Early rising 5 month old...I'm exhausted!

[Smuddy81]

My DS has been waking earlier and earlier lately so have moved him into his own room now where he has a blackout blind to see if it makes any difference. He doesnt wake in the night for food but has been dreamfed at 10.30pm which he has stopped wanting the last couple of nights. He is waking sometime between 5.30 and 6 lately, not apparenlty starving, so we wake up for the day IYSWIM and feed but he wants to sleep again not much more than an hour later. This makes me think he hasnt finished his night sleeping? Does that make sense? (Have tried re-settling him straight away but he's too awake!)

Aside from the early mornings (which I've never been good at!) we're going to start weaning in a few weeks and I'd like to start thinking about a daytime routine which includes mealtimes but at this rate he'll be asleep for breakfast before we've even got started and it puts the whole day out of sync!

I'm not sure if its relevant but I've just finished breastfeeding having been dropping feeds very gradually. (Please dont flame me, I carried on despite breast surgery and an incredibly distracted feeder and I had to start stopping for my own sanity!)

Anyone else having the same sort of problems? Any tips would be great!

Hi,
You're son sounds just like my son was at that age. He'd be up at the crack have his bottle then (once eating solids) have his breakfast about 45 mins later and be back to bed with in about an hour to an hour and a half of starting day for a good length nap. He was having two long naps and because of that he was able to stay up for a 6.30-7pm bed time. As he started to take on more solids (over a few months) and also when he started crawling (9mths), he started sleeping in a little later. He's now 2.10yrs and usually wakes between 6.30 and 7.30am.

How many naps does he have and at what times?

Hang in there. He'll change and develop drastically over next six months!

My DS is 7.5 months old and he has always been waking up between 5 and 6am. He slept till 7am twice, when he was ill...I have no words of wisdom, sorry!
(he goes to bed early - usually around 7pm, but on the occasions when we put him down later he still woke up just as early.)

Hi Smuddy81 - what's his sleep like during the day? It might be that he's ready to cut down on his daytime sleep - so if having 3 naps, try cutting to 2 and if having 2 cut to 1. I found both of mine started waking early in the morning when they were ready to cut out a nap. It might take a couple of weeks to reset his body clock and also to get used to cutting a nap out. HTH

Hi, thanks for your comments.

His daytime napping is pretty eratic too I have to say. He usually has 3 lots of about 45 mins but it varies if we're out and about cos he'll sleep for longer if we're in the car.

We tried a different tack last night. He went down after a bottle as usual at 6.30-7 and instead of giving him a dreamfeed at 10.30 we left him to see how long he would go. He woke us at about 1.30 which is a lot earlier than I expected (obviously could be down to other factors) He had a good feed and went straight back to sleep until 7.45! This sounds to me that its probably hunger he's waking for at 6ish and not body clock. Who knows though, if only they could tell us!

I did wonder about whether his sleep in the day was a contributing factor but I dont think he's sleeping that much...? How much is normal for a 5 month old to sleep in the day?

Such a mystery!