Early morning waking

[Zoemumy83]

Hi all - hoping someone can help...

8month old wakes at 5am which is at least an hour too early! Our schedule is like this -

5am wake
6am get out of cot BF
7am breakfast
8am nap (2 hours)
10:30 BF
11:30 lunch
1pm nap (upto 1 hour)
2:30 BF
16:30 tea
18:30 bottle and bed
7pm asleep

He has just stopped waking for a feed in the nght and doesn't seem hungry when he wakes at 5 but is ready to start the day!

Many thanks!

Hi Zoe - same boat here! With night waking too... Zzzz

There's a current thread about early rising in a 10 month old that might be useful for you

I think his routine needs some work. It's great that he's having two good naps but the first is acting as a reward for waking up early and the second is a bit too early in the day.

I'd aim for first nap at 10-11.30 and the second at 2.30-4. This gives two awake periods of 3 hours in between 7am and 7pm.

You can either just brave it and go for the new routine that you want, probably a rough 3 days but then you've done it or just push it all back by 15 minutes at a time.

I can add up, honest... 3! awake periods of 3 hours each.

I agree the 8am nap is too early and needs moving by at least an hour and a half. The changes missanony suggests are great and i agree.

The only thing is add is that 10h over night sleep is not unreasonable. 11h would be the average at this age, but the range of 10h-12h would be easily within "normal" range.

So a 7pm bedtime may well give you a quite reasonable 5am wake up time. In shifting around your daytime routine, a later afternoon nap may well make it easier to push bedtime a bit later.

Thanks all - I will give it a go tomorrow and see how we get on!

I decided to shorten his morning nap this morning (to an hour) as I'd read this might help, but it just meant he was more than ready for bed at 6:30 tonight and didn't make him sleep longer in the afternoon!

Fingers crossed for a slightly later wake up time.

Thanks MiniMaxi how are you getting on, any improvements?

We had some instant progress yesterday 6:10 and this morning 5:40 - I'm aiming for 6 am so I'd say we are heading in the right direction!! I've woken him from his morning nap after 1.5 hours and made him wait until 9am each day and this seems to be working. First day he didn't sleep much in the afternoon so was tired and actually ended up going to bed at 6:30 but slept until 6:10! Yesterday he did x2 1.5 hour naps but woke early - but at least not before 5am!

Hoping you've got some rest

Hi Zoe, thanks for asking! A bit better the past two nights in terms of overall sleep - but he's still waking early (5.30 yesterday and 5.20 today)

Largely I think the problem is he wakes at 4 for a feed, takes a while to get back to sleep, then just goes into a 45 min nap cycle. I have no idea how we change that other than trying to push the 4am feed a bit later or wean him off it!

Glad things moving in the right direction for you!

I'm wondering whether to try earlier bedtime too as he often doesn't settle til 8 but seems tired much earlier. Don't know if it will encourage an even earlier morning wake up, or if it doesn't work like that! Good to know in your experience it didn't have a negative impact.

Hope all goes well today!

Fantastic progress Zoemumy83!

MiniMaxi if you don't think baby can go much more than 8h without a milk feed (8pm-4am), how about doing a wake-feed-resettle when you go to bed, say 11pm? That would mean that you know any wake up at 4am isn't hunger and would hopefully mean he doesn't wake at 4am at all.

Hi FATE, actually last few nights he has been stirring when we go to bed around 10.30/11 - having a smallish feed (3oz) and going straight back down.

He's waking at 4 and crying for ages so we assume he is hungry but you're right - it isn't that big a gap... Maybe will try just calming him tonight and see if that helps.

Don't suppose you have an opinion on whether early bed would be a good or bad idea? At moment he goes down between 7.30 and 8.15 but he often seems tired from about 6-6.30...

While you are dealing with night wake ups, bedtime doesn't make a massive amount of difference. Any catching up on sleep will happen with daytime naps.

So I baby waking early is likely to have caught up on that lost sleep in the morning nap primarily (longer and earlier) and possibly the afternoin nap too. So as long as bedtime is fairly regular, it can be flexible within an hour ish window.

Once baby is sleeping through, then this flips. Then baby can catch up on lost daytime sleep by sleeping more at night, since the night will be one long chunck of sleep.

I think 8pm is a good bedtime. Longer term, it is reasonable to expect a sleeping-through baby to have 11h sleep at night. So a 8pm bedtime gives an approx 7am bedtime - which is ideal for me. If a 6am approx wake up works better for you, then establishing a 7am bedtime might be worth it.

The only other thing I should add is - is baby currently chronically overtired then ignore everything I've write above. If baby is neither getting enough daytime sleep not enough night time sleep, then ANY sleep is good. So if an earlier night gets baby more sleep, do it. Once in an over-tiredness cycle, then throw out the rule book. Just do anything and everything you possibly can to get baby sleeping.

Great, thank you. I think we are in overtiredness cycle at mo - purely based on total number of hours which is around 9 at night and 3 in day - so I'll try to build in more when and where I can, plus try to eliminate that 4am feed. Much appreciated!

Help! After a successful week we've now gone the other way and he's waking at 4am and won't go back to sleep.

Is this sleep regression? It has been awfully hot and he is cutting his top two teeth.

I've been leaving him in his cot until 6am but he's screams and even if I sit by the cot and pat and shhh him he repeatedly sits or stands up!

I've been toughing out the morning and putting him down at 9am for his first nap hoping this will help - but so far it hasn't helped.

Advice greatly appreciated as I am beginning to lose my mind!

I wouldn't leave baby to cry in the cot in the morning. That wont achieve anything.

And regarding his daytime naps, moving the times around is great to tweek a routine, but if your baby is over tired then forget about tweaking things - just get baby out of being over tired with "any sleep, any how".

So if he is waking at 4am, it would be completely unreasonable to expect him to stay awake 5 hours to 9am. He'd be exhausted and that would mean when he does sleep it would be fretful and not restful.

Try to be flexible. If he has a broken nights sleep, he is going to need more sleep in the day.

If he is awake early and has less over night sleep, he is going to need more sleep in the day.

If he is cutting teeth, he is going to need extra help getting to sleep.

If he is chronically over tired, he is going to need extra help getting to sleep.

Don't be ridgid on 2 naps per day at this age. Some days he may need 3 naps. If he has a long 4am-8pm 16 hour daytime, he could need 4 naps a day. Just get him enough sleep.

Thank you - a fountain of knowledge and reassurance. I'm always doubting whether I'm doing the right thing.

That all makes perfect sense.