8 month old keeps waking at 4:30am every morning

[LottieT88]

Help!! Our almost 8 month old keeps waking between 04:20 and 04:38 every morning. He goes to bed between 17:30 and 18:30, depending on his nap schedule for the day. I’ve done 3 hour wake windows to bedtime, 2 hour wake windows, I’ve tried feeding him, nothing works. His body seems so set in waking at that time! We try rock and shush him back to sleep, which has worked once or twice, but he resists and wants to be awake! Anyone had the same issue? Is this just a ‘phase’?!

Do you know how much sleep babies that age need? Anything between 12 and 16 hours is normal so since you talk about naps during the day he's probably getting that.

Got to say 17.30-18:30 bedtime is early so no wonder this is happening.

My youngest went through a phase of going to sleep early say 6pm at a few months old. But he also woke at 6 and didn't nap that much during the day

I would try to aim for bedtime at 6.30. So if toh think he’s ready for bed at 5.39 try and keep him up for 10 monte minitee till 5.40 and keep moving bedtime every few days by a further 10 minutes until you’ve got a consistent bedtime of 6.30.

I think overall hes sleeping a good stretch overnight, the problem is that they’re going to bed early and waking up early and it woukd probably suit you better if they were doing say 7pm till 6am?

Thanks. The thing is currently I can push him to bedtime at 7:00pm and he wakes around 4. I can put him to bed at 5.30pm and he wakes around 4. The issue sometimes is that his last nap ends at 1:30pm and then it’s quite a stretch to get him to 7:00pm if he’s not had a little nap inbetween. Seems like the 4 o clock mark is just set for now sadly. I’m going to keep working at it and see what I can adjust further

My ds did this, it was exhausting! For months and months! What worked for us was trying to avoid him becoming fully awake at that time, as once he was awake that was it - he was fully awake and lively and there was no chance of getting him back to sleep.

I think they come into lighter sleep every 45 mins. So I set my alarm for just before the usual time he was waking. Then I went to his cot, and sat there watching him and the moment he started to look less deeply asleep, or when I thought the 45 mins might be coming to an end, BEFORE he stirred or woke, I put my hand in and stroked his back. My theory was his asleep/subconscious brain would be reassured and then go back into the next round of 45 mins deep sleep, without coming fully awake.
I can’t remember having to do this many times, so I think it worked quite quickly as I think after a few nights his body clock got back used to sleeping until later.

Oh and I think there is a specific sleep section of MN so might be worth posting there.

If you want to 'reset' his 4.30 internal clock, you might have to push through a few tricky overtired days. How many naps is he having, and how long?

I'd push bedtime back, and do what you have to get through the day – possibly an extra catnap to get him through to 'new bedtime', and hopefully after a couple of days the sleep pressure will help him sleep later. It can take a couple of weeks to full settle into a new schedule, though, so don't worry if it takes awhile for naps to settle down or he has the odd day where he crashes out early or whatever.

Well if he doesn’t go back down after 4, then his first nap starts at 6am and then again around midday and that’s it. If I push him in the stroller around 3ish I might might get 30 mins from him otherwise he’s up from 1:30pm until whenever bedtime is. It’s such a tricky stage currently because I know overtired babies also don’t sleep well, so I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. It’s been two and a bit months now of the 4am wakings 😩

Okay, so he's naturally on two naps at the moment, and it sounds like a pattern of wake at 4.30am, nap at 6am, nap at noon, bed at 6pm works fairly well for him. Just not for the rest of the household!

If you want him to wake at, say, 6am, I'd be looking to rotate everything by 90 minutes – first nap at 7.30am, second nap 1.30pm, bed 7.30pm. If he's a fairly by the clock napper, I'd try moving the times 10-15 minutes later each day, like @BunnyRuddington suggests. My little ones weren't that consistent, so my approach was to aim to get as close to the new nap or bedtime as I could, regardless of what had happened the nap or day before. Sometimes we'd get close, sometimes we'd slip back a bit, but over the course of a week or two, we'd be able to get them onto the new (rough) schedule.

The other thing that might help is that currently his first wake window is quite short compared to the others, 1.5-2 hours, so trying to lengthen that a little bit could help him make it through – maybe 6am wake, 8.30am nap, 2pm nap, 7.30pm bed or something like that.

So 5.30pm to 4.30am is plenty of overnight sleep, depending on the child - are you thinking he needs more overnight sleep? When would it suit you to have him wake?

That’s a super early bedtime, so I’m not surprised he’s waking up very early. Is that your preference for your family? I personally would be working towards a later bedtime and later morning wake up time.

Our 8 month old goes to bed around 10pm or when we go to bed, and wakes up between 7-9am, depending, so we have a very different approach 😂

@PumpkinSparkleFairy thanks. I think a 6am rise time would be optimal. The thing is that his last nap can sometimes be at 12:30/1:00 depending, so trying to stretch him is so hard to do. Sometimes he will do another nap at about 3pm for 30mins, but by the time 6:30pm comes, he’s so tired!

im trying everything to push his bedtime back slowly! Just day naps are rubbish at the moment

@LottieT88
My daughter woke between 4.30 and 5am from when she was 5 months old until about 10 months. Although she had a later bedtime at 7/7.30 so slightly different and probably did need more sleep.
I found that she would go back to sleep in my arms (but not in the cot). So I’d sit in a chair with her in my arms from 4.30-6.30, then my husband would get up and I’d go back to bed for an hour.
It looks like you probably need to adjust nap
times but just thought I’d mention what we did as well

@Summersun91 thanks! Yeah that’s what we’re currently doing and hoping that this is a phase that will pass!

If the daytime naps are rubbish it might be best to concentrate on those this week and see if it improves the nighttime sleep? I know mine always slept better at night if they’d napped properly for a couple of days.

It’s difficult though when you’ll be so tired yourself.

I would see if you can get hold of a copy of the No Cry Nap Solution abd see if any of the advice in there will help