How do I get my 8 month old to wake later?

[Heatherbell1978]

DS1 is 8 mths and 1 week. He's slept pretty well at night since he turned 6 months. At the moment he's down at 6.30/7, gets a bottle at 10.30 and sleeps through to 5.30am. He used to sleep until 6.30 but for the past few weeks it's been earlier. We don't go to him immediately, but he's definitely wide awake. It means his first nap of the day is around 8am and well, we're both tired of getting up so early! His daytime routine is slightly haphazard as he usually naps at 11am but it can be from anything from 30 mins to 2.5 hrs....if it's the former he'll sometimes need another 2 naps (like today) or he'll do just one later one if the latter. He is teething. He definitely needs to go to bed when he does, we can't push bath time much beyond 6.30 unless he's had an especially later nap which funnily enough he's doing just now. Any thoughts?

We're in the same boat, except our DD wants to go to bed by 17:00/17:30 so she's still getting a good 12 hours (she's nearly 9 months). At the moment we're not too bothered because it's what she wants and she's getting enough sleep at night. I'm sure she'll push it back herself in the next few months.

Nap times for us are rubbish though and we very rarely get a long nap out of her. If we're lucky we'll get 3 half an hour naps, but most of the time it's 3 20/25 minute naps.

Put back bedtime 10 minutes later each night until it's an hour later. He'll naturally wake up later.

Hold out for the morning nap until at least 9am and make sure he wakes by 10am. Gradually push it back every few days til it's more like 9.20 or 9.30 and always wake by 10am. Keep the midday nap consistent eg.12.30 and max of two hours.

Honestly, early and too long a morning nap has a massive effect on early waking.

When my DD started waking early we stopped waking her for a feed when we went to bed at 11pm. This meant night feeds re-started. But instead of going 7pm-11pm-5am/6am she would go 7pm-4am-7am and the 4am feed as like the dreamfeed was - quick, easy and straight back to sleep.

Now we vary between sometimes giving an 11pm feed and sometimes not. Sometimes she sleeps through (woo hoo!) 7-7. Sometimes she has a night feed 4am or 5am but goes straight back to sleep. Sometimes when I give her a 11pm feed she will now sleep later (7am) because she is more used to sleeping until that kind of time.

She's on the cusp of sleeping through 12 hours but isn't quite able to go without a feed for that long every night.

Agree with mewkins.first nap is key

First child? It's the clock change. I used to love the clocks going back, not forward so much.

It can take a few weeks to adjust again. Plus it's brighter so blackout curtains are your friend!

I'm watching this with interest as I've got the exact same problem. Only difference is that my son is a great napper - he naps 9:30 to 11:30 then 2-3 everyday. Now I'm wondering if his long morning nap may be causing the early wakings??

I think it is. Apparently the morning nap is the same.kind of sleep as night sleep. So they soon start to overcomprnsate by cutting night sleep. You then get into a vicious cycle of early waking/ needing an early long nap to make up for it. I went there with dd1. It was hideous!!!!! It will taken a few days/ week of cutting short naps and making them later to take effect.

Thanks all. Tried to extend the morning nap today but we got to 8.15 and he was teary and bleary eyed so had to give in and put him to bed. Out like a light....

Interestingly, we had cut the 10.30 bottle out a couple of months back and he was doing 7 to 6.30 but then he had a bout of bronchitis which lasted a month and he wasn't eating solids so we had to go back to a late bottle. We haven't managed to cut it out again but he now has another cold!

It does seem to have coincided roughly with the clock change but I would have hoped by now he'd be back in sync!

That's not bad. Keep pushing it back by 5 or ten mins and keep it short and it should start taking effect.

Some babies just need 11 hours at night. I'd recommend moving the bedtime back, even with a little cat nap in the afternoon to push through later.

...we had to go back to a late bottle

I'd try cutting it out. But on the assumption that you are planning to give a night feed instead. The waking for a feed in the night should re-set his body clock and so encourage later sleeping in the morning.

For us, early rising was always linked to the nap being too early. We always followed awake time lengths but at a certain age it became easier to go by the times that we wanted him to follow. Essentially, by bringing the nap forward, you're rewarding the early waking and then getting into a bit of a cycle.

A blackout blind is also key. We've just put ours back up after the pretty blackout roller blind just wasn't really doing the job - this is fab www.amazon.co.uk/The-Gro-Company-New-Version/dp/B00BKZLWBU/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1430484083&sr=1-1&keywords=gro+anywhere+blackout+blind

Yes we have that gro blind too! The baby's room is now like a cave! It's ace!

Agree with mewkins.. has taken 18 months to figure this out! (Doh!). I do miss his 3 hr lunchtime naps tho ;-)
Good luck x

Sorry to hijack the thread. But would you say I need to cut my son's two hour 9:30am nap short, or make it later, or both?

All four of my children have slept 9.30am-11.30am (which exactly coincides with most baby groups around here, so baby always slept through them!) without any detrimental effect on night time sleeping.

My DD (7 months old) sleeps 9.30-11.30 and then in an ideal world she would sleep 2.00pm-4.00pm (she does this weekends and school holidays) but school days this is 1.00pm-3.00pm to allow for the school run.

No particular problems with night times or mornings as a result of these naps times.

ginger I'd push it back by an hour in 15 minute increments. Ideally just move the whole routine back a bit.

Update.....DS1 refused his 10.30 bottle last night (horrah, this is what he did last time before we then stopped it). He woke at 5.30 but hubby popped in, put his dummy in, then he slept again until 7.15. Put him down again at 9.20 and that's him still sleeping at 10.40....will be interesting to see how rest of day pans out. 2pm nap perhaps?

That's great news Heather!

Hope the rest of the day goes well.

Please keep us posted. I'm having a similar issue with eight month old. She has suddenly started waking earlier but compensating with a long morning nap. It's really interesting and helpful to read what people have written about the morning nap and night time sleep.

I agree with mewkins - later and shorter morning nap although pushing bedtime later will also help. Mine started sleeping through the night at 8 months and it became apparent that 11 hours was his top limit so we moved his bedtime to 8pm to accommodate a 7am wakeup and then no naps til 10am.

I just wanted to say I followed the advice of a shorter morning nap and it worked! I woke her up from her morning nap yesterday (I felt awful doing it because she was so sleepy) and she slept until 6.30 this morning. I woke her up after an hour in the morning. Gina Ford says babies of this age should only be napping for 15-30 minutes in the morning at eight months so my baby's 1.5-2 hour morning nap clearly is too long unfortunately. Anyway, thanks for the advice. I'm very happy to start our day at 6.30. Obviously later would be amazing but you can't have it all!

You will probably find that she can go a bit shorter every week or so and cope quite happily and her wake ups will adjust as you do it. Well done!