6 month old early waking

[minipie]

DD is 6 months (4.5 months corrected for prematurity)

For the past week or two she has been waking at 5 something and not going back to sleep no matter what (we have tried feeding her, putting in bed with us, giving her a toy, leaving her to shout...) she is very happy at this time, not hungry, just wants to chatter and then get up and play... yawn.

she has 3 naps in the day, short morning and afternoon naps and long lunch nap, totalling about 3 hours. she goes to bed at 7 and we wake her for a feed at 10.30pm. then she usually sleeps through, till the dreaded 5 something wake up.

her room is pretty dark. no traffic directly outside (plenty of birds though). she's not cold I don't think. It really seems like she's just had enough sleep. but then she is grouchy from mid morning till her lunch nap which suggests she is tired.

any tips? I will be starting her on solids this week, will a solid dinner help?

ps I have read a lot of the early waking threads, but mostly they seem to be about toddlers so wonder if the tips suggested there (eg wake to sleep) would also work for a 6 month old?

hopeful bump! solids have made no difference (surprise surprise) and nor has blacking out her room further...

wondering whether to try wake to sleep

any other options?

I'm in a similar boat! My DS is also 6 months with a similar bedtime and nap pattern. Although sometime he will go back to sleep til 6 after half an hour of persuasion....ie I always treat before 6 as nightime. I've also been told to make sure his first nap isn't too soon, so he doesn't use it to catch up on missed nightime sleep (8.30 for us...makes for a very grumpy morning some days but does seem to help a bit!)
Haven't tried wake to sleep (as he wakes up so much anyway!!) but hopefully someone will be along with advice on that!

thanks for replying, good to know it's not just me! I manage to keep her morning nap to 8.30 or later, she doesn't seem too grumpy surprisingly - I am beginning to wonder if she is just a baby who needs less sleep

My DD is 7 months and sleeps the same as yours, has done since 3 months. 2-3 hours daytime sleep,bed at 7pm, dreamfeed at 10pm, wakes up at 6am. It used to be around 5am until about a month ago. So basically 11 hours at night.

There's loads of babies at around 6 months in a group that I'm part of that don't sleep anything like this, no early bedtimes, no routine, up every hour or couple of hours for feeds then awake for an hour or more each time. Seriously sleep deprived parents!

Sorry to tell you this, but you're really lucky, as am I !!.

Forgot to say, try and get her to have a nap around 8.30am.

oh I know there are babies who sleep far, far worse - DD used to be one of them! so I'm not complaining about my lot - just would be nice if I could get that extra hour sorted, not least so that DD would get happy mummy rather than grumpy mummy in the morning!

At 7 months we cut out ds's afternoon nap which stopped his 5am waking. So he went from napping 9-9.45, 1-2ish, 4-4.45 down to just the 9-9.45 and 1-3. Then bed at 7.

The first few times he was exhausted by bedtime but he got used to it quickly and it meant he had a lovely long lunch time nap instead. Bliss.

thanks Morning - don't think dd is quite ready to do without her afternoon nap but good to hear there might be an end in sight once she is!

With the afternoon nap, try and make sure she is awake from 2pm onward. The morning nap should be around 45 minutes and the afternoon nap no more than 2 hours. Another thing to consider is not giving her protein for her dinner, carbs are best as they wont interfere with the absorption of iron from her milk thus keeping her more full.