What am I doing wrong? 9 month old sleep issues

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I hope someone can help me understand what I am doing wrong as I am at a loss. MY 9 month old son has never slept through and for the past 3 months has been waking up 4-5 times a night with it taking an hour to resettle on one of these occasions during the night.
At bedtime he rubs his eyes and ears so much that I need to hold his arms down - he then falls asleep but wakes up a lot as explained above.
Could someone please take a look at our routine to see if there are any problems with it that might be causing the sleep issues?
-7am wake up and bottle 8oz
-8am breakfast (weetabix or porridge)

• 8.30am nap for 1-1.5 hours

-10.30 bottle 8oz -12pm snack (rice cake or melty puff) -1pm lunch (meat or fish with veg and potatoe or similar) -1.30pm nap for 45 minutes -2.30pm bottle 8oz -4pm snack -5pm dinner (veg/fruit purée and a banana) -6pm bottle 8oz (sometimes he has his bottle at 5.30 as he is very agitated at that time no matter how much he has for dinner) -7pm asleep Does anyone see anything above that could be preventing him from sleeping better? One other thing to add is that he cries when he finishes his bottle but HV says he already has a lot of milk for his weight (9kg and 32oz of milk a day). Thanks so much. X

It's been a little for me but looking at your routine maybe try and push his main nap to 11ish and then try and stop smaller naps? Does he feed in the night still?

Is he still getting milk at night? Night weaning was the key to sleeping through for mine (at a year old).

But please don't beat yourself up, it's very normal for a 9 month old to not sleep through!!

I'd also keep the morning nap but limit to 30-45 mins and make the afternoon nap the longer one.

At 9 months he will still need 2 naps - the average child needs 2 naps til they are 15 months.

books.google.co.uk/books?id=ISzoywuteGEC&pg=PA85&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

I found this useful with my two. X

BTW you're not doing anything wrong!

At 9 months ds had a weetabix and bf before bed. Was waking 4/5 times for bf. Sent dh in with a bottle of formula, drank an ounce the first night so clearly wasn't hungry and settled back down. Second night dh took water in, refused and settled back down. Slept through on the third night and has since. Now 2.10 and ask to go to bed around 7pm!! Can you send dh in for a few nights?

Thank you all. I will try to adjust his naps. He wants his morning nap early presumably to make up for poor quality sleep in the night.
We have had cut out night feeding a month or so ago. Perhaps he is still adjusting but he doesn't appear hungry during the night.
Justhadmyhaircut - that is awesome, I am glad there is hope. dh unfortunately out on business a lot right now but will ask him when he is back.

Runlovingmummy- thanks for the link.

Can't see anything wrong with your routine but from my limited experience with my own dd rubbing eyes and ears sometimes indicated teething. Might be worth trying some teething powder/gel when he wakes? From my experience sleep does get better from hereon in, hang in there! Xx

I did 2/3/4 routine at this age. Awake at 7, nap at 9 for 90 minutes, nap at 1.30 for 90 minutes and bed for 7.

Bedtime routine had a strict order:

Pjs
Milk
Teeth
Gro bag
Book
Bed

Into bed wide awake and self settle with no input from mum and dad.

Settle consistently for all naps and night wakings. Always give 5/10 minutes before responding at all. No eye contact or picking up at night. No milk at night between 7 & 7.

Can you try some Calpol and see if that makes any difference? As another poster said, it may be that teething is making things worse, or he may have an ear infection - DS has just had one which had basically no symptoms other than him pulling/rubbing his ears. Either way, if Calpol settles him you'll know there's something up.

I would maybe be a little hesitant to introduce an extremely strict routine as another poster has suggested, as each baby is different and your aim should be to make sure he's getting enough daytime sleep, whether that's two or three naps doesn't matter. Also I wouldn't be thinking about night weaning yet (if indeed you are feeding in the night) as he is still only little and he's not having many daytime calories yet, so he may well still be hungry at night.

One other thing to add is that he cries when he finishes his bottle

Do you think he's still hungry?
It could be wind pain. Or it could be tiredness. Or it could be that the milk was comforting.

So I would wind well, offer a dummy, see if baby will sleep. And if none of the above, I'd add extra bottles (rather than bigger bottles) into your routine.

Mine has 2 hourly milk feeds through to about 8 or 9 months old, with solid meals on top of this.