how to get 8 month old into consistent routine and stop early wake up. HELP!!!!

[Aussiegirl123]

Right, my ds has been waking inconsistent times for the last while. This morning he was awake at 4.45. For an hour I remained quiet, didn't interact unnecessarily etc but it was clear there was no going back to sleep, until 6.45 that is! I know a lot of early waking issues are routine related but I'm not sure how I can even get an appropriate routine established as the early waking throws the whole day off. He co sleeps and decides to pull my hair to ensure I'm bright awake.:) He goes to sleep at approx 7.30, sometimes a little earlier and sometimes a little later and I just can't seem to get him to nap set times or durations. Yesterday for example he was up with the birds as usual and he couldn't make it from end of 2nd nap (ended at 2.45) to bedtime and he fell asleep at 5.30 for a 20min cat nap which saw him through until bedtime at 7.15. I know I need to break/adjust current routine somehow but I just don't know how to go about it and my brain is fried from researching it.p.s. he is also in process of being transitioned to a child minder and is not happy but this issue has been going on before he started with c.m.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Is it light in your bedroom? I think it's common for them to early this time of year roll in winter for some darker mornings

I read somewhere that babies can only have 1 long sleep a day, which should be at night obviously, so once you put them to bed that long stretch starts from when they're asleep then. If you wake them a little when you go to bed it's like resetting that internal clock a bit so that should be their long sleep from then.

How true it is I don't know. I was dreaming feeding and my lo slept till 8 am. Stopped the dream feed and constantly woke up early hours. We added back the dream feed but gradually cut it down, and now we're not dream feeding but I still go in and wake him a little bit as we're going to bed.

I work evenings too so it's quite nice to have a wee cuddle before I go to bed too

X

This advice/routine worked for us:

8 months (start of transition)

The 3-2 nap transition begins at this age (or you should begin the transition if you haven't already as holding onto naps for too long can start to wreak havoc on nightsleep) and the schedule changes drastically from the beginning of 8 months to the end. You want to ensure to continue slowly stretching baby's awake times to move them to a solid 2 nap schedule (as getting stuck on 2 naps with short awake times can be a recipe for a bad night's sleep). No surprise here - an early bedtime is needed to account for the loss of the 3rd nap.

7:00am - up for the day, nursing/bottle
8:00am - breakfast
9:30am - 11:00am -Â nap#1, nurse/bottle upon wake-up
12:00pm - lunch
1:45pm - 3:15pm -Â nap#2, nurse/bottle upon wake-up
5:00pm - dinner (starting to offer the last nursing/bottle of the night with dinner or immediately before/after dinner at this age is a great idea to further separate feeding from sleeping)
5:45pm - bedtime routine
6:15pm - bedtime (baby to be asleep at this time)

8 months (part-way into the transition)

6:30am - up for the day, nursing/bottle
7:30am - breakfast
9:30am - 11:00am -Â nap#1, nurse/bottle upon wake-up
12:00pm - lunch
2:15pm-3:45pm -Â nap#2, nurse/bottle upon wake-up
5:45pm - dinner, last nurse/bottle with or immediately before/after dinner
6:45pm - bedtime routine
7:15pm - bedtime (baby to be asleep at this time)
Â

Baby should be sleeping approximately 11-12 hours at night + 0-1 nightfeedings. If a nightfeeding still exists, it should be close to/after midnight (and at least 7 hours from the bedtime feeding).

Unlike the post above, 8-9 months marked the transition from 2 naps per day to 1 nap per day. This in turn has completely turned morning wake-up on its head and DD has gone from 5am-6am wake ups to having to be woken up at 7.30-8.00am most days now.

I should add that of my four children, the other three have moved to 1 nap at around 12 months so not all children are ready for 1 nap at this age.

The transition was/is entirely baby-led and is not being prompted or manipulated by me.

It started as soon as she was reliably sleeping through and not needing to be re-settled in the night (she'd been night weaned for a couple of months previous, but was still waking to be settled a couple of times a night).

Once she was having a full nights sleep without waking, she was well rested and not tired in the morning. So could go through until 12.00 until ready for a sleep (about 4-4.5 hours awake). She sleeps usually for 3 hours. I aim for a 3pm wake-up. Then bedtime at 7.30 means 4.5 awake time.

She's then worn out and ready for bed, so sleeps deeply and soundly through the night and wakes later in the morning. So the whole transition becomes self-perpetuating.

Having just read back, I'm not sure how helpful my post is? I haven't actually done anything to get DD doing this, it just sort-of happened when she stopped waking in the night.