Baby waking at 5am

[Lauralee14]

Hi all, my baby girl is 8 months old and waking anywhere from 4.45-5.30am and it's killing me! Her daytime routine is:

4.45 / 5.30 wake up (not hungry for bottle just awake!)
6.30 ish bottle
8.45 breakfast
9.15/30 nap (can be up to 1.5hrs/2 hrs)
12 lunch
2/3pm bottle
5pm dinner
6pm bath
6.30 bottle and bed
9.45 dream feed (3oz) - desperate to drop this so have bought it forward from 10.30pm and giving less in the hope we can stop!

She doesn't have an afternoon nap unless we are out in the car and she may fall asleep but not for long.

She has been crawling for 2 months and is standing, pulling herself up and starting to sofa surf, so I don't know why she's not more tired?!

Last night I tried putting her down earlier (6.15 she was asleep) and she woke this morning at 4.45am!

Any help to get her to sleep longer would be greatly appreciated.

Laura x

That's not a lot of naps for a eight month old.
I would suggest she's over tired and waking eaEly

I'd say cap the morning nap at an hour and put her down for a nap again at 1 ish.

Try white noise in the bedroom as well - we had this problem and I realised the buses start around this time, the heating comes on/ it starts getting light.

To be honest though, we're on dc2 now and he also does it around 50% of the time (also 8 months). He will usually go back to sleep after if I feed him though.

Agree with previous poster. My lo was having 3 naps a day at that age. Could be over tired. I followed the baby whisperer routine. Tells you how long baby should be awake before napping. Recommends 3 naps at that age I believe? Been a while since I read it!

I agree. Sleep breeds sleep and it doesn't sound to me like she's having enough sleep in the day.

When mine was that age he had a nap from 9.30-11.00 and then another nap from 2.00-3.30pm and then went to bed at 8pm. He then slept through until at least 6am.

He required two naps, sticking with the above routine until he was about 2 years old when we then dropped him to one longer nap after lunch. He's just turned three and still has a 2 hour nap after his dinner.

If you give her an afternoon nap she will then manage to last until later bedtime and then hopefully wake up later too.

I also agree with the PPs - it sounds like she could be overtired.

At that age, my DD was still having 2 naps. A shorter morning one of up to an hour, and then a longer afternoon one of up to 2.5 hours. Eventually, she dropped the morning one and still has the afternoon one now.

I would try to get her down for a shorter morning nap around 2-3 hours after waking, then for the longer one by 12:30-1pm at the latest.

I'd wake her after 90 mins from her first nap, she might be more willing to go down in the afternoon.

She's going to bed pretty early too, can you try and push it past 7pm?

Some are just early wakers and there's not much you can do about it but if you can get her into the habit of an afternoon nap by taking her out in the car every day for a week or so, and pushing bedtime back by at least half an hour, it might work.

Another thing is that it's so light in the mornings now that this may be the problem. Black out blinds don't block out everything, but you could try putting foil on the windows? You just wet the glass with a cloth and the foil will stick to it. It makes for complete darkness and might help a bit.

Going a bit against the grain here as I have a just 9 month old who has also been crawling for months, cruising etc but sleep here does not mean extra sleep at night, quite the opposite!

I have managed to curb his early waking by letting him only cat nap for 15/20 mins in the morning, usually in car on way to an activity, then he has a decent map after lunch. Even that I have to cap at 1.5 hrs. This has meant he is sleeping for 12 hours at night (with a feed at about 4 so not quite sleeping all the way through but I don't dream feed).

In my experience long morning naps do breed early waking and you are much better off doing a proper afternoon nap instead to avoid over tiredness at bed time.

That being said my older child has been an early waker since he was about 1 and at 6 still is despite all my efforts so I guarantee nothing!! I do think though that at 8/9 months the nap structure will help.

Good luck. Early waking is killer!

I'd say another nap and a later bedtime. Even if you have to go out in the car every afternoon to get her used to it and so she's rested enough for a later bedtime. Average night sleep (in total, not without waking) for that age is something like 9.5 hours. Total sleep including naps 12.5 hours in 24.

Definitely cut the morning nap by at least half!

At 8m my DS had a half hour sleep at 9.15ish and then his long nap for 2hrs after lunch at 12.15ish then bed time and bottle at 7.30pm.

At 10m he decided he didn't want his morning nap anymore so we cut it completely and just had main nap after lunch.

When she wakes early, can you feed her and get her back to sleep? Or doesn't that work? My DD usually wakes at 4 but I treat that as a night waking, feed her for 5 minutes, and she goes back to sleep until about 7.

I agree with PP about naps though - she should have one in the afternoon.

Not very helpful but both my DC were exactly the same and only grew out of it aged c.18MO. Repeatedly attempted more naps/later bedtime/more food/more activity etc, nothing worked so just rode it out.

It absolutely sucks.

Black out blinds don't block out everything, but you could try putting foil on the windows? You just wet the glass with a cloth and the foil will stick to it. It makes for complete darkness and might help a bit.

I second this!!!

I have run foil on DS's windows and it's like there's been a solar eclipse in his room - its pitch black. I've also got it on my bedroom windows

My DS who is 27 months was up at 5.59am today ....arfhhhh!

My son is 3 and I still consider myself lucky if he sleeps until 6am

DD woke up at 5-5:30am until she was about 4. Sorry for the depressing possibility.