9 Month Old Baby Sleep

Jack's naps are killing me.

Well, no. His LACK of naps are killing me. My son was sleeping beautifully. He'd go down for two naps, after about three hours of being awake and his daytime sleep would be between two to three hours. Perfect.

Well, lately he's not interested in napping so much. I find him sitting up in his crib crying, even after yawning and rubbing his eyes. It's like his body is rewired to move, move, move right now and there's nothing he can do about it.

The Dude is home today and sorted out the nap. So Jack is sleeping (Oh my GOD, yes) but he was still up for four and a half hours before it happened, so he got overtired. It's been like this all week and it's changed his personality. Not like in a weird way, but Jack is usually very pleasant and happy-go-lucky. This week he's been clingy and dissatisfied with everything.

It's actually kinda subtle. He wasn't full-out crying and throwing fits. He was just less able to focus on playing with his toys, more needy for me to entertain him and less able to cope with getting bumps and thumps when he toppled over. Those changes combined made him seem like a different baby and I realize now just how important those naps have been. Good sleep has allowed his personality to shine through and being tired masks it with a veil of grumpiness.

And I don't like it.

I read between eight and 10 months is a developmental leap that affects sleep. Crawling, cruising, standing and even walking sometimes start occurring and crazy shit is connecting in baby's brain. And some of it is pretty darn neat.

For example, Jack is doing all those things except walking (So grateful-- not ready!) but I can see cognitive changes like understanding the word no. He knows what that means. I've started using it. Specifically, there's the TV. It's moved as far away from his reach as we can manage right now, but Jack can still reach it and there's a cord. So when he starts touching that area, I say "No!" and I give him a stern face and shake my head no.

And it works about 4 times out of 5. It took awhile for it to sink in and at first I had to physically move him away after saying no. But now he's letting go of the TV on his own, for the most part. I have to keep on him about it because he likes to see if this time he'll be allowed to do it, but I'm encouraged that saying no results in him usually listening to me. It's something I can build on.

So it's not all crankiness around here. My little baby is becoming more and more like a wee person I can truly interact with, with is quite thrilling.

He's still napping right now. Life is good.