Too many hours in the day to make nap timings work

[birdybirdbird]

LO is 9 months old, still in our room, still waking every 2 (sometimes 3) hours at night and wanting to be breast fed back to sleep, though he’ll sometimes accept being rocked. I feel like he’s at a transition point - he’s getting harder and harder to feed or rock to sleep and seemingly wants to be put down but doesn’t then know ho to get himself to sleep. So we’ve bought the Lucy Wolfe book and, like all of them say, we need to get the naps working. But the timings just don’t work!!
He usually wakes for the day by 6.15 and can’t really go to night time sleep until 6.45 (due to work timings and childcare). If we really work on keeping him asleep by rocking in his bouncy chair (which is a whole other problem 🙄) we can usually get around 75 minute from a nap. But that leaves too many hours in the day to fit around a 2/3/4 hour awake times.
How would you try and structure the day? Help!

First nap 8.30/9 for 45 minutes-1 hour
After lunch 12.30/1ish have a long nap
Cat nap of 20 minutes max at about 4pm if he needs it
Bedtime about 7.30pm

This is what Gina Ford suggests: I get that you might need to move timings slightly to fit with your needs.

I'd look at Baby Whisperer ssh-pat pick up/put down to get him self settling in the cot - that will make the biggest difference to sleeps.

But that leaves too many hours in the day to fit around a 2/3/4 hour awake times.

I don't quite understand your post. You talk about naps but this indicates you don't know what to do when your child is awake? Or have I picked that up wrong?

If I am wrong and you are asking about actual nap times, mine slept when they were tired.

mine slept when they were tired.
This might work for some babies, but many need help, routine, and to be put down at the right time. My DC2 for example would never just fall asleep, he'd go through the day getting more and more hysterical until finally falling asleep exhausted and sleeping fitfully. However, get the timing right and put him down in his cot and he'd nap for 2 hours and then sleep through the night.

2/3/4 timings is the gap between sleeps eg awake at 7am, nap 9-10, nap 1-3, bed at 7pm and is the 'typical' sleep routine for 9-18 month olds.

2/3/4 timings is the gap between sleeps eg awake at 7am, nap 9-10, nap 1-3, bed at 7pm and is the 'typical' sleep routine for 9-18 month olds.

Right, so what is OP asking? What's the relevance? Of the 2/3/4

If you can't offer any help then why post stillmoving?

My daughters 9 and a half months old - she wakes at 6, naps at 9-9.30 (falls asleep on the school run and at weekends in the pram), I wake her if she doesn’t wake up herself, she then naps 12 ish until 2.30 ish in her cot. The idea is that they have a short nap in the morning just to keep them going until after lunch where they then have a long nap, having a long morning naps means they’re not tired enough for a long afternoon nap. She then goes to bed around 6.30 although sometimes earlier if she’s really tired!!

Oh and she’s just started sleeping all night but was only waking once or twice a night before that - I’m lucky as she’s a pretty good sleeper!

615 wake
815 start to settle for nap, nap til 930-10
Awake 10-1
1 start to settle, nap til 230
230 wake
630 start prep for bed at 645

@stillmoving A lot of the ‘experts’ suggest that first nap is after 2 hours awake time, second after 3 and then night time sleep after 4. I just can’t seem to make those timings work within our day and the lengths of naps they’re ‘meant’ to have. We have very much followed his cues with regard sleeping and he does seem to have settled into a bit of a routine. However, it’s clearly not working for him anymore and my feeling is that his sleep patterns are starting to change but that he needs some help with this. Does that make more sense?

I'd aim for 90-120 mins awake time.
45m am nap.
Longer lunchtime nap.
Short afternoon nap.

So,
6.15 - wake and feed
7.45 - down for a nap Say 15m to settle, wake 45 mins later.
9.30-11.30 - awake time. Milk on waking, food at 11
11.30 resettle for nap (15mins to do), sleep 11.45- 1.30pm wake them. Food.
Make the afternoon the longest stretch. Resettle for a nap at around 3.30, then wake after 1 hr.
Awake 4.30/4.45 to 6.45.

As they grow, the morning awake will stretch so the first 45min nap will push later as will the lunchtime one. Then the afternoon nap will drop to 30 mins before going altogether.

Thanks to other people for sharing their routines. It seems like we are on the right track. @AbbyHammond as he’s getting older I feel like he wants more of a routine. He certainly seems happier when we follow the one he’s settled into but I feel like it does now need some gradually tweaking. He seems like he wants to/is ready to start self settling and to go for longer stretches without a night feed He just doesn’t have all the skills to do so yet!
There’s just so much information out there and quite frankly I’m so tired that I can’t make much sense of it!

@birdybirdbird sorry I really didn't know that.

We started gentle sleep training when it was clear our DS wanted less input. We went from rocking, to holding, to bum patting in the crib and sneaking out like ninjas, and eventually he did it himself.

The lengths of naps tend to stretch out when they can go from one sleep cycle to the next without needing your help.

If he's on the way to self settling, then hopefully you'll see some longer naps soon.

OP I feel your pain. We have a 10 month old, I just cant get the long lunch nap out of him but he would go for longer than an hour in the morning - I dont know what to do for the best- wake him from.morning or let him sleep when he can!

It's such a headfuck! I do fine the 2-3-4 helpful though

We're really struggling with this at the moment. Some days DC manages OK with 2 longer naps. Sometimes they go wrong and he's up for way too long before bedtime and hugely overtired, so I have to try and force a third nap way too late in the day. I'm hoping that as he gets used to two naps and gets a bit older it'll work itself out!