5 Month Old - Sudden Early Awakening

[TH2329]

Hey,

My baby boy is 5 months old and tbh we have got very lucky with him from the start. I wake him up to give him a nappy change and bottle at 10:30PM (Plan is to stop this after we are established on solids) and he always used to sleep to anywhere between 7-8AM when he went back down.

For the last 3 weeks or so he has been waking between 4-5AM, he isn't hungry and refuses a feed, sometimes he just babbles away to himself sometimes it's slight whinges and he is fidgety. He either won't resettle in his next to me but if I give In and put him in our bed he will go back to sleep to usual time or If I do manage to get him to resettle he then wakes every 30/40 minutes for me to resettle again.

I'm a FTM so just wondered if anyone has any tips for me to get him back to sleeping through without putting him in with me as I don't then go back to sleep myself or is this just his new time to wake up?

Thanks

I would put him to bed at 7 and not wake him up at 10.30. If he’s had enough milk in the day he doesn’t need the extra.

I'm going to be honest - sleeping through at this age shouldn't be an expectation. You were quite lucky before as they were in the sleepy newborn phase, it's biologically normal for them to wake, it's also a protective mechanism against SIDS.

Have a read on biologically normal infant sleep and behaviour, I found Sarah Ockwell-Smith and Lyndsey Hookway very useful for evidence based information.

If you are on Facebook The Beyond Sleep Training Project group is great for information and solidarity. Also Feed Sleep Bond and Nuture Neuroscience.

We get told so much misinformation as parents and it puts so much unnecessary pressure on us and our children.

Good luck, you've got this.

Could be caused by teething? Are there any other signs?
My little one started teething early. It was hard (she also slept though every single night from 12 weeks!), but from 5-6 months, she started to wake up due to the pain.