totally overwhelmed by not sleeping 9.5 month old dd

[annavo]

hi, this is my first time posting but i am so exhausted and at my wit's end that i don't know what else to do...

my dd is 9.5 months old.  she was a great night sleeper very early on but we struggled with 30 minute naps.  when she was 6 months i finally got the napping under control using the "wake to sleep" method and things for the last few months were great.  this was her routine up until last week...

7:15 wake
7:30 breakfast
10:30-12 nap
12 lunch
3:30-4:30 nap
5 dinner
7 bath, books, bottle
7:30 bed

last week she started waking up at 5:45am and refusing to go back to sleep.  she does not cry, she just sits in her crib playing and babbling until we come get her (sometimes over an hour!).  this week i figured if she was going to wake up that early then we would just try to move everything earlier, but it is not working.  she is completely overtired, not napping until 10:30 and then only sleeping for an hour or less.  her afternoon nap was never great but now it is only 30 or 45 minutes.  plus, we used to just put her in her crib and she would just go to sleep.  now she is immediately sitting up when i put her down, standing, "talking" for 30-45 minutes before finally falling asleep.  she just started crawling and pulling up a couple of weeks ago but could that milestone have caused this much of a change?  i thought crawling was supposed to make them more tired!  please help!  advice on how to get her to wake up later?  extend naps?  lay down in crib sooner?  our routine lately looks something like this...

5:45 wake
6-7 play with daddy
7 breakfast
10:30-11:30 nap
12 lunch
4:30-5 nap
5 dinner
6 bath, books, bottle
6:30 put in crib
7:30 finally falls asleep

sorry this is so long!
thank you!

[EsMum]

Hi Anna, welcome!  I'm sure you'll get some good advice from this website.

My LO is 11mo and we have gone through a bunch of changes and sleep issues lately...unfortunately it seems to come with the age because they start to need a little less daytime sleep as they work towards dropping to one nap (don't worry, that doesn't happen for several months yet!).  Because they need less sleep a lot of mum's shorten the morning nap (taken at around 9:30 or 10am) to protect the afternoon nap (taken around 1:30).  I am absolutely no expert but I think perhaps the afternoon nap is going too late...I was always told they shouldn't sleep past 4pm.  Perhaps that's why she takes an hour to fall asleep?

Anyway I'll let the experts give the advice, I just wanted to let you know you are absolutely not alone, this is really common for her age group.  If you have the time to do a bit of reading there is a thread on the nap board called 2-1 switch...there are tons of mums going through the same things and lots of good information.

Good luck!!!
Michelle.

[debo620]

Hi there,
I would suggest you shorten the am nap to 40min or so

so wake 5:45
nap 10-10:40
nap 1:30-3
bed 7

hopefully the wake time will creep back forward to maybe 6:30 and then you can go from there...

[annavo]

Thank you so much for the support and advice!  I will try this and see how it goes.  It never fails...each time I think I have her all figured out she throws me for a loop.  : )