Please please help me early morning awakening

[mummypigof3]

My 7 month old DTs are exhausting enough as it is but the early morning awakening I cannot take anymore. Current schedule-
5-6 am awake
6.30 bottle
7 breakfast
8.30-9 nap- I try to keep them awake for as long as possible but obviously they are exhausted. I wake them if they go down over an hour.
11.30 lunch
12-13.30 nap
14.00 bottle
16.00 very unsettled nap which they don't seem to want but if they don't go down it's a truly hideous bath time
1700 dinner
1800 bath
18.30 bottle and bed by 19.00
They sleep through the night but I just wish they could sleep one more hour at least. What am I doing wrong? Should I wake them earlier after the morning nap? They just want to play in the morning they don't seem that hungry. Or do I just need to put up with it?
Plead help me! TIA

Hi mummy, I'm no expert am afraid, but your DTs are sleeping more than my DD2 (6mths).
She wakes at 5.30-6.00ish, I feed and she sleeps another hour. Up and she'll have 30mins sleep in the morning, 30-60mins in the afternoon and then bed between 6.30-7pm.
She then has a dream feed and then on.....
No suggestions is what I'm trying to say as I don't think it sounds unusual?

Thanks for posting minstrels. Do you think I should feed them immediately then put them back down before breakfast?
Or just suck up the early starts and be grateful they go through the night?

hiya. I'd say the EW is due to 2 things:

1. they are probably getting to the stage where they don't need that late afternoon nap anymore
2. the morning nap starts a wee bit too early. Early waking is strongly linked to too long & too early a morning nap & at this age an hour should be ok but I think it needs to start nearer to 9am.

IIWY I would try & very gently push the morning nap later, do it 5mins later every 3 days (to prevent overtiredness) until it starts at 9am. I would still limit it to an hour, and at the same time push the lunchtime nap 5mins later every 3 days until it starts at 12.30pm. By pushing both naps a touch later you might find they can manage without that late afternoon nap, perhaps with a slightly earlier bedtime for a wee while until they get used to it.

If they are still only napping for 1.5hrs at their lunchtime nap, they may struggle to last all the way to 7pm, so you might then consider nudging the LTN slightly later (again slowly by 5mins every 3 days) towards a 1pm start & see if that gets you a 2hr nap, then your routine will hopefully look something like this:

Up: 6.30-7am
Nap: 9-10am
Nap: 1-3pm
BT: 7pm

Once you are here, if EW continues or the lunchtime nap stays 1.5hrs then you may need to cut the morning nap slightly shorter 5 mins at a time by starting it 5mins later but still waking them at 10am, til nap is 45mins, or 30mins if necessary. If you do this, LTN may need to come slightly earlier again, back to 12.30pm.

HTH.x

Thanks so much Omama, my mind is all over the place and that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for taking the time to post.

Just to say, I followed Omama's suggestion of pushing our DS's morning nap back a little bit each few days when he was waking at 4.30am/5am. At that point he was still waking every 2 hours at night too, killer. He was needing his morning nap by 7am, obviously far too early.

He now tends to wake at around 7am or just before, and has his nap at about 9 or 9.30am. We haven't yet shortened his morning nap as he seems to still need two decent sleeps in the day. His nights have vastly improved too - a combination of very gently spacing out his night time feeds and sending in DH at other times he wakes.

Just my experience of Omama's advice working really well - although it will take a good few weeks (perhaps even a couple of months) to begin to work. (PS Thank you sooo very much Omama! :) You saved my sanity)

Hi All
Just wondering what to do about their afternoon milk feed. Shall I bring it forward to 1 and get them to nap after that? I think they still need it because they still only take a small volume in the morning and night feed.

Iignore them for a while when they first wake up. Even if you can't postpone at first the time they wake up at, postpone the feed. When their body gets used to milk at 6:30 rather than 6:00, they will wake up later.

Just to say, if you can't sort it take heart that you are not alone. Some kids are just below average in terms of how much sleep they need. Annoying though it is. FWIW although I like to have a good moan about my daughter's early waking life has been a lot better since I just accepted it. At least she goes to bed ok and I get an evening. Best of luck and I hope nap jiggling works for you.

tickle - glad to hear all worked out well . It makes me feel all warm & fuzzy inside!! - just wish I'd have known that advice when mine was EWing as it'd have saved us a good 6 months of torture!!

OP - tickle is right it can take quite some time to sort out (several weeks) so be prepared to hang in there & you may have to battle through a bit of OT but they will get there.

WRT the bottle, I probably wouldn't bring it forward to 1pm as you may find they aren't that hungry after having had their lunch at 11.30am, yk? I would probably just wait until they wake from their nap, so they may have it at 2.30/3pm. Can I ask how much are they drinking in the morning & at BT? Do they have any milk at night? And are they eating solids well too? I would expect them to still need that afternoon feed for another few months at least. Think my DS was ~11 months when we dropped it altogether & that was only because it was affecting his appetite at tea time.

HTH.x

They have 180ml in the morning, 150ml at lunch and evening. No overnight or dream feeds anymore. They eat well but they've only been on solids for 5 weeks. They have only every managed small volumes- I put it down to them being a bit prem and reflux as my eldest managed much larger volumes.
I think you are right that they won't manage the feed earlier in the afternoon as they eat a good lunch.

Also Cote I do ignore them as much as I can but then they wake my 2 year old if I leave them too long!!

Go to them then but delay the feed. Possibly move 2 yr old into your room until EW is sorted.