3 month old waking earlier and earlier

[Newmum29]

Firstly I want to say my daughter is a really good sleeper, I know that but.. she has always gone to bed between 6 and 7pm and used to wake between 6am and 7am with 2 night feeds around 10/11pm and 3/4pm.

Recently she’s been waking earlier and earlier (4/5am) and we can’t get her to go back to sleep - despite rocking in arms etc she wakes any time you put her in her cot.

It doesn’t seem to make any difference if she sleeps well or badly in the day (we try 3 naps morning/lunch/afternoon). She’s formula fed so we know she’s not hungry.

Obviously I mean 3-4am

Well, ours has always been an early riser up between 5 and 5.30 every day pretty much since about 3 months old but had definitely had phases of waking up at 4am for the day and nothing ever, ever, ever got her back to sleep. Didn't matter how many naps she had or for how long - still doesn't now at 2.5 years! we tried later bedtimes and earlier bedtimes but didn't make a tiny bit of difference. Eventually I just came to the conclusion that she just needed less sleep and is an early riser.

It's too early for a sleep regression for your DD and so it kind of depends how you want to approach it really. We never wanted to go down the route of leaving to cry so just went to bed ourselves earlier. I know some people had success with bringing little one into bed with them and getting another hours sleep or take it in shifts IE. one does the early mornings during the week, the other at weekends. Blackout curtains is another option that might help and checking there isn't something waking them up like the boiler coming on or something really basic you can easily turn off.

But you might also find it's just a little phase and she starts sleeping longer again....

For what it's worth, in my experience babies are all different and whilst it's really not fun to be up at 4am again (!!!!!) and super annoying when people gaily tell you 'oh but mine sleeps till 8am' they seem to fall broadly into three camps: early bedtime and early riser, late bedtime and late riser or sleep for flipping ages from 7pm to 7am 😉