Hello
My 9.5 month old DS has never been a great sleeper; only ever slept through the night 4 or 5 times and naps have always largely been around 45 minutes long, with the odd long nap thrown in just to confuse me.
He’s always been difficult to settle at bedtime but that improved for a few weeks when I moved his feed (breastfed) closer to bedtime but without feeding him to sleep. He’s always settled well for naps. Over the last couple of weeks his settling for both bedtime and naps have gone to pot when I haven’t changed anything. He’ll get very upset at bedtime and can be crying for up to 30 minutes where I intermittently go into him every 5 mins to soothe him. Nap time he just ends up sitting or standing in his cot crying until I go in and stroke him to sleep which I’d rather he didn’t get dependent on especially as I know he can settle himself. He’s still on 3 naps a day because he never naps for long enough for him to sleep until an appropriate time to see him through until bedtime.
His awake times are as follows:
2h30 goes down for first nap after waking for the day
2h45-3h after waking from first nap he goes for second nap
Around 2h after waking from second nap he has his third cat nap, always in the carrier as I cannot get him to settle in the cot in the later afternoon.
Any tips? Do his awake times need to be longer? Shorter? I go by his tired cues as well as the time on the clock x