6 month old waking at 4.30, not hungry, just can't sleep in light sleep phase

[abigailj]

Hi,

I know I'm actually not doing to badly, but wondering if anyone has had a similar experience. Ds2 is almost 7 months and for the last month has been sleeping 7ish to 4ish straight, but then has difficulty after that. Feeding him wont help him settle, tends to wake him more, and I have also tried a dream feed at 10 ish which didn't help. He often goes back for 1 sleep cycle with a dummy, but then I have to hold him from around 5 to reach a sensible wake time.

I dont want to leave him cry as he may wke ds1 and grumpy DH.

Ds1 was an early riser from 9 months to around 18 months when we got a groclock.

Any ideas or similar experiences welcome...would be very interested

we had this recently, turned out dd was overtired (this eventually showed itself by terrible napping, but the early mornings were the first sign with hindsight). so because she ws overtired, she was very 'wired' and so would ping wide awake as soon as she came into a light sleep.

anyway I spent a few days ensuring she napped for at least 3 hours a day, used pram and car to make sure this happened. after a few days of this she started settling quicker at sleep times, napping longer and now sleeps till 6am.

we also blacked out her window more thoroughly but that didn't help by itself because of the overtiredness - but it's worth doing if you haven't already.

Thanks minipie, quite possibly the problem as he is a terrible napper. He is happy when awake though. I will try to get more day sleep. When does your DS go to sleep in the evening now?

she's in bed at 7ish. bottle feed at 10.30pm which we wake her for. Sometimes (not always) wakes at 3ish, if she does I feed her and she goes straight back to sleep. Then wakes at 6-6.15. (she's a few weeks younger than yours).

When she was overtired she would take much longer to go back to sleep after the 10.30 and 3am feeds and would then wake for the day anytime from 4am and be impossible to get back to sleep. She was quite happy when awake - but a bit manic.

My lo is the same. Has trouble settling back to sleep from around 5. We found playing white noise worked a treat and he settles back down to around 7 x