Can you change a baby's natural sleep schedule?

[TS123]

I'm sorry to post this thread again but I haven't found anything useful in the archives, nor did I get much response last time, so I'm trying again.

My 10 month old DS is a naturally early riser and falls asleeps easily by 7pm at night. This is his typical day:

Awake at 5:15-5:30am, Bf
Breakfast 7am -7:30
Nap 1: 8am to 9am
Lunch and bf; 11:30-noon
Nap 2: 1pm (45min to 1hour)
BF 4pm
Dinner: 5:30-6pm
Bedtime 7pm

For as long as I can remember, DS has woken that early. Some mornings he will go back to sleep right away after BF but often not. I find it difficult to wake up that early for the day and I'm going back to work soon. Ferber's book suggests you can change when a baby sleeps just by forcing him/her to sleep when you want. I'm skeptical and I don't want to try this without some assurances that others have had success with it, since it's bound to be very stressful and disruptive. I'd appreciate if anyone could comment on their experience trying to change their baby's natural sleep rhythms by forcing them onto a different schedule.

Hi there,

I don't think its possible to change their natural sleep cycles. But I think your DS may be waking up early b/c he's going to bed exhausted? Maybe put him to bed earlier or get him to take a 3rd short nap in the day by taking him for a walk in the pushchair? Sounds counter-intuitive but sometimes if they go to bed exhausted they fall immediately into a deep sleep, and then have a shorter sleep altogether. That was happening with my LO and putting him to bed earlier helped. Although now I've got other problems... just posted about them in a separate thread.
Good Luck and let me know if things improve.

Or, you could try shortening his 1st nap in the hopes his next nap will be longer and he won't be so tired by 7pm?
Although I just tried this today and it didn't work...

Thanks for your suggestions. Here are my thoughts and experiences:

I've tried to put him to bed earlier and he has slept longer almost too long. The reason I say this is because the next day, he is very hard to settle for his naps and they are too short. Example: a few nights ago, I put him to bed at 6:30pm and he slept until 7am!! This may seem great except he wouldn't nap again until 11:30am and only for 45min. This wasn't enough sleep for the day so then I pushed him in the stroller at 3:30pm and he slept for 30 min.This is not a good nap and it interfered with his night sleep by making it hard to go to bed early (earliest I could get him asleep that night was 7:15) and he doesn't sleep as long (he was up at 5:15am the next day). So basically it'll work for one night then we're back to waking early. If he could take one long nap in midday say from 11:30am to 1:30pm then I would probably drop the 2nd nap and put him to bed at 6pm, but he simply cannot sleep that long overnight AND still nap well the next day (it's more sleep then he's capable of). I end up trading one problem for another.

As for the other suggestion that I wake him up from his first nap I've wanted to try that, but this is what I'm reluctant to do ie. interrupt his natural sleep tendencies. People talk alot about forcing kids to sleep on a schedule and part of that is waking them up to keep them "sleeping on time". If my baby took naps longer than 2hours, maybe I'd feel differently but it's not like his naps are all that long, so I really hate to wake him. I would try it if people could say that they personally had very good experiences with it. But I'm wondering if I should still be "going with the flow" here?

hmmm, maybe instead of waking him up earlier, try putting him down 10 minutes later. He might still wake up at his normal time.
That way you're not waking him and he's still waking up naturally. Of course if he sleeps just as long as he normally does then no harm done either!
My DS also only slept around 45 min in the afternoon and I would always try to get him back to sleep for a further 45 minutes. I would always either bf or rock him, or sometimes even walk him in the pushchair for the entire nap, and eventually he just started sleeping longer. He was quite young when I started doing that though, and now at 10 months its pretty hard to get them back to sleep once they've woken!

Have you tried getting him to sleep longer at this nap?

I am right with you. I really think it would solve alot of problems if he could take a shorter morning nap and longer afternoon nap. However, this is not his way. I have definitely put him down much later than 10minutes off his usual nap time and no luck he just has a much harder time settling (overtired) and then sleeps just as long and it really gets even harder for him to take a second nap in his cot on days like this because it seems the later in the afternoon it is, the harder it is for him to settle (? maybe he's totally thrown off from the late morning nap or still overtired?) Not sure whether it's worth trying to change his ways.

I think if you do decide to try something new - i.e. wake him early or put him down later for first nap, or put him down earlier in the evening, you should give it at least 3 days for him to adjust. Changing from one day to the next won't allow is body clock to readjust I think.

I'd say try either the shorter morning nap, or putting him down later, for the next 3 days - can't be any worse. I personally would also wake him up from his first nap - i've been doing that for a few days now. My DS used to sleep 1 hour in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon before last week when everything went haywire and was hardly sleeping in the afternoon and therefore overtired by bedtime.
I've had to shorten his first nap to 30 minutes - I think he doesn't need that much sleep in the day anymore - and he's sleeping longer in the afternoon.
Whatever you try, be consistent for a few days and then decide whether its working or not.
Good Luck!