9 month old waking at 5am ready to start the day

[benne81]

Hi just wondering if anyone has any advice.

My 9 month old DS has decided this week to start waking at 5am - usually he has a bf at this time but goes straight back to sleep, for the last week though he just won't go back to sleep and wants to play. I think he is still tired as each time at 7am when he goes for a nap he is sleeping for two hours!

He is a good sleeper - goes to sleep at 7-7.30 and then usually wakes at 5ish for a feed then will sleep til 6.30 ish (normally).

In the days I don't have a strict rountine but he naps when tired which is usually 3 naps about an hr long, sometimes two which are 1.5hr long. Since the early waking though this has been thrown completely out the window as he is having massive 2 hr sleep first thing then less than 1.5hr later having another long sleep, like he is exhausted ( he is still sleeping now).

I'm am worried that this is completely messing up our days - ie. brekkie &,lunch being later and I go back to work in5 weeks so would like to try and get the issue resolved by then so that he isn't a sleepy grumpy nightmare for the CM.

Any suggestions gratefully received wise MNers

DD went through the exact same thing at 5 months. I asked for advice on here, got some great advice, tried it and it worked! She would previously wake in the mornings at 7am and go to bed at 7pm with two naps of 2 hours each. Then she started waking at 5am and it all went to pot and she would need her first nap starting at 7am. It was suggested that I push through the 7am pain barrier and keep her up until 9am (her usual first nap time). I did this for several days and each day we got closer to 9am. You'll know as well as any mum how hard it is to keep them going but that is what I had to do. I started by putting some toys in her cot where she would play happily and then get her up. I would then give her the first feed of the day, then put her in her bouncy chair, followed by some playmat time, then into her door bouncer and then her playring, I think the change of scenery helped. Then we would walk around the house looking at things and chatting. I think the first day she managed until 8am but each day got better and eventually her first nap was at 9am again and it sort of reset her body clock. After about 5 days she suddenly stopped waking up at 5am!

Good luck! It's not fun!

My now 10 month old DTs were doing this about 4 weeks ago. I cut out their third afternoon nap and like Lizzywig pushed back the morning nap to 845 earliest. They are now back to about 630, sometimes 645. Now the day goes like this:

630 wake up
845 nap for up to 45 mins
1230 nap - this can be 45 mins to 1hr 30 mins depending how long they sleep in their morning nap.
1830-1900 - bed after bottle.

They don't sleep much during the day compared to some babies but it seems to work. Perhaps you could start to cut back or cut out the third nap so he isn't getting as much daytime sleep?

Good luck, early starts are miserable and make the day seem sooooooooo long!

My almost-11-month-old DS is the same, and has been for a while. We're using the same technique to try and push his day back a little. He's been waking up at 4.30/5am, which, combined with his wakings throughout the night, has just become exhausting. We are stuck in a cycle of him waking early, needing his naps too early and then needing an extremely early bedtime and then waking early again as he'd had his 11 hours (not straight - if only!) of night sleep.

We're gradually pushing his morning nap back - it was 8.15am this morning. We let him have an hour or just over and then wake him up (to be honest, this is probably too much, but we hate waking him!) and then he has an afternoon nap at around 2pm, which sees him through till bedtime at 7pm. So far we've not seen much change, but as we carry on, hopefully getting his morning nap more towards 9am, we'll see some results. This morning, he slept in till 5.40am... bliss! (never thought a 5.40am wake-up time could be considered bliss, but there you are!).

We did same with my DS when he was around 10/11 months & it also worked a treat for us. It can take a few weeks to see a change though, so persevere & you will get there. You don't have to push them all the way to 9am in one go though - so long as you are making gradual pushes consistently eg 15mins later every few days until they are napping at 9am you will get there. x

Omama Could I ask you a question if you're around please? Just wondered if you know whether it is essential to both push the morning nap back to a more appropriate time AND cap it, or whether we can focus on pushing it back without limiting it, and see how it affects his afternoon sleep?

Guess the short version is: if we push his nap back to 9/9.30am, can he sleep for his usual 1/1.5hrs, or will that just string out his early waking?

Sorry for the little hijack OP.

tickleme - I think if your LO was 6/7 months then leaving him to sleep at his morning nap would be fine & he'd probably still take a decent nap in the afternoon too. I think the trouble at this age is that if you get him napping for 1-1.5hrs+ from 9/9.30am, there is a risk he may all of a sudden completely refuse his PM nap & then he will be very overtired by bedtime, fall into a deep sleep more quickly & is more likely to wake early the next day.

If you do manage to get him down for a PM nap, it may be much later than usual (because his AM nap is later) & so you may then find he isn't ready for bed at bedtime. Or he may go easily, but have long NW's.

Either way I think you would find he continues to wake early. The best approach, IMO is to cap the nap shorter at the same time as pushing it out.

You might not even have to cap too short just yet - I think at that age my DS had around a 45min nap in the morning & a 1.5hr nap in the afternoon & that suited him just fine.

Thank you lady :) I just wondered, as he had an hour and a half this morning at 8.30am, and is just up to an hour and a quarter on his afternoon nap now. Thought perhaps that if he still having a decent-length nap in the afternoons then the morning nap could stay as it is, but we definately want to change his early wakings, so perhaps we'll try reducing the morning nap to 45 minutes or an hour and see how we go. Thanks for your help!

tickle - perhaps see how he fares tonight & make a judgement call that way?

I think pushing it later is really the most important thing of all -

If you leave nap where it is at 8.30am & cap, then the effect will be he will need his afternoon nap earlier, and he will need to go to bed earlier, meaning the early waking continues.

So IIWM I really would seek to get the nap starting at 9am at the earliest. Perhaps do that before you start capping. Once nap is starting at 9am you can start to cap AND push out at the same time so you eventually end up with nap starting at 9.15/9.30am for 45mins IYSWIM?

HTH.x

Hi there...I dont want to hijack OP but this sounds soooo similar & I am so tired! DS is 9mo and on 3 meals a day with snacks. Total FF approx 20 oz and at mo routine:
530 wakes, no milk
730 Breakfast
930 ish 5oz FFMilk
1000 ishnap for anything form 45 min but today 2h till I woke him up!
1230 Lunch
1430/1500 5oz FF Milk
1500 ish nap for approx an hour or so depending on how long the morning nap was
1730 Supper
1900 7 oz milk & he usually collapses/ falls asleepon bottle or in my arms.

Realistically wont be able to have an earlier bedtime when I go back to work in a couple of months.

Wakes once a night and up to now we have been feeding him but he is getting less interested and I suspect he doesnt need it so planning to cut that out.

But should I give him milk at 530 to try to get hime back to sleep? Or will he then not eat Breakfast??

Any advice appreciated...or telll me to start a new thread!

Cheers.

PS I suspect everyone is in bed already though...