6 month old waking to early

[ilovemybear]

Please can any one help me! My son who is 6 months old keeps waking up so early anywhere between 4am and 6am. The earliest I would like him to wake up is 6am every day; he has his last bottle between 6pm and 7pm then about ten minutes later off to bed. I have been going in every time he wakes and trying to settle him back down telling him it?s still nighttimes for about a week now and this has worked once or twice but most of the time he wakes up my 3 year old and when they are awake there is no way of going back to bed. I persevere until 6am then go in and say good morning, I know I should be grateful that he sleeps 10hrs in one stretch and I am but my 3 year old gets so tired during the day and takes naps now or falls asleep during dinner, I?m worried that when they start nursery in September they will be to tired during the day and I am so sleep deprived that I struggle in the day to stay awake.

His routine is 6am Bottle,
7am breakfast,
8am naps
(if he wakes up at 5am and does not go back to sleep),

Sleeps for about an hour to hour & half,

It seems that he wants to go to sleep after about three hours of getting up so I?m not sure if he is getting enough sleep. I would be very grateful for any ideas.

My little one has been doing this on and off for a while and it's driving me mad. I did put him to bed earlier which helped and made sure he was getting enough day sleep but it didn't always work.

Have you got decent blackout blinds - I mean is every chink of light blocked? As babies enter light sleep from about 4am, the tiniest thing can wake them- eg temp drop, traffic noise, birds singing.

Also I've been reading gina ford's website and she suggests giving a short morning nap of no more than 45 mins and a longer lunchtime nap. Morning nap should be 9-9.30 ish. I'm going to try it as of today - DS woke at 4.40am (!) so I fed and held him so he dozed til 6am. Normally he naps at half 8 which is too early apparently do I'm pushing it back to 9 by moving it 5 mins or so every day. Then getting him to nap around 12-30 ish. Your litle one prob needs a third nap as a bit younger.

Anyway fingers crossed it works - will let you know!

My 6 m.o. does this on and off too (although he usually wakes 3-4 times a night as well ). I try not to get him up (ie open blinds etc) till the same time every day so it re-sets his biological clock. But he sleeps in my room, and when he wakes early, doesn't go back to sleep after feeding and gets cross, I bring him into bed with me, where he will sometimes drop off, or will at least be less noisy.

Lengthening the gap between waking & the first nap is supposed to help early waking sometimes. But I see your DS does about 3 hours. I think that's about within the normal range, but you could try getting him down for a nap sooner - my DS does an hour and three quarters awake before needing another sleep. OTOH, it's good that he sleeps for so long (my DS only does 45 mins).

Ilovemybear, is he waking due to hunger,a growth spurt maybe, we he settle back off if you give him a feed?

we= will, lol!

My 7mo old does this. Definitely not a blackout blind issue here. Not a chick of light getting in due to some crazy blind/cardoard/towelling regime I have going on!

My DH gets up and feeds him, then he does go back to sleep. I had to wake him up at 7.30 this morning to get him to the childminders on time.

I just think it'll pass. My DH catches up on sleep during the day so we're just going with the flow at the moment.

Thanks for all the replies. I have a black out blind and I don't think he is hungry as when I do get up with him at 6am he does not look for his bottle straight away.

Today he woke up at 4am and it took me an hour to get him back to sleep then slept till 7am.

Yesterday it was only 20 minutes then slept till 7.30.

I can see that he is still tired as he rubs his eyes, went to bed at 8pm both nights.

Don?t get me wrong I know he sleeps very well for his age (9 or 10 hours a night). like all us mums we always want that ittle bit more sleep lol.

I hope it will pass and I will just have to go with the flow. I will let you know if anything changes. Thanks again.

Here is a very useful article on early waking which I often recommend because I followed it and it worked