Our 9 Month Old Baby Schedule

If you have a baby that’s around 9 months old, and you’re looking for a healthy, happy sleep and eat schedule, you may want to give our current 9 month old schedule a try.

Newsflash, our 9 month old baby schedule looks an awful lot like our 6 month old baby schedule.

Yup, we’ve barely changed our schedule in over 3 months. I’m just as surprised as you are, but Gemma continues to thrive on our 2 nap, 4 bottle schedule, so I haven’t bothered to switch things up too much. We have pushed nap times back a bit (more on that below), but we’re still rocking a 2 nap, 4 bottle day.

Let’s start with a look at what a typical day looks like for us now that Gemma is 9 months old.

Hold the phone. Are you looking at the screen being like, but when does she drink bottles, and when does she eat, and wait are you telling me she doesn’t sleep at night? Obviously not. But thank’s for the nice transition to:

What’s Changed Between 6 and 9 Months

• I’ve become much, much more relaxed about tracking. I’ve always tracked eating and sleeping in my favorite baby tracking app: Glow Baby. But lately I find myself way more relaxed about this. Like, so much more relaxed that on multiple occasions I’ve considered stopping tracking all together. Here’s what it looks like. I open my Glow Baby app to start timing a nap, and realize I haven’t entered anything in two or three days. I think UGH how annoying, I really don’t want to go back and enter data for the past 3 days. I don’t even remember what she did the past 3 days. Should I just quit? Yes. No. Maybe so. In my head I’ve committed to tracking sleep until 1 year old, so I’ve stuck with it. But I’ve dropped tracking nighttime sleep, and I’ve dropped tracking bottles. These two things are so consistent, that it’s not worth tracking anymore. For now I stick with tracking naps and I hope this will help when the time comes to drop a nap.
• Two naps is the absolute norm. You may remember from our  6 month old baby schedule that Gemma transitioned from 3 naps to 2 naps on her own. But at 6 months old she still occasionally needed a 3rd catnap. Over the course of a month or so she completely dropped the catnap, and now she takes 2 naps, always, every day. And although some days she’ll still have 2 very short naps, most days we get at least one long nap out of her. Sometimes it’s so long we have to wake her up. (I cap naps at 2 hours no matter what.)
• Solids are becoming more consistent. I’d be lying if I said Gemma eats 3 full meals every day, but at 9 months old we’re getting closer and closer. We always sit down for breakfast after her morning bottle, and then lunch and dinner typically depend on what our plans are for the day. Lunch is sometimes a pouch on the go, and sometimes dinner gets skipped if we’re out as a family. But many days we sit down for a real lunch, and offer a real dinner before her bedtime bottle. Meal time is messy, but fun, and so stinking cute.
• Bottles are becoming hit or miss. Due to a combination of teething and introducing more solids, Gemma often leaves bottles unfinished. We still offer a full 8 ounces 4 times a day, but it’s becoming a common occurrence for her to drink half and then refuse anymore. This was initially concerning (even though I know better), but now I realize we’re getting close to weaning anyways, so I let her lead the way on what she wants to eat.

Our 9 Month Old, 2 Nap Schedule

• 7:00 get Gemma out of crib. 
• 7-7:30 first bottle (8oz)
• 8:00 breakfast
• 10:00 nap
• 11:30 second bottle (8oz)
• 12:00 lunch
• 2:00 nap
• 3:30 third bottle (8oz)
• 5:30 dinner
• 6:30 last bottle (8oz)
• 7:00 in crib for night

Do you allow flexibility in Gemma’s schedule?

Yes, yes, and absolutely yes. I’ve told myself that I should be “pretty strict” about nap times and napping in the crib for at least the first year, but life is life and of course we need to be flexible. Some examples include: naps on the go, early or late bottles, skipped meals, and adjusted nap times.

Do you ever adjust nap start times?

I do, but not by a lot. Here are a couple of examples. Some days when I check the monitor in the morning, I can tell that Gemma has been awake and restless in her crib since 5AM. While her first nap is typically at 10AM, on a day like this I’ll watch for her cues and if she is getting grumpy on the early side, I’ll put her down as early as 9:30. Same goes for later naps. If Gemma takes a 2 hour nap from 10-12, I may decide to put her down for her 2nd nap at 2:30 instead of 2.

Do you ever wake her from a nap?

I do wake Gemma up from naps, but not every day, and not always for the same reasons. Lately the 3 main reasons I wake my baby up from a nap are:

1. We have somewhere to go! Whether it be music class, a playdate, or trying to make it to mass on time, Gemma does get woken up when we have plans. However, I only do this if she’s been sleeping for at least an hour. Otherwise, our plans have to wait.
2. She’s been sleeping for 2 hours. Gemma is not ready for one nap a day, but I also know that she only has so many sleeping hours in a 24 hour day. So if she’s been sleeping for 2 hours, I wake her up to make sure she can still get at least a 45 minute snooze in during her 2nd nap, and sleep through the night.
3. It’s getting too close to 4PM. Bedtime is at 7PM. In a perfect world, she’d be up for 4 hours before bed, meaning that her 2nd nap ends at 3PM. However, some days her first nap is short, or her 2nd nap starts later than usual, or I know she’s exhausted/sick, so I let her sleep past 3PM. On these days, I always wake her by 4PM to make sure she has a good long stretch of awake time before bed.

How and when will you drop bottle?

I have no freaking clue, and this is stressing me out big time. I’ve tried reading up on this topic, and right now I just can’t wrap my head around how we will drop a bottle. While she is drinking less from her mid day bottles somedays, other days she chugs the 8 ounces so quickly you’d think we were starving her. So… if you have any advice on how to transition to less formula between 9-12 months, please share below in the comments!

And there you have it, our 9 month old baby schedule that consists of 2 naps, 4 bottles, and (usually) 3 meals. Questions about how we reached this schedule, or how it’s working for us? Ask away!