Early wake ups and Rules generally! Reassurance please

[Aristacat1]

Hi
I have posted up here a few times. My lo is now nearly 14 months and sleeps through untill anything from 4.30-5.30. Its always been early but 4.30-5.30 is the earliest its been and this is in the last 2 weeks. I drive myself insane by trying to make her sleep later. Is it to cold?Put heating on all night. Is it to hot? Is she thirsty? Put her to bed early for a few days in a row. Put her to bed late a few times in a row. Is it her nap times? Etc.... You can see how my brain works. Basically is there any body put there whos baby might nap at slightly different times each day. Thats bedtime is roughly the same but no on the dot. That just kinda accepts it as it is? I had a sudden realisation this morn that I get ao caught up in 'rules'. She generally has tea at 5ish and bath bottle and in bed by 6.30iah coz thats when tired. This is the only real routine and that was set by her. She sleeps for 2 hrs in the day ( normally morning) then is a pain to sleep unless in car. Anyone else just follow there baby? I dunno what to do about early mornings but cant help but think its just what shes doing atm. She will get a cold nxt week and then it will change. Anyone else just follow there babys signals?
Thanks xx

Hiya, I don't really have much advice but I would say I get wrapped up in the rules and how people say babies should be but I don't think my DS follows them either.
When he was very little I was obsessed with the fact everyone told me he'd be overtired If he was awake more than 2 hours. After weeks of pretty much not leaving the house due to battling to get him to sleep it occurred to me - maybe he's just not tired. And he wasn't. Moved his naps to 3/4 hours apart and it worked!
He's now 10mo and now only having 1 nap a day, again everyone keeps saying he's too young for 1 nap etc. So I then started forcing 2 by taking him out in car or pushchair but found that he was then waking dead early in the morning as he'd had more sleep that he needed during the day.
Now somedays he will have just 30 min sleep all day (!!) But if that's all he wants I don't force longer, and he will sleep in later in the morning.
Could you maybe try and push his 2 hour nap back later and later over the course of a week or so so that's it's early afternoon, then drop his second nap and try bedtime at 7?
Early mornings are awful I feel for you

I've always just followed by child's signals.

Babies - like all humans - are quite routined creatures. They don't work to the clock though.

For example most people generally get hungry at lunchtime, because we are creatures of routine. But depending on what you ate earlier, how much you ate, how you're feeling, how knackered you are - these all affect whether you eat lunch at 12pm it 2pm and if you eat tons or not much.

Likewise bedtime. I'll generally go to sleep in the late evening and wake in the morning. Because humans are naturally routined like that. What time in the late evening I go to sleep and what time in the morning depends on many things - how much I slept the last few days, how I'm feeling, how busy I've been, what type of activities I've been doing (in front of a screen, exercise, watching tv, reading).

Babies are humans.

Of course they like routine and structure. But that needs to be flexible to fit in with the differences in life.

So as long as you follow babies lead and can know (and often predict) their signs - then being flexible with when dinner is and what time nap time is is fine and normal. As long as dinner and nap time happen as needed. Expecting that a child will thrive on chaotic no-structure though is a bit unrealistic.

Neither of my children are sleepers (2yrs and 6 mths) and I've just learnt to roll with it. They are up between 5 and 6am and I think that's just their natural body clock. It doesn't matter if they sleep earlier, nap in day or anything else I've tried - we've just learnt to live with it rather than driving ourselves crazy trying to change them

Thanks for your replies :) she is a great sleeper on the whole from 6.30 till early morn. As it happens she has come down with somee temperaturey bug so not been well today and went to bed at at 5.30 as she was so tired. We shall see what happens tonight. I hadnt thought about her just having one nap and not worrying about another unless she really wants it.There is def structure it our days just can differ in times. I hadnt thought of it like u put it fate. Thanks :)

Two thoughts. You could google the wake-to-sleep method which seeks to address early rising by disturbing the baby partially an hour before their normal wake up time. The idea is this pushes them back into a deeper sleep phase and they will sleep longer afterwards, and after a few days will become their new habit. The risk of course is you have fully woken them for the day at 3am!

While I do think you are right in taking your cue from the child and keeping things as consistent as possible, 6.30 does seem a very early bedtime for a child who is well over one. It is incredibly difficult to change though and if she sleeps ten or eleven hours straight after that, it isn't bad. Could you try forcing a cat nap at about 3.30 in the car or buggy for a few days, maybe an extra half hour then will help her move bedtime a little later? Or can you adjust your own day to go to bed earlier yourself to align with her wake-up if you don't want to tinker with her routine?

On the one hand I would say, go with the flow, if it works for you and your baby then it works.

On the other hand I think that I would die if I had been up wince 4:30 on a regular basis, or at least it would mean I was in bed at 8:30 myself.

The thing is, she has 11 hours sleep at night and i have 3 kids and none of them ever slept more than 11 hours on a regular night, very occasionally 12 hours, but 11 was about right. So if she is going to bed at 6:30, then 5:30 seems a reasonable time to wake.

I have the same, without the 2 hr nap! 16 months, ready for bed by 6.30 most nights, rarely awake at 7. Wakes around 5am, give or take half an hour. It's the reason I am still bf on wake up as it gives me up to half an hour extra laying down.

I just can't keep him up any longer. He rarely naps longer than an hour, hour and half maximum, and even when he does it makes little difference. So no advice, just sympathy!