ready to drop a nap - or is 9 months ridiculously early??!! And that perhaps this longer morning nap could be pushed gradually towards lunchtime, and the later nap dropped completely over a few weeks???? Not sure what to do at all!!

We've only just started having better nights, and (apart from last night) she settles really well on her own at bedtime. After 6/7months of hellish sleep, I am terrified of messing this up!!!!!! Hence the panic about a change in her daytime sleep...

Any thoughts/experiences would be most gratefully received. She is my first, in case you hadn't guessed (!!) and I don't have a lot of friends/family with young children to go to for help.. DH is amazing and supportive, but thinks I'm over-worrying, which I'm sure is true, but what can you do?

Hiya im going through a similar thing with my 9 month old. I usually will wake him after an hour or so, just because ive heard rumors of long morning naps leading to early waking! I agree it feels wrong to wake them though. If I walk into his room and he wakes up I feel thats fine, bit sometimes he is so deeply asleep it's really hard to wake him! In this case I let him sleep a bit longer.

Like you, our nights have recently gpt better. However, yesterday I let him sleep 6-9am (after waking at 5am), which I usually wouldn let happen. Then last night he woke at 12.30am and I couldnt get him back to sleep til 2! Argh... So it could have been coincidence but I think im going to.continue not letting him sleep too long in the mornings.

If it is not messing up your nights though I guess there is no reason to worry/change anything? Totally
Understand the feeling of not wanting to change anything in case nights go bad again!

(sorry for typos, on phone & sleep deprived!)

Thanks for the reassurance watermint

Yesterday was different again! She woke at 6 (with a dirty nappy), then went down for a nap at around 10 (lots of tired signs). Woke up 15 minutes later (another dirty nappy!) and was wide awake. She then didn't go back to sleep until 1.30, when she had about an hour. Then that was it until bedtime at 7, when she was exhausted, almost fell asleep feeding and then was very upset for about 20 minutes before she went to sleep in her cot (overtired I guess?!).

She then woke up at 4am (ANOTHER dirty nappy!!) and was wide awake so wouldn't go back in her cot without screaming. Brought her in to bed with us and she messed around until about 5 when she finally went back to sleep (on and off) until 7ish. Argh!

So I am even more now about what she needs! Apart from to stop pooping at inappropriate times!!!!!!!! I assume there's nothing I can do about that though

I go back to work on Monday too

Any other advice/experiences from mums out there would be amazing

I'm not sure I'm going to help but going through exactly the same thing. DS1 has just turned 9 months and both naps and daytime sleep have gone to pot. I've (whisper it) always followed Gina up until now so:
he wakes at 6/6/30
nap 9.30 - wake at 10
nap 12.30 - supposedly for 2 hours but more like 1-1 and 1/2 these days
bed at 7
But recently the lunchtime nap has been getting shorter and shorter and he's been waking more in the night - really unsettled and loads of screaming. He's also filling his nappy at really random times. I really don't know why (suggestions from various mummy friends in RL include teething, separation anxiety, afraid of the dark) but 9 months does seem to be a common time for sleep to be a problem.

I think he might be ready to cut out the morning nap and go down to one longer one but I'm so addicted to my morning coffee in peace that I ahve resisted until now. I cut it back to 10 mins this morning, he had 1hr 20 at lunch before waking so we shall see how tonight goes...
It's so hard to know whether they are having too much, too little, wake them not wake them, it's just so hard!!

Sorry not much help I know, just sympathy

I could have written your first post OP... We're kind of just going with it... DS has always only slept for 30min so anymore is a bonus. I was thinking he may be moving towards one long nap in the middle of the day.... It better be more than30 min otherwise we will have one cranky baby come bedtime...!

Thanks for the sympathy and support LouBeee and LittleOne76 - it does help to hear others are going through the same thing.

I think some of the problem might be separation anxiety. She seems to get more upset at bedtime and in the night if I go in and settle her, and then leave, than if I'm not there at all!! Which is a bit sad for me, but DH has put her to bed tonight and everything went much more smoothly. He's going to go in for any night wakings too and see how it goes. Does that sound like separation anxiety? If I'm not there at all, she's not bothered, but if she sees me she wants a cuddle NOW and I'd better not leave

I'm back at work on Monday (for three days a week) and PIL are in charge - perhaps they'll have more luck than me with naps, and sort out a new routine for me. Wishful thinking?! I'm sad to be leaving her, but in a way relieved that I'll have something other than naps to worry about!!

Hopefully this is just another phase - perhaps it is the beginning of the transition from two naps to one? - and it'll settle down in a couple of weeks. It's just awful that she's gone back to being so upset about sleep when it had been going so well...

Forgot to actually mention my original question

I think I'll just go with the flow for now and see when she seems to want to sleep. I really hate waking her up and every day seems to be different at the moment, so there seems no point in trying to manage her sleep.

I'm really looking forward to when she drops naps entirely!

I would think they're starting to drop the two naps and have one longer one. When my two DCs did this I just tried to gently keep them awake longer in the morning and put them down closer to the middle of their day, so wakes at 7am, nap at 12pm for 2 hrs (maybe more) and bed at 7pm. My DC1 is almost three and very rarely naps now, but DC2 is 16mths and still follows this routine.

I think you're right to try to respect your baby's natural rhythm, but helping her along by not immediately putting her down for her nap is probably more effective than waking her up IME.

Mine has been doing this since 9 months and we have ha the occasional day of one nap and early bed. Generally speaking she is having a nap after 3.5 hrs awake, then 2.5 hrs then be after 4.5 hrs later.... But it will all change soon. And I absolutely have to engineer those naps with rides in the car and pushchair..