Any help with early morning waking up - 9 month old

[squidkid]

Hey, baby is generally a decent sleeper and I'm not complaining. But today was the only day in the last two weeks she got up later than 5.15am! Is there anything I can do to help her sleep in a bit later?

She has two naps now - about 45mins-1hr15mins at 9am, and 1-2 hours at 1pm. She goes to bed at 6.30pm and I CANNOT keep her up later than this. She is ready to fall asleep at 6pm really.

She then doesn't stir at all till about 3 am when she has a breastfeed and goes into a very light doze till 5am-ish. I basically have to stay awake (or lightly dozing) from 3am to keep sporadically re-settling her by putting a hand on her, shushing, etc. She is in a cot until this feed, but co-sleeps with us then till the morning.

She is mostly a happy baby, eats very well, bfs 4 times a day (which I think is very reasonable!) crawls a lot and cruises. I hate to complain cause the nights really aren't bad, but if there was anything I could do to encourage her to sleep to 6am that would be amazing!

ps. I know I am lucky really - and yes I do enjoy my free evenings, I do go to bed very early myself... but being more or less awake from 3am is taking its toll!

I would move her second nap a bit later so she is able to stay up later.

If she goes to sleep at 6.30 then she is sleeping nearly 11 hours which I think is pretty good!

Thanks!

I know she sleeps well, it's just at the wrong time!! I had no idea how to move it. Will try shifting the naps a bit.

Katie is right that an 11hr night is good, the issue here is that your dd is waking early, napping early & therefore needs an early bedtime. The way to get out of this 'early' cycle & get her on a better schedule is to slowly shift everything later.

However, I'm going to disagree about how you do it. If you simply push the afternoon nap later in order to stretch bedtime later in the hopes of a later wakeup time, it may well backfire. You are likely to 1) make her overtired by the time naptime comes around & she will short nap & still need a mega early bedtime or 2) make her day so long she is overtired by bedtime & she will have a restless night & may still wake up early & therefore have even less sleep.

IME the best way to deal with early waking is to start off by shifting the morning nap later. Do this gradually, every 3 days, push the nap 5-10mins later, but no more (this will stop her getting overtired). As the morning nap moves later, her afternoon nap will also need to go later by the same amount, & assuming she sleeps her usual length nap, so will bedtime.

I would aim to get her morning nap at 9.30am, afternoon nap at 1.30pm & bedtime at 7pm. Once you have got to this routine, stick with it for a couple of weeks (to give her time to adjust) & see if her wakeup improves. It should. HTH.x

Thank you very much. Will try these suggestions.

I know she is a pretty good sleeper and we are very lucky - not done any sort of sleep training, it's all been on-demand bf and baby-led, but she fell into this routine very much on her own.

We are in a similar position - DS is nearly 10 months old, has generally been a rubbish sleeper up until quite recently when he started sleeping through (by this we mean from around 8pm - 5am). Compared to what it was like (waking hourly!!) this is amazing and we aren't really complaining.... however, 5am is a little early to start the day so we were wondering how we encourage him to sleep for just an extra hour until around 6am??

When he does wake at 5am, I often bring him into our bed and feed him - sometimes he then goes back to sleep for up to an hour & a half, though sometimes he stays awake and I allow him to suckle until I can drag myself out of bed!

I know that bringing him into our bed and/or letting him feed/suckle isn't ideal but I just find it hard to start the day so early!
If I left him in his cot (which we have tried) he just cries and cries and cries.

He generally has 2 x 30 mins naps a day - one around 11am and one around 4pm. His bedtime is usually between 7.30 - 8.30pm.

Any help is much appreciated, thank you!

THANK YOU!!!

I have shifted her naps to 9.30/10 and 1.30/2 and she is already sleeping to 6 every morning and half 6 some mornings, even in this heat! It has made such a big difference. She is now going to bed at 7pm which is much more sensible, and the last few nights hasn't woken for a feed till 3.30-4.30. Thank you so much, clever mums.

Littlecherub I am no expert (as you can see above) but that sounds like very little daytime sleep to me?

My baby also has short naps sometimes (sling naps are rarely over an hour, cot afternoon naps are rarely over 45 mins) but I know there are places (in my arms, in the car) where she will sleep for 2 hours so if I have one rubbish nap I try to compensate later... over time and with me pushing her naps longer she has started to go for a bit longer naturally herself. Sometimes it drives me a bit mad organising my life around her naps but I try to just go with what makes her happiest - which is more sleep. I park the car in the shade and read on the grass next to it - I read a lot with her in my arms - I get my shopping done with her in the sling...

squidkid - yay great news!!!

littlecherublegs - agree doesn't sound like much sleep. For his age thats a very long day if he's waking at 5am & bed at 7.30-8pm. I'm going to suggest something slightly different, as in this case it sounds like he is overtired. Will he go down any earlier for his morning nap? Around say 10am? If you get him down a touch sooner & catch him before he gets overtired, he may nap for a bit longer. This will then see him through til a late afternoon catnap. If his morning nap stays short, try similar to squidkid with a nap around 1.30/2pm & you may find he takes a long afternoon nap. If this doesn't help or he refuses a morning nap til 11am earliest i'd say persevere but try an earlier bedtime at say 7pm & see if he goes down. Might just surprise you & sleep for longer overnight. Hth.x

Ds woke up from 5-5.30 until he was nearly 3! Sorry!

Hey Squid! Glad J is going a bit longer for you! :) I remember she was always an early riser. Hope all is going well with you ladies over on FB, say hello for me! :) x

Cherub our DD is an excellent ON sleeper but like your DS she is a crap napper. She sleeps 8.30 -7.30 / 8 and only has 2 x 30 min naps most days - but she's happy with that, as are we. Some babies just seem to be wired differently. You can try playing about with naps but they do all seem to have their own little rhythm. Even when we've had late nights out with DD she still wakes at the same time as usual the next day so that seems to be the hard bit to change!

Don't know if I've missed anything, but do you have blackout blinds?

Does anyone have any ideas how to stop a 9 month old waking at 2am (ish) every night?

ANGELICO! rugby tackles HOW ARE YOU AND BEAN? We all miss you so much and talk about you often. Hope life, motherhood, writing are all going well.

ps. want to join fb group? I'd get a hero's welcome

:o @ Squid Will PM you.