How many naps should my 9 month old be taking a day?

Question

How do you know when your baby is ready to cut out one of their naps a day? My 9 month old daughter still takes 3 naps, but I think she might be ready to drop one, and only take 2 a day, how will I know?

Answer 1

My son is 9 mths old and he takes one 45 min nap in the morning and one nap anywhere from 45 min to 2 hrs in the afternoon, depending how well he slept the night before. He usually sleeps from 7 pm until 6:30 am.

You will know when they (like the other people said) won't fall asleep but just toss around or only go to sleep for a couple minutes than want to get up again. You can try 2 naps and if she seems fine with that after about a week, stick to it. If she seems really tired and cranky by the end of the night, try two naps and 1 short nap later in the afternoon. You have to be careful with the late afternoon nap though, it shouldn't be longer than 30-45 min as not to interfere with bedtime.

Answer 2

I just read an article about this on my baby page. The author said that that it depends on the length of the naps. He said that most babies will probably take 2 naps around 1 hour each. He also said to watch the baby as some actually only need 1 longer nap in the middle of the day. I just think that at least in my case, 1 is not nearly enough. My daughter is almost 9 too and she usually takes 2 except if we're in the car a lot. Then she takes lots of little naps.

Answer 3

my almost 9 month old takes two a day. A short cat nap in the morning and a long one in the afternoon like 2-3 hours long. Some times if she is VERY tired she will cat nap for about 30 mins in the evening. But most of the time its 2 a day and she is in bed by 8 pm and up at 6 am for daycare!

Answer 4

It was rough at first, but we got my 9 month old down to 2 naps. she dropped her last one, and the first 2 got later. she now naps morning (around 10) and afternoon (around 3). before that she was napping at 9, 1, and 4.
She will kind of lead the way to less naps. It is hard at first, because the baby can be VERY cranky. But it only takes a week or less to work out.
Good luck!

Answer 5

Mine were never taking three naps a day still at 9 months. They went down to two a day about about 7 or 8 months. I knew because I would put them down at the usual evening time and instead of sleeping they would cry/scream, or at least not sleep. So I cut that nap and started putting them to bed a half hour or hour earlier.

Answer 6

That depend on how much free time you want during the day. But if you are looking on the best interest of the baby, he should be taking up but no more than 3 naps from 1 to 1.5 hour each.

Answer 7

I'm not sure when she takes them but my girl is 7 months and she's on 2 naps now and a late evening feed. She'll nap for 1 and half to 2 hours at 10.30/11am and them again after lunch for an hour from 2pm. She goes to bed about 6.30pm then and wakes for breast feeding at 11pm.

I find she gets tired in the morning's because she's so active and bouncy so by 11am she's really grumpy and rubbing her eyes and tearful so I know she's tired. Ten after lunch she's tired because she's eaten and played for a while. I know she needs to go to bed because nothing will console her apart from hanging around my neck constantly and being hugged (which I generally can't do 24/7!). She's great once she's had her nap and right back to her chirpy self so I know tiredness was the problem.

Answer 8

I've always been an "on demand" mother. If she demonstrates that she's tired...then give her a nap. If not, then she probably doesn't need one. Every baby tells gives different cues for being tired, only you can determine that. I do think that 2 naps a day is average for a nine month old baby.

Answer 9

That's up to you. My son is 1 and he takes about four naps a day:
9:30 am
11:30 am
2:30 pm
and 4:30 pm.

Answer 10

i would say give her 2 to 3 naps a day