Nearly 9 month old dropping a nap? Messing up the whole day!

[Reccy2018]

My nearly 9 m/o is no longer having a morning nap. It was 9am, and when it worked well I'd just put her down and it would be OK to leave her and she'd drift off. But then it started becoming harder and harder and now she won't drift off at all. I have tried pushing it back to 9.30am and then 10am, but still the same.

It means she's dog tired after her 11am bottle and so falls asleep now-ish, 11.20am, and it'll prob be for an hour or two... if she wakes up at 1.30pm, it's then her only nap of the day and she doesn't last until 7pm bed time.

Any advice from mums and dads please??

How long has she been doing this for? It might just be a funny blip...teething, or a developmental leap or something, keeping her awake and then she’ll go back to it if you keep offering. Would she take her 9am nap if you drove around? Or walked in the buggy?

If she’s been doing it a while she might be dropping it, but seems quite young to me. Though they are all different and I know you’ll have people along saying theirs dropped all naps from very early. It’s all guess work really!

It's only since the end of last week. She's very nearly crawling and pulling herself up, so here's hoping it's just a development thing! Thanks for the reply!

Both mine did this around this age. One didn't go back to two naps but was always a crappy sleeper and appears to be sleep resistant generally.

The other loves their sleep and went back to two naps after 2/3 weeks, dropping to one at 14 months ish. There's a lot going in developmentally at this age, I would just push in through with the two for now.

Mine didn’t do this till a bit later on, at 11 months is quite early, you poor thing! When DD was going through this, I used to try and get a second nap even though it pushed bedtime late. Then the next day she’d get up a little later and that would mean she would make it through the day with only one nap and an early bedtime. I think initially we did two two nap days for every one nap day, and then a week later we alternated, the week after naps were in the miniroty. Basically it slowed the nap drop down a bit so it occurred over 3 weeks. That can work if you have enough flexibility in your schedule. Otherwise you can have two naps but cap the length of the second one to just one sleep cycle (which can be a bit miserable as they tend to be crabby when you do this). An “on the go” nap in buggy or car can be good for this.

Just when you think you've got it sorted, something upsets the Apple cart, eh?

She's starting at a childminder 3 long days a week at the end of the month, and so I'm not sure I can really play around with her wake up time. We need to be out the door by 7.55am so 7am wake up will be the latest I think.

Finger's crossed she'll go back to 2 naps soon. I'll keep putting her down at 9.30am.

Mine dropped his nap at 9 months, we had tried 9/9.30/10 and would wake by 10:30 so he would go down for 1-3pm. He stopped sleeping in the morning completely so we brought lunch forward to 11/11:15 and did lunchtime nap from 11:30 (edged forward slowly to 12:30) to latest 2pm. Edge it forward by 5 mins each day and then he was happily down to one nap between 12:30-14:30.

If 2pm to bedtime is too long then try a slightly earlier bedtime of 6:30/6:45.

Next stage was to not let sleep after 2pm as it was delaying bedtime

Basically it's constantly changing but key is to follow their cues and make any changes gently.

Oh key is to have early lunch so sleeping on full tummy should help lengthen that one nap.

So she woke about 1.15pm, and she's just having lunch now. I'm wondering if I can get a quick 30/40 mins in at 3.30pm and push bed time to 7.30pm?

I hate this unchartered territory. Working out what they are trying to tell us is so hard, isnt it. Just when you think you've cracked it, it goes out the window.

She's doing an induction at the childminders tomorrow between 10 and 1pm, it was arranged to fall after her morning nap and before her afternoon one but she's going to get very overtired if tomorrow is like today.

Should I explain to CM what's happening, or does that come across as very OTT. DD is very much a PFB so trying to rein it in a bit...

I would mention it, no harm doing that!

Try for a short nap in the afternoon or could you put to bed earlier and then being up early tomorrow might necessitate a morning nap again??