Early waker & overtired 8mo

[YodasMummy]

Please help! DD is 8mo and has never been a great napper (2hrs total on a good day, 1hr on an average day)
She used to sleep 6.30pm - 7.30am but now has started waking at 5.40am every single day without fail.

I have tried a later morning nap (worked at 1st sleep regression), completely blacking out her room, earlier bedtime, later bedtime, bigger tea, bigger bottle before bed... I'm running out of ideas.

She always has bags under her eyes & is always rubbing her eyes but just will not go back to sleep after 5.40

Anyone got any ideas? And how much sleep should she be getting each day?

what is her routine atm? when/how long does she nap? I posted a reply to you on another thread so take a look at that. EW can be caused by overtiredness but there is also a strong link between too early/too long a morning nap and early waking.

One other thing - does she go to bed at 6.30pm every night? As TBH if she does, then waking at 5.40am isn't technically an early waking. 11hrs sleep at night is fairly typical amount for a baby so if you want her to wake later then I would suggest very gradually pushing the morning nap later, which in turn should enable you to push her afternoon nap and her bedtime later at the same time. You would do this 5-10mins at a time, every few days so as to avoid her becoming overtired. It may take several weeks so is not a quick fix but IME early waking isn't something you can solve overnight.

HTH.x

For the past few weeks her routine has been

Awake at 5:30
Me trying to settle her back to sleep, giving in & getting her up at 6:30
Nap at 9 (usually 45 mins)
Nap at 1ish (usually 30 - 45 minutes - sometimes, like today, she just refuses this nap altogether)
Start bedtime routine at 6, she is in bed for 6:30 - 6:45 and asleep by 7ish.

She has started having trial sessions at nursery, where she refuses to nap completely. Today she napped for 25 mins at 1:30pm and was otherwise awake 5:40am - 6:40pm.

Have no idea on how to break this cycle - it has been going on for about 4 weeks now.

oh bless her. It is so very hard when they start nursery. I remember my DS having 30min naps in his first week too. It did get better though - it will just take her a wee while to get used to the new environment & the noise. Do they have a quiet place for the babies to sleep? At my DS's nursery, they have cots in the baby room, with only a curtain to separate it from all the other babies who are awake & playing. It was bright & noisy & the staff stood over my DS until he went to sleep. The older toddlers age 2-3 had a separate blacked out nursery for sleeping, and I asked nursery if DS could take his naps in there, I sent along his sleeping bag & his favourite teddy so he had some home comforts and I asked them to settle him for naps as I do, by putting him down then leaving him to it. He immediately started to sleep better & after 3-4 weeks he was taking decent 2-3hr naps there.

WRT routine, ok I see why you are doing the early bedtime now. She really isn't getting much daytime sleep is she, bless her. I am wondering if she may already be overtired at her afternoon nap & hence why she is finding it difficult to sleep altogether. Some babies do drop to 1 nap very early so I suppose its possible she is trying to do this, but she is still so young I would be inclined to test if she is overtired first of all.

I think she may need a couple of changes to her routine. Firstly I would try pulling her lunchtime nap back to a 12.30pm start & see if she settles better & sleeps for longer. If she takes a decent length nap 1.5hrs+ great, if it is 1hr or less then I would try & get her asleep nice & early at 6-6.30pm no later. She may still wake at 5.30 but she will have had a bit extra sleep so she will feel more refreshed.

Then after a couple of days, I think you may need to start nudging her morning nap a little bit later. This is the hard part, because while she wakes early she will need her morning nap early, and she may get overtired while you push it later. But keeping it early is likely to keep her in the cycle of early waking. I would push the nap gradually later, 5mins at a time every 3 days, until it starts at 9.30am. You may find once the nap gets to 9.30 she needs her lunchtime nap nearer to 1pm again.

HTH.x