my nine month old wont take naps!

[mandalynn]

ok, my nine month old just started crawling about three weeks ago, and her naps went totally CRAZY! she has always had great naps ( with the occasional exception ) and slept thru the night since she was around 8 weeks. i worked REALLY hard from day one to get her on a good routine and when something goes wrong, i immediately go to my BW book for answers. however, i cannot find anything to help me with this!! she goes to bed around 7:30 or 8, wakes around 8, and then usually has to go back down for a nap within two hours. but since she started crawling, she still sends all the sleepy cues ( i swear i'm not waiting too long ), but when i put her down for her nap, all she wants to do is pull up in her crib and play! when i finally get her up, she is RIDICULOUSLY tired but still won't go down. i don't know if i should do the whole PU/PD thing since she really is'nt crying. what i have been doing is going in there when she makes noise and laying her back down and telling her to go to sleep, its time for her nap!? there have been many days in the past few weeks that she has slept less than an hour and a half, total! she is miserable, and i'm getting there too! it affects her sleep at night and i have NO CLUE what to do. please give me some advice or hope for the future!!!!!!

[lilac83]

LO's like to practice their new skills. Eventually she won't be as enthusiastic about it anymore and she'll have an easier time settling down for nap. What I'm wondering though is if she needs more A time. Two hours is very low for a 9 month old. The average A time for 9 month olds is 3-4 hours. I think if she were to stay up longer, she would have an easier time settling because she would be more tired. Perhaps start increasing her A time by 10/15 minutes every 2 days and see if she falls asleep faster and sleeps longer.

[mandalynn]

well i have not had a chance to try much change to her activity time since we have had doctor's appointments, work meetings, church, and other things going on the past few days... but... i do have some questions about her staying up for longer A time. is she still supposed to be eating every 4 hours? if she is up for 3 or 4 hours won't she be really OT by the time i put her down and won't it be right after she eats? does that make sense? here is how it goes (just so you know) on our "regular" routine... um, BEFORE all this started:

8- wake up and eat- (solids)

8:30- 9:15 or 9:30- A time

9:45-nap

11:15/11:30- wake up & eat (solids)

11:30- 1/1:15- A time

1:15/1:30- nap

3/3:15- wake up and BF

8pm- in bed asleep

i realize that everything i have read is saying that she should be staying up longer, but she has always needed to go down sooner... and it has always been great until she started crawling and pulling up in her crib. today, she was up til 12:20 before i started her 1st nap routine and she went down fairly easily, but only slept an hour (not what she is used to)!!! and, she was exhausted!:P

[lilac83]

If she's on the lower end of A time, then you could try 2.5hrs and see where that leads you. I think staying awake until 12:20 probably caused her to go OT. When you increase the A time, it's best to only increase it by about 15min every 2-3 days.

Are you only doing 1 BF per day? Does she drink milk then from a bottle or sippy cup the rest of the day? My DD has a bottle about every 4-5hrs and then has breakfast, lunch and dinner at normal meal times. Sometimes she has a snack thrown in there also, depending on naps.

Also, what do you do when she starts pulling up to try to calm her back down and get her to sleep?

[mandalynn]

sorry, i meant to put that she eats dinner around 7 (solids) and then bath, then another BF before bed. so only two bottles.. i have always been confused on if she still needs bottles when she is eating solids and how many? i give her a sippy cup everyday but she uses it as a teether! i know she needs more fluids bc she is totally constipated! i have been trying to give her water some with a straw..? i really don't know what i'm doing. should i give her a bottle before i put her down for nap? okay, now im questioning everything!

to calm her back down when she pulls up in her crib, i just go in there and put her back on her back and tuck her in, then i pet her forehead for a sec (if she lets me) and tell her to go to sleep. she gets sooooo excited just by me walking in the room that it's hard to calm her down. then, when i walk out she cries for maybe 15 seconds and then gets back up and plays.

thank you so much for helping me, by the way! i REALLY appreciate it:)