Early risers advice

[PureedGoodness]

I have read on another site that if you have an early riser (my 7 month old wakes and is ready to get up to start the day at 5:30) by not letting them take their first nap of the day before 09:45 can help. Has anyone else heard this or even better tried and tested it? I am desperate as i have tried EVERYTHING to squeeze another hour at least out of him.

Try to give a bottle of milk in dark room and put back to sleep. That is what we do and my DD sleeps until 9:00 am.

Yes op the advice re not letting them nap too early is an approach but does not specifically have to be 9.45am. The key is not putting them down so early that they are able to finish off their night sleep with the morning nap. So not early like 7.30-8ish, I made that mistake with my ds & got a regular 4-4.30am wakeup call as a result! So my best advice to you would be to slowly push the nap later by 5 mins every few days. You might find that around a 9am start is about right at your ds's age, certainly this is what i would aim for initially & if he continues to wake early push it a bit later towards 9.15/9.30.

I hadnt finished! Was also going to say that early waking at that age can also be due to the need to drop the late afternoon catnap, so if your ds is still having one, consider dropping it & replace with a slightly earlier bedtime til he gets used to it.

Also just to add early waking can also be caused by being too hot/cold, hunger (if ebf or not fully established on solids) or by noisy neighbours or heating coming on, by teething & also by overtiredness. So its worth ruling all of these other factors out first before assuming its routine. It may be helpful if you could post his routine (wakeup time, nap times & length & bedtime).

Omama - thank you for your advice. he is teething at the moment but these early wake ups started in Jan. He got his first two teeth shortly after that but he continued to wake early but like i say he is cutting his next lot through too. So it could be teething related though they dont appear to really cause him a lot of problems during the day.

He is weaning and has three meals a day and have just cut his bottles down to two 9 oz taken at breakfast and bedtime. Again i suppose the early wake ups began when he started weaning but that was jan?

His room is dark. I tried playing white noise on a cd through the night to block out any other noises which could have been waking him but he still woke early.

Our boiler had been playing up wheras we hadnt been able to put it on a timer to come on in a morning therefore its been really cold upon waking and through the night (although the monitor in his room which records temperature has said its a normal temp even though his hands are like ice). That said we had a new boiler put in yesterday and with it being very cold we kept the heatin on over night. I was hoping he would sleep in a bit longer thinking it could have been the temperature but again at 05:25 am heard him babbling away!! He doesnt cry but after a while of leaving him he starts then with frustrated/irritable grizzling. Thats when i will get him up.

His routine (before i started delaying his first nap) altered slightly depending on time he wakes up completely:

05:55 awake
06:30 milk 9 oz
07:30 porridge and toast
08:15-09:00 nap
11:45 lunch of solids
12:30 - 13:15 nap
16:00-16:30 nap
16:45 dinner of solids
18:30 bath
19:00 milk 9 oz
19:15-19:30 bed

His routine now i have pushed his first nap of the day to a bit later:

05:30 awake
06:30 milk 9 oz
07:30/08:00 porridge and toast
09:50-10:45 nap
12:00 lunch of solids
13:00-13:40 nap
16:30-17:00 nap
17:15 dinner of solids
18:30 bath
19:00 milk 9 oz
19:15/19:30 bed

anyone? help?

Ok first of all - it could be hunger playing a part - 2 bottles doesnt seem much at his age. Think my ds was on 3 bottles (morning, mid afternoon & bedtime) at that age & we cut down to 2 by 12 months, instead replacing the afternoon milk with a snack. Is it worth a try adding that afternoon feed back in, to rule it out, if nothing else?

How's he coping being kept up til almost 10am from a 5.30am start? Have you seen any improvement in his wakeup time yet?
To be brutally honest i think he's getting to an age where that late afternoon nap shouldnt be needed, & its probably stealing from night sleep a bit. However i do realise you will struggle to lose it when his afternoon nap is so short. I think what you need to work on is establishing the morning nap at an appropriate time i.e. 9-9.30am, and lengthening the lunchtime nap to around 1.5-2hrs (either by resettling him when he wakes or by tweaking the timing a little (i'd think he'd need to be awake around 3-3.5hrs if morning nap is 1hr) so the late afternoon nap isnt needed & you can do early bedtime instead. Iiwy i'd shoot for something like this & stick to it like glue for a couple of weeks

Nap 9-10
Nap 1-3 (hopefully!)
Bed 7 (6pm if short lunchtime nap)

If wakeup doesnt get any later (ie between 6-7am) i'd slowly shift everything 30mins later.hth.x

Hi PG, have been reading this with interest as I've just started another similar thread. If you find anything that works would be keen to know. So far I've tried the suggestions from other posters but no successes....

Thank you omama. I think we have slight progress but only slight. I am managing to keep him awake and he is managing to stay awake until 09:45 before his first nap. Ok so yesterday his routine looked like this:

05:30 - woke up but fell back asleep when i put his monitor music on
06:00 - woke up completely
06:40 - took him out of his cot
07:00 - 9oz
08:00 - breakfast
10:15-12:00 - nap
13:00 - lunch
13:50 - 14:20 - nap
17:30 - tea
19:15 - Bed

So this morning i heard him through the monitor that he roused at 06:00 am but he wasnt crying or babbling until about 06:30 am (bit of an improvement)

So far today his routine looks like this:

06:00 - woke
06:50 - took him out of his cot
07:30 - 9oz
08:30 - breakfast
09:45 - put down for his nap (he is still fast asleep now and it is 11:00 am)

Would you suggest i leave him to have this long morning nap or wake him up? I am also trying to cut out his afternoon nap.

I am not sure whether it is hunger because i have only just reduced his bottles down to 2 a day over this last week and he has been waking early for three months now.

Sorry forgot to add he had another 9oz bottle last night before bed.