9 mo napping schedule?

So a month ago I had the twins on a fantastic 2-3-4 schedule: up at 7, nap at 9, up at 10ish, nap at 1, up at 230-3ish, bed at 7. Then the Jewish holidays happened and our schedule went to the wind. I can't seem to get them to take two naps a day anymore, but they can't make it to even a 6 pm bedtime happily and their night sleep is steadily getting even worse than it was. What schedule worked for you at this age??

 

I've found with Emmett that when things start to go sideways it helps to take a day where I throw out the schedule entirely & just follow his cues for everything. It seems to work almost like a reboot. We sometimes end up with 3 x 45 minute naps & a 5:30pm bedtime but then the next day it's back to two regular naps & his normal bedtime. ardon:

 

yep, this... but it sure sucks with the twins when they are on their 'own' schedules! exhausting, but if it fixes the problem so worth it!

 

Hmm, maybe I should try this.

 

I never change bedtime even if naps are horrible (with all three of my kids going to bed early even after poor napping just results in a kid that's awake for the day at 4:30 a.m.), but I will do like the others have said and just follow sleep cues for naps if things aren't working out on the schedule.

For example, yesterday, nobody wanted to sleep at their usual 1 p.m. time (due to a 10 minute car nap on the way home from the pumpkin patch---sigh) but they both fell asleep at 2:30. My daughter only slept 30 minutes and was a wreck until bedtime but would not go back to sleep. My son slept until 5 p.m. and then passed out at his usual 7 p.m. bedtime without any problems even though his nap was so late. Their night sleep was normal with only 1 wake up (it's usually worse if I try to put them down earlier than their usual bedtime).

Also, 9 months just seems to be a notoriously bad time for sleep for most babies. Odds are it will pass on its own no matter what you do.