Or is 4am a ridiculous time to get up?

Oh I remember those days!!

Omg, I literally could have written this. My baby 7month old barely naps and recently wakes up at 4 / 4:30 / 5am if I’m lucky. I just thank my lucky stars it’s summer and try not to think about it. It won’t be like this forever. repeat after me it won’t be like this forever 🥴

I'm a sleep consultant and this was my first thought. The fact that you said that your DD falls asleep within 5 minutes means that she is probably crashing out rather than self settling and knowing how to fall asleep herself. I would usually expect it to take around 10-15 mins from lights out to asleep.

Mines 19yo and still gets up at 4am as he's a swimmer (so o do too to take him) - be grateful she'll likely grow out of this phase 😂😂

Oh god, I remember it well. Googling ‘ can you die from tired’ (I did not, in fact, die).
DD’s sleep is still dogshit.

who said about letting them nap as soon as they want after a nap, because that is true. Used to blow my mind that at 6 months they’d get up, have breakfast and the fuck off back to bed.

Ha ha.
I’d happily look after a baby for a flask of tea.

But if she's tired, its basically a split night, but instead of doing it at 1/2am she's doing it at 4/5am.

I would just worry that then she's getting overtired that then makes other naps harder

Two of mine did this too! Still do, one's 23 one's 11..........

Exactly! My dd didn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time at night, dropped daytime naps at 6 months old and didn’t sleep through the night until she was 26 months old. She was breastfed to 9 months, very healthy but simply hadn’t read the books obviously and didn’t need much sleep. It nearly killed me!
DS was the absolute opposite.
Both are very intelligent people, have great careers and I have grey hair as a result!

That sounds like a great amount of sleep mine only slept 2 hours in 24 until he was 5 then it increased to 4 hrs, the joys of ADHD.

So do you then put her back down when she rubs her eyes?! Best time for first nap is within 2hrs of wake up as their body is still full of good sleep hormones, so they can have a good quality sleep

I agree @Calliopespa .

In the last 50 years families have moved location much more than previously.
I haven’t lived near close family for 40 years.

It’s also an interesting potential contribution to discussion around whether the custom of different cultures and times of living as extended family is not healthier and more efficient than our current isolated nuclear family set ups.

That’s genius!

Early wakes occur a lot, as many have said. But to me, 3.50am is a night wake, not an early wake! I think at 7 months going from 1.30pm-bedtime is an extremely long wake window for her age and it is likely she is very overtired. Both my children woke early and went down at bedtime easily so a similar situation. I fought tooth and nail to get a good nap routine going - at 7 months I religiously did 3h wake/nap/3h wake/nap/3h wake/bed. So a two nap day. I also put them down 15 mins prior to wake window ending so at 2hrs 45m wake. E.g. up at 6, into cot at 8.45, sleep as long as they can. Then 3h awake from when they wake up. And so on. If they have a ridiculously short nap, then keep following routine and enjoy early bedtime. Don't fear it! It might seem counter intuitive but it did work in the end...after a fortnight of this, both seemed to get the memo! There is a nearly 5 year age gap between my two so we did have school runs etc to factor in but we managed to make it work. (I shifted morning wake up time so that baby was awake for school runs and we could be home for naps).

Sleep deprivation nearly killed me and this is what worked for me in the end. I understand the level of consistency required is not for everyone but maybe worth a go for a few weeks over the summer when things are less mad. Good luck!

There really should be a government scheme to match old people like me (60’s) who can’t sleep past 4 am with mum’s whose babies wake at 4.
I would gladly play with a baby rather than trying to make myself sleep until 6.

Sorry I meant when op’s dc was about 1 and walking etc. Which is when winter should be about here.

The winter is ages away! Mine only ever does a big stretch at the beginning of the night (sometimes after a false start). The longest he's done is 6 hours and he's only done that twice

This def doesn't work for mine!

I’m gonna say it. Stick a lime in their room.

Fingers crossed that when she gets more mobile she'll do a better job of wearing herself out during the day and so sleep for longer.

I've always tired mime out then watched for the first sign of tiredness, eye rub, yawn etc then straight to pushchair or cot for a nap. Sometimes they take 20mins to go to sleep, other times its very quick, but i follow the same logic as bed time, i go in and resettle as often as needed for them to learn when they go in their cot its nap time