9 mo old wants to play in his crib instead of sleep

[starburst15]

Our 9 month old has always gone to sleep very easily.  We would feed him his bottle and he'd be asleep by the end of his feeding (I know -not the correct way). In the last 3 weeks, he doesn't fall asleep after his bottle, but I know he's tired. He's rubbing his eyes, burying his face, etc. We do wind down (read books, dim lights, etc).  Then we put him in his crib, and he stands up, smiling, laughing, and wanting to play.  I lay him down, pat him, and tell him it's time for bed. He again, stands up, smiles, giggles and turns it into a game to see how many times I lay him down (dozens of times). If I pick him up, he gets mad, cries, and wants to be put down. When I put him down, he stands up and giggles again.   I end up leaving the room, and he cries for me to come back.  I let him fuss for a few minutes before going back in his room. When I go in, I pick him up to reassure him and lay him back down...and the playing starts all over again. I know he's tired, but he wants to play!  He's his schedule:

Wake/Eat bottle-6am
Activity 6:30-7:30am
Eat food 7:30
Bottle 8:30
Sleep 8:30 or 9 (we try to limit it to an hour in the morning because we have a 2 year old who needs to get outside)

Activity-10-12
Eat food 12:00
Bottle 1:00
Sleep 1:30ish (we make sure he's awake by 4)

Activity 3:30-5:15
Eat food  5:15
Activity 6-7
Bottle 7:15
Sleep -after 7:15pm but takes a while to get to sleep!

Thank you!

[starburst15]

I should add that he eventually buries his face in the mattress and falls off to sleep, maybe after a half hour of playing/crying.  I'm not sure if this is okay or not.

[jessmum46]

Hi starburst

I think actually he's not tired enough at bedtime - the tired signs you are seeing are likely habit.  He's having a lot of daytime sleep and really quite short A times for a 9 month old, so my suggestion would be to start cutting back on his daytime sleep a bit.

So if currently you are doing say WU 6, Nap 9-10, Nap 1.30-4 and BT 7.15, my suggestion first of all would be to wake him by 3.30pm, limiting his afternoon nap to 2 hours.  3 hours daytime sleep is plenty for a 9 month old and that would give him longer awake before bed hopefully meaning he will be more tired and settle better. 

The next steps after that if you run into bedtime problems again could either be to limit that afternoon nap even further, to say 1.5h waking by 3pm.  Or possibly better (given that the overall direction and aim will be a long lunchtime nap over the next few months) I would suggest to shorten his morning nap a bit to say 45 mins, then 30, then 15-20 over time and bring his afternoon nap earlier, but still allow him 2 hours in the afternoon.  This would look something like

WU 6, Nap 9-9.30/45, nap 12.45/1-3, BT 7.15

Again that gives a bit less daytime sleep and a longer awake time before bed which should hopefully help