6.5 month old waking for an hour in the early hours

[Muppet7410]

I've posted a few sleep issues if late so my apologies!

My little boy often wakes at 4am for an hour or so before eventually going back to sleep for perhaps an hour although he is very restless during this time.

I'm worried he isn't getting enough sleep day or night. Apx 2.5 hours during the day and 10 at night.

Is this normal behaviour at this age,

I would get to him quickly and feed at 4am.

If hes having no other night feeds, I'd also try a dreamfeed when you go to bed.

If he's breastfeed the 4am wake is probably wanting the comfort of your breast. So either develop alternate comforting methods or accept that you'll probably need to cosleep for early mornings.

12-13 hours sleep in 24hours is on the very low side. I would be concerned about that. 10-11h at night is not unreasonable, especially if unbroken. Daytime sleep at this age would either be:

• lots of shorter, frequent naps. Awake time of about 75-90m between one nap and the next.
• 3 naps of at least an hour. Morning, after lunch and teatime.

My son has just started to do the same - he is 6 months too. I wonder if it's developmental. He doesn't want food when he wakes, he's just waking to have a natter to himself. I like to make sure he gets at least 11 hours sleep at night, so if he wakes before that point I don't take him downstairs to play until he has gone back to sleep. In the last two weeks he has JUST started taking a dummy, so after he's had a little bit of chatter I pop that in and he does often then go to sleep again.

He had also got into the habit of having a really long 90 minute morning nap, and I did google it and read that sometimes if they know they are having a long morning nap they can start to rise earlier. So I'm trying to encourage a shorter 40/50 minute morning nap, then a long lunchtime nap of at least 90 mins and then a shorter early evening nap. No idea if it will work, will see!

I've read something similar about morning naps. If their morning nap is too early / close to when they wake up for the day it's like an extension of their nighttime sleep.

Mine baby is terrible at napping during the day and rarely naps for longer than 30 mins at a time.

Sleep absolutely sucks at the moment!