Sleep experts advice please

[ineedwine99]

Hi, we've been very lucky in that our baby has always slept well, bedtime 6:30, waking c6:30am, she's just turned 7 months and has now started waking at 5:30am, nappy not dirty, she has dinner at 5pm then bed bottle at 6:30pm so is nice and full, any ideas why she might be waking earlier? She often re settles after half an hour or so and is still tired so we're baffled as to why she's woken. We tried less naps in the day, later bedtime but nothing has made any difference. We don't go to her unless she's distressed for her to try and learn to get up later, she has no dummy, white noise on all night, the only thing we do is remove her small muslin comfort square before we go to bed, is it worth/safe leaving that with her all night? As i say i know we're very lucky but i just want to help her sleep a bit longet given she's still tired at 5:30
Thanks

Its not unusual for people to sleep more lightly in the hour or so before they fully wake up. Given that 11 hours sleep is about average for a baby/toddler having naps, I would say the biggest factor in your child's wake up time is what time bedtime is.

While she is having daytime naps, it is not a case of just making bedtime later and crossing your fingers for a later wakeup. You will need to shift her daytime nap routine along with it the change in bedtime. This may also mean moving meal times to accommodate the moved naptimes.

It also is not something that will establishing within a couple of days. You may need to shift all her daytime naps forward an hour - which means powering through an extra hour in the morning keeping her awake. Then moving all her naps, making bedtime 7.30-8pm and then still face her getting up at 5.30am and being knackered the next day. For several days. Several weeks in fact.

I'd say if you want to affect a change in an established routine you need to give it 3 weeks or so to see a difference.

You don't mention when daytime naps are? A very early morning nap can also be a cause of early waking. I wouldn't suggest less daytime sleep, baby is still too young to be wanting less sleep in the daytime. But moving the timings of daytime naps may help. Or indeed increasing short naps can help nights sleep (a well rested baby will be a deeper sleeper)

Her first day nap tends to be 2-2.5 hours after waking for 30 mins, she'll then have a 30 nap around 11am, an hour ish 1-2 then between 4:15 and 4:30 for 15-30 mins, always wakes after 15 but then usually drops back off again.
Meals are 7am bottle, 7:30 porridge with fruit puree, 11:30 lunch puree jar followed by dessert (fruit puree, rice pudding) 2:30 3oz followed by half a pouch of yoghurt, 5pm dinner, 6:30 5oz bottle (following the gina ford routine)
As i say she's followed this routine since being born and has been great on it bar the odd phase of a few days (wonder week?), only last couple of weeks has she woken earlier and i was wondering if this was another phase or something we need to address at bedtime etc.

Unfortunately babies don't read so you need to adjust things to suit your own child. .... Later bedtime makes sense.

I was wondering about pushing her back a bit more to around 7:15 to start then 7:30, just worried she'll get over tired, i can push the 6:30 bottle back a bit and she might be ok

If you are going the timed-routine route, I'd start set times for naps now. Say, for example,

9am naptime
11am naptime
1pm longer naptime
4pm naptime
7pm bedtime

You need to realise that routines have to evolve. For example your baby appears to still be in the short-nap phase. By 7 months all of my children had grown out of short naps and were having longer, 90 minute plus naps. Longer naps means fewer naps per day. Which means routine has to evolve and change to suit.

If you have had the same routine since birth and baby is now 7 months, I would expect it needs to significantly change. The needs of a newborn are different to the needs of a 4 month old which are different to a 7 month old and a 12 month old.

We have evolved it from newborn, i can start delaying the first nap of the day, with naps she just doesn't nap longer than 30 minutes other than the lunch one, tried her in her cot as per at night with blackout blind, in pushchair with blackout shade (where she naps best) on us, in swing chair, vibrate chair, nothing makes any difference. Going to do 7pm bedtime tonight and see how that goes