9months of sleep hell

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Can anyone help me? I've just had DS 9 month health visitor review/developmental check and surprised myself at how emotional I was As soon as she asked me how everything was I just burst into tears. I'm not depressed, have a lovely home/life/husband/family and love DS to the moon and back but the sleep deprivation is taking its toll now and I am starting to feel I can't go on like I am. Although as I type that I think well what's the other option as I don't think I could leave him to cry. I fear I've been too attentive/soft and now I've let DS down and never taught or helped him learn how to sleep? Can I post a rough daily routine and if anyone sees anything alarming can you point me in the right direction??
He was EBF for 6months then I weaned to food and formula (in the hope of sleep but it has made no difference what so ever). He has about 24oz of formula day plus 3 meals and snacks. So I'm happy he's not hungry. Settles with dummy and comforter but holds my hand to fall asleep. Sleeps in cot attached to my bed. Tried own room but I'm up all night trying to re-settle him as he Wakes 1-2 hourly all night long. A good night he will settle back quickly with dummy and holding my hand again. Some nights I have to lift him and cuddle etc.
Wake 5:30
Breakfast 06:30
Milk and Nap 08:30-09:30
Snack
Lunch 11:30/12:00
Nap 12:30-12:45
Snack
Milk 2:00
Nap 3:30-4:15
5pm- dinner
6pm bath
7pm- milk and bed
11pm- milk

Sorry typo!- lunch nap is around 45mins not 15!

The saying goes that sleep needs a sleep.

A baby who is well rested is likely to find it easier to go to sleep, stay in a deep sleep more easily, sleep less lightly so wake less frequently. Do good sleep promotes even better sleep.

Conversely a baby who is overtired is likely to find it harder to get to sleep, sleep more frefully in a lighter sleep and so wake more often. So overtiredness cycles, getting worse and worse.

I would make naps more frequent to get out of the over tiredness cycle.

How well does your settling method work and how long have you been settling baby like this? We're you feeding to drowsy when breastfeeding up to 6 months?

Morning. Thank you so much for that reply it makes a lot of sense! Sometimes I do think he looks tired ALL THE TIME but I generally just stick to a 3 hour wake window?
I used to feed him to sleep when breastfeeding and hoped in stopping doing so that would be the magic answer to sleep. But no luck.
So now I give him a bottle in his nursery and he is drowsy but awake when I put him in the cot. He gets straight up on all fours and would crawl around/pull up if I didn't lie him down and keep an arm on him. He then doesn't resist much and holds my finger until he falls asleep then I leave. If I leave him to self settle on his own he just gets straight up in the cot and cries at bars I only tend to do morning nap in cot and then the other 2 naps are in car or pram. He falls asleep easily then with dummy and comforter. Could probably get him to fall asleep after 2.5hours then?
So would I do 4 naps for a while to cram lots of sleep in? X

Im no expert...but have you tried lengthening naps? I think babies at this age are dropping naps, not taking more. 4 sounds an awful lot for a 9 month old.
My 8.5 month old takes 2 naps a day. One around 9.30am for 90 mins, then one at 2ish for 75-90 mins. Bed at 7. Still wakes once around 4.30am for a b'feed then back to sleep until 630am ish.
Do you use white noise?

It was 2 naps a day for both my children. I also slept when they slept because I needed. Some stuff didn't get done but tbh I was so sleep deprived I didn't care.

Hi both. Yea I've been reading that most babies by 9-10months are starting to drop to 2 naps, but then average wake window is 2.5-3.5 hours. So a wake up of 05:30 makes it seem more or less impossible to drop that 3rd nap until he starts taking longer ones, as you rightly point out. How the heck do I encourage this? He has white noise in bedroom but still only naps for an hour on average. Rarely 1 hour 10. The other 2 naps of the day are always 45mins. It's so frustrating. HV suggested just 'stretching his wake time' to 4 hours before bed and keeping him occupied. I just fear he will be even more exhausted and over tired (as Fate points out). But is it worth a try as things are so bad anyway?!
I love the idea of sleeping when baby does but unfortunately I'm back to work 2 days week and also have a toddler

I have nothing to offer in terms of advice but I understand you my PFB didn't sleep through until 18months it was hell but he's 3 now and sleeps 12hours straight. It is a horrible time for you but you will eventually come through it, it's awful but remember it doesn't last forever. I'd suggest you have an afternoon nap with him On the sofa to try and ease the sleep deprivation.

We used to struggle with this as well.

DS is now 10 months but has been on two naps for a while now. Average day:

7:00 awake (breakfast soon after)
9:00 nap (1-2 hours)
12:30 lunch
15:00 nap (1-2 hours)
17:30 dinner
18:20 bath time
18:50 bottle and (hopefully bed!)

Usually sleeps 11 hours with one wake for formula in the night

We have found his first awake time of the day needs to be shorter, they tire more quickly in the morning for some reason. 2nd and 3rd awake time more like 3/3.5 hours now.

Appreciate it's easy for me to say ' just change it' but I would focus on stretching naps and trying to get the 5:30 wake up later. As you said getting up that early makes 19:00 bed time very difficult

Sorry forgot to add, DS usually has naps in pram and after wakes up to early. We persevere with shh'ing and rocking Oran back and forth until he nods off again. Fairly typical for them to wake up at 45 minutes, getting him back down will often lead to 1/1.5 hour nap

That looks a gr8 routine. So jealous lol! Can't imagine him ever sleeping through the night never mind until 7!Ok thanks- so I might try and put him down at 2 hours instead of 3 tomorrow and see what happens. Just means 1st nap will be 07:30!! But maybe after that nap (which tends to be a least an hour) he might manage a longer wake time? My 2nd two naps are usually in car or pram but he doesn't seem to go back over after 45mins despite still out walking or car still moving

It is true that by 9 months most babies are droppibg from 3 naps to 2, not needing to increase to 4 naps. But your baby isn't "most babies", and that's just the way it is.

In my experience dropping naps comes as a result of sleeping longer. I would keep awake time short, at least initially, when naps extend. So dropping naps come from physically not having enough time in the day to fit in one of the naps.

This is as opposed to the assumption that if you keep baby awake longer, that this will make baby sleep longer. I think that just gives you a more exhausted baby.

That said, I was working on the assumption that you were already trying to resettle to extend naps? Definitely keep doing this every nap time, because eventually baby should start resettling with help and then resettling without help and then staying asleep without needing to resettle. So keep going with extending naps.

Until then though, if keep awake time within the 2h window if it was me. If that's not feasible then 2h30m, but I'd err on the side of less awake time as the default.

Ok that makes sense thank you so today we were awake at 04:30 (after numerous previous wakes ), and he mumbled on/off until 05:30 when he clearly wasn't going back to sleep so we got up. Flipping nytmare I'm exhausted.
Anyway, I'm going to make sure he sleeps every 2.5hours today instead of 3 and see how we get on. I do resettle in the cot Fate if he wakes before an hour and usually if I pop dummy back in and keep a hand on him him will go back over. Car or pram he just seems to ping his eyes open and that's it?!
Makes sense that 3-2 nap transition should happen when there physically isn't enough hours in the day to fit one in rather than trying to drop it intentionally. X

Sorry I'm short for time so I will tell you what I think is going wrong. I've told by my maternity nurse that up until DS is 2-3 years old, one of the naps needs to be at least 1.5 hours long, even it is the only nap he takes. My 7 month old has two naps, one morning and one afternoon. One of them is 2 hours and another is 45mins. I let him decide. He's also a good drinker and eater. He goes down at 8pm and wakes at 7am. He sometimes wake up once in the night for cuddles but morning I can do about it x