Is my 9.5 month old napping too much?

[mtemte]

So my DD has never been a good sleeper either at night time or during the day. We had good success with PUPD but due to a string of events, we are now back to rocking her to sleep for each nap and night time.

In her 9.5 months, she has only ever slept through the night on 2 occasions, one of which was very recently. My husband had said that he would look after my DDs wakings one night so I could get a full nights sleep and in the morning, he informed me that she slept through the night!    The day before, she had slept very little in comparison to what she would normally nap so I was wondering if possibly she cold be sleeping too much during the day?

She normally wakes for the day at 6am, goes down for a nap at 9.30 / 10am. This nap can vary from 1.25 hous to 2 hours. She will then have another 3.5 - 4 hours activity time before going down for another nap sometime around 3pm and will sleep for maybe 1 - 1.25 hours. These nap times have been like this only in the past 6 weeks or so. Before this, she slept much less during the day but for some reason now, apart from the having to rock her to sleep, she naps very well.

However, could the fact that she is sleeping 2.5 - 3+ hours during the day be having an effect on her night time sleep or is this normal nap time for a baby of her age? I must admit that when she was sleeping less during the day, she would generally have more night wakings.... but I am desperately searching for that all night sleep that is so sought after LOL!

Any tips would be very much appreciated!

[PaulsMom]

2.5 to 3 hrs of DT sleep is average for a 9 mo old.  I wouldn't let her go longer than 3 hrs during the day unless she was unwell and needed the sleep.  How often and at what times is she waking at night?  How do you settle her at night? 

[mtemte]

Thanks PM,
She can wake several times but generally from midnight onwards. I tend to give her a feed and that settles her but she will wake a further once or twice most nights. Then early waking from 5am onwards that are very hard to settle her after... Unfortunately settling is always in my arms. We did PUPD before the holidays and she settled well herself once we got PUPD established but she still continued to wake a couple of times a night where she wasnt always able to settle....

[PaulsMom]

Hmmm ok.  Her routine looks really good.  What is she doing when she has a nw?  Crying, standing up/ crawling around, playing?  Is she actively teething at the moment?   If you fed her at 5 am would she go back to sleep for another few hours?   Sorry for all of the questions.