9 month old waking at 5am - any ideas?

[amurdo]

I know this has been discussed on here before and I have taken on some of the advice but no luck so far! My 9 month old girl was sleeping through until 7am from about 6 weeks then at 4 months she started waking at 5am. I thought this could be a regression thing and that it would be temporary but at 9 months she is still waking at 5am 😩.

She doesn't wake because she is hungry as I do not feed her (bottle fed) until 6/6.30. I followed some advice on here and pushed her first nap back to 9 and she sleeps for 1.5/2 hours then another nap at 1, again for 1.5/2 hours. She then goes down about 6.30pm.

I know I should be grateful she sleeps through but I'm due to go back to work next month and these early starts are going to ruin me!!

Any advice?

Honestly...id just try to get used to it. You have a brilliant sleeper and I reckon 5am starts are the price you pay. What time do you go to bed at?

I do try to go to bed early but I always get distracted by something good on tv and don't end up going to sleep until 11am. I know....I'm my own worst enemy!

No real advice only sympathy. I am 6 years in to the early rising phase having both 6 yo and a 10mo that both are up at the crack of dawn.

Lots of them at that age do grow out of it though so don't worry too much!

Very basic advice would be make sure room is properly blacked out. Also is she getting cold?

Main advice is to go to bed early yourself. Its the only way I cope!

Yeah her room is blacked out and warm enough. If only she would sleep until 6, i could cope with that!

I had this EXACT thing. We tried EVERYTHING.

At about 11 months he naturally grew out of it and shifted to a 6am wakeup. We then pushed bedtime back to 7:30pm and then by 13 months was sleeping until 7am with the later bedtime.

So there is hope 😀 !!

Mine DS is nearly 3 and goes through phases of waking at 5am every now and then. It usually lasts a few weeks and then goes back to his usual time of 6:30. I wouldn't worry about it too much and get to bed early when you feel tired.

She then goes down about 6.30pm

The main reason for your wake up time is bedtime.

Given your daytime naps are good and slerping through the night, this is the only factor that needs to change.

11 hours over night sleep would be average for a child at this stage. So a 6.30pm bedtime is going to give you a 5.30am wake up. There would be a reasonable range of 10-12 hours over night sleep, so 4.30am would also be considered "normal".

Any reason you can't push bedtime later?

I would move the mirning nap to 9.30am and the afternoon nap to 2pm. Then push bedtime to 7.30. This will give you a wake up time in the range of 6am-7am.

Body clocks don't snap straight into changes, it may take a couple of weeks consistency before you start seeing a difference in wake up time.

We have tried putting her to bed later but it's hard work sometimes as she can get so tired. What you say makes sense though to shift everything and I will give it a go....it just so happens she is napping later than usual today so might as well try tonight if I can.

You have my solidarity... We're trying exact same thing with 13 month old DS at the moment. Pushing the bedtime back slowly till 8-8:30pm as he never seems to sleep more than 10 hours overnight. Will report back if it works.

You have my sympathy too!! DS is similar age to yours and tends to do 7.30-5 with one night waking. Varies a bit but no sign of changing at the mo - pleased to hear from others they can snap out of it!!

We were having the same problem. Although the kids rooms themselves had black out blinds, due to their doors being open the light was still shining through from the bathroom window and our window. We shut the bathroom doors at night 3 days ago and put a gro blind on our window and hey presto both kids slept til 6.30am for 3 days in a row! Going to invest in a proper black out blind for our window now.