9 months old - why can't we get into a sleep/feed/nap routine??

[Cornberry]

hello, we are struggling a great deal with routine :( there seems to be very little pattern to baby's activity, appetite and tiredness and we are at our wits' end. At the moment baby usually goes to sleep between 9 and 10 pm, and wakes four hours later, and recently she's been very hard to put to sleep again, sometimes it's taken us three hours. On those days she ends up sleeping until 9 or 10 am and the whole day is messed up. because I am horrendously sleep deprived, I can't interrupt this as I am so desperate to sleep as well.. I have no idea how we impose a routine on her. WE have just recently dropped her night feeds - some nights she's been fine and gone back to sleep within 5 mins, others she has screamed until fed. I don't know what to do! She also seems to not want to eat sometimes and we don't know if we should insist or not... Anyone know what is the ideal routine for a 9 month old? and how to make her stick to it?

Watching with interest, try as I might I cannot seem to get my nearly 9 month old in to any routine whatsoever. Only semi reliable we have is that he will go bk to sleep a few hrs after waking at 5 every morning 😩 Hoping someone will be along with some good advice soon.

Also watching as I have a 4 month old who doesn't seem to like routines!! :) the only thing I would say is that given the advice that I have been given, I wonder if an earlier bed time would help? I appreciate that may be easier said than done!!

IME, we never did a routine and DD is now 2!
Hopefully someone more helpful to you will be along.

we tried an earlier bed time after reading about babies who go to sleep at 7 and sleep through until 6 or 7, and all that happened was she did her usual 4 hourly wake up, and at 4 am she was wide awake and my oH had to sit up with her and then go to work on barely any sleep at all :(

I know she is not for everyone but Gina Ford really does give you a good rough idea of what a decent routine should look like. I can honestly say that woman saved my sanity

From what I can remember (my dd is ow 10yo!) you do have to start the day at 7am ish and aim for a shortish nap in the morning and then a longer nap after lunch. Bedtime 7pm.

It did come as a revelation to me that I could wake dd up and then get her to go to sleep when it suited me and obviously benefited her as well as once in a routine she was much happier and more relaxed. I found that she didn't cry as much as her needs were anticipated so she never got to the point of being over tired or over hungry iyswim.

I think you need to be kind to yourselves a bit. With my first, I read the Kaz Cooke rough guide. So he'd sleep, play, feed. This went on all day and he'd never go through! That's only just started and he's three. With the second, she wouldn't do that routine at all. She feeds to sleep a lot and I only now know loosely how it goes, but it can go belly up a lot at 18 months. They teethe, have developmental leaps and it goes all over the place. I never did Gina Ford or anything like that tho. One thing I'd suggest is to try and tire them out with anything physical as soon as you can. That helps establish more regular napping I think.

I second the Gina ford routines. My ds was getting too much daytime sleep and was waking every 1-2 hours overnight. Within a week of starting Gina routine (didn't use her methods, just the timings) he was pretty much sleeping through.

Definitely an earlier bed time. My twins sleep 6.30 through until 7.

dc2 9 months has a basic routine of

Up between 6 and 7 am
Breakfast about 7.15
Down for a nap about 9 am [try to stretch until then but sometimes 8.45] I wake after an hour or by 10
Lunch at 12ish
Back down for a nap 1ish for 2 hours
Dinner at 5
Bath at 6
Bed at 6.30

I would try and start to do this tomorrow - get dc up at 7am and try and stick to it during the day

What do you mean it takes 3 hours to get back to sleep - how are you getting baby to sleep?

I have a 9 month old, we have a routine during the day but it's still a bit all over the place at night. Try cracking the day routine first and the nighttime will come in time. Wake her up at 7am and give feed, breakfast at 8, bit of play and she may want to go down by 9.30am. Start there and see how she responds. Good luck

Our routine (ish)

8am Wake up and breakfast
11am bottle and nap
1pm light finger food lunch
3pm bottle and nap
5:30 dinner
7:30-8pm bottle bed
4:30/5:30am wakes for a bottle

Almost 9 month old dd2. Her routine is:
6-7am wake
7.30 bottle
9am sleep
9.30am awake and breakfast
11.30 lunch
12pm sleep
2pm awake
2.15pm bottle
4.30pm tea
5.30pm supper (which is just finger food while l cook dinner and attempt to eat it!)
6pm bath
6.30/7pm bottle and then bed

Don't know if this is of any use but I found the 234 routine massively helped from about 6.5/7months old as it focuses on lengths of awake time rather than set times of the day. So baby goes down for their first nap 2 hours after waking in the morning, then 3 hours after waking from that nap they have their second nap, then 4 hours after waking from that nap they go to bed.

My DD (8mo) has gradually drifted to waking at 7, first nap at 9, second nap at 2, bedtime at 7. We bedshare and she is BF, previously naps have been hell and she has consistently fed through the night, but from about 7/7.5mo naps and bedtime have been a breeze and night feeds have reduced to once/twice a night.

the three hours awake at night has only happened a few times. It's because we were co sleeping and breastfeeding over night and we've recently moved her to her cot and I'm weaning her so she's not getting the feeds and cuddles she was used to I guess :(

I'm keen to try the forced routine, but I have a question. What if it doesn't go to plan and she doesn't want to nap or eat at the right time - do I let her skip a nap or a feed?

If Dc doesn't settle for the 9am nap I sometimes let him have a 20 minutes snooze about 12ish in the pram and then a slightly earlier lunchtime nap. Feedsthe same if he doesn't take a feed at 7 then we try at 8ish. He doesn't have set feed times these days just generally 1 morning 1 lunch or after theafternoon a nap and 1 evening.

It is flexible but he has a rough routine as we have an older sibling and it's easier to have a routine than be put of sorts all day.

Don't know if this is of any use but I found the 234 routine massively helped from about 6.5/7months old as it focuses on lengths of awake time rather than set times of the day.

I've also found 2-3-4 helpful and because DD naps well in the day, she also sleeps well at night. She doesn't always go four hours from second nap to bedtime, sometimes it's 3 hours but she still seems to go down to bed okay.

I didn't set out to fixate on this routine, it just happened that way.

OP, I'd suggest that it's possible your baby is overtired and this is resulting in poor sleep. It's hell, I know. My DD was like it from around 2-6 months. Constantly overtired and waking 3-4 times a night for feeds.

that was meant to say 20 minutes at 10ish!

I also find sometimes I need to force a nap by taking out in the pram but generally naps are t hoome in the cot.

As pp have suggested I try to do the 234 routine so we work from whatever time DS2 gets up. Sometimes it's 7am sometimes it's 9am. It works quite well if we stay in but if we go out it goes to pot. While I'm on maternity leave I tend to follow DS2'S lead, when I'm back at work and we have to be up and out at a certain time I think he will fall into a routine as DS1 did.

Same here turquoise it just sort of happened naturally.

OP I tend to be fairly relaxed about forcing naps, in that if DD is fighting a nap for 30mins I will take her somewhere else and play for a little while before trying again. But if she keeps fighting then I might resort to old faithful (a walk in the sling).

I try to think of it as a framework rather than a dead set routine, it's just helpful to bear the times in mind rather than becoming obsessed with sticking with it to the minute.

I do like the sound of this 234 routine which I've never heard of! I am going to try it tomorrow - fingers crossed! Thanks for advice :)

Try familiarising her with bedtime,

My little one is 2 now but when he was younger and we was getting him into routine we found that doing a little ritual each night before bed worked wonders.

We would do;
A book or programme in the late afternoon to familiarise with.
A bed time bottle or appropriate snack.
Bath and then bed.
(I found that a bath most nights really helped)

From the age of 10months to this day, he goes at
7:30pm and he won't wake until between 7am and 8:30am!! (& he is one happy chappie to be around!)

Hope this is some help!!

Fingers crossed
xx

Bed between 7-8. Up between 7-7.30 even if the night has been difficult.
Breakfast 8am
Nap 9.30-10.30
Lunch 12pm
Nap 1.30/2-3/3.30
Dinner 5pm
Bath 6.30

Milk feeds whenever but minimum one in the morning and one in the evening

This is obviously quite strict so you can be a bit flexible but the most important bit is a regular wake up time

How did today go? Did you try a routine?

we did try out the 2-3-4 schedule and it seemed like she was exactly tired at exactly those intervals almost to the minute! Worked rather well for today. First nap was 1h45 and second one didn't go to plan because we were in the car at the 3 hour mark and I had to wake her up for her bottle and she was quite unsettled after that, so she only slet 45 mins in the afternoon, but she went to bed about half 8 and now I'm just crossing everything that she doesn't ping awake in the middle of the night! I think we'll have to stick with it for a few days to see if it has a good effect on her night sleeps. Problem is can't really plan anything for the week while we they and enforce the routine! Thanks for the advice x

How are you getting on?