Early Waking

[Riversid3]

Hi all. I'm after some more advice please! Posted a while ago about short naps - those are sorted but now we have a problem with early rising.

DC's rough routine is as follows:

5.15-5.45: Wake and BF
7.00: breakfast
8.30/9.00: nap (usually half hour)
10.00: snack
11.30: lunch
12.30/13.00: nap (1.5-2 hrs)
15.00: BF
17.00: Dinner
18.15: BF, bath, bed (usually asleep by 18.45)

Would anyone recommend trying a later bedtime? A lot of things I've read suggest this might make the problem worse. I thought they are supposed to get 11-11.5 hrs sleep per night at this age which would have her waking at 5.45/6.15, 6.15 would be a lie in! Ideal wake up time would be 6/6.15 so we're not far off.

I've tried feeding when she wakes but this makes no difference, often she'll just have a few sucks then stop(she's bottle fed in the night but has dropped night feeds recently). I've tried leaving her a bit when she wakes up but she never resettles.

Any help or ideas greatly appreciated!

Just realised I didn't say how old she is - she's 11 months

You can try a later bedtime but it would need to be around 8pm and you need to try it consistently to possibly see results. This often doesn't work tbh the baby just gets overtired.
I'll be honest, I have several dc and they have all had these phases as babies and young toddlers. Loads and loads of young kids go through periods of early waking and you just learn to deal with it. Eventually most kids extend their wake ups to between 6-7am.
It sucks but it's normal and she sounds likes she's doing a long night.

Thank you undecided. I am starting to think this is probably just how it's going to be for a while - I have a 3 year old who also wakes early but it is easier with her as she has a groclock that she understands so will at least stay in her room til 6! No chance of that with the little one. My main concern is that she's obviously still tired when she wakes up as she's super grumpy til her first nap. I think she would manage better if she could just sleep that little bit longer! Thanks for your thoughts

11h night sleep is average nights sleep for this age. But anything in the range of 10h-12h would be considered 'normal'.

Therefore being asleep by 6.45pm will give an awake time of 4.45am onwards and this would be considered absolutely normal for the bedtime. You can't have both ways - you don't get baby in bed super early and also a nice, reasonable morning time, you'll also get a super early morning.

I was doing 8pm bedtimes bedtime at that age, to give an average 7am wake up. Baby needs a later bedtime. But it is not just about just putting baby to bed later and crossing your fingers. That will make matters worse, you have to look at the bigger picture and what sleep is like over the whole 24 hours.

This is not something that will be sorted in a few days, you may have a month of upset as the routine is disrupted, until the new one establishes.

I'd suggest that awake time in the morning is too long and then with a short morning nap, baby is starting the day over tired. It then progresses through the day and so by dinner time is exhausted and ready for bed.

Do you wake baby from that morning nap, or is baby naturally waking after 30 minutes?

If baby is naturally waking after only 30 mins, I'd suggest that between your 5.30am wake and an afternoon nap, you could fit two short naps in. Say 5.30am wake, 7.30am nap, 10am nap (2h awake times) then have a longer awake time to give the afternoon nap start time of 1.30-2pm. This gives you wake up time of 3-4pm and so bedtime can shift to 7-8pm.

This isn't the long term plan, it's an interim to help baby move bedtime without being exhausted. You need to find ways to allow for extra daytime sleep because until the adjustment is made in body clock rhythms, baby may well have nights going to bed at 8pm and still waking at 5.30pm. It takes time to see a change in bodily sleep rhythms.

So have a 'make do' period of time where you allow for baby getting more daytime sleep because nights are shorter. If baby can't do this by having longer naps, you need to adjust awake times to allow for more naps.

Once you have found a daytime routine that means baby is getting enough sleep to manage a later bedtime, stick with it for several weeks. Once the later bedtime is established, then make the morning nap later.

Thank you Fate!

I agree about having it both ways, am willing to accept I may just have to suck it up for now, just want to make sure I've tried everything I can to help her sleep a little longer so she's not waking up so grumpy.

We definitely want to keep fairly early bedtimes as that fits in with our family at the moment, and a 7am wake up would actually be too late as I'm going back to work soon and will need to be out of the house with two small ones by 7.15! But I think if she would just go to 6/6.30, it would make for a much happier baby. The other day she miraculously slept til 6.30 and she was like a different child! We've done blackout blinds etc, just doesn't make any difference.

I will try doing an earlier nap and see if that helps. May need to tweak lunchtimes etc but will see how it goes.

Forgot to say - she wakes naturally after half an hour usually. Although she is actually napping now and has been asleep nearly an hour...

I had a similar problem when my one was 7 months, we also had the same bedtime. I was reluctant to move to a later bedtime because we had got into a routine using a sleep consultant but when the wake ups became pre-5am, something had to be done!

I'm sure you've already covered this but we taped blackout lining to our windows so there were no gaps and room stayed pitch black with early sunrise in summer. I then gradually shifted bedtime to 8pm over a few days by reverting to 3 naps a day to prevent overtiredness (she was younger and had only dropped the third nap a few weeks earlier). We still did have 2-3 unsettled nights with 1-1.5 hour awake in the middle of the night but it settled down after that.

I used the change as an opportunity to establish the 2-3-4 routine (based on advice from some lovely ladies on here) with a short nap followed by a long one. We now have a bedtime of 7.30ish with waking up between 6.30-7am which is perfect. I love the flexibility of 2-3-4, it fits our lifestyle brilliantly.

Hi just wondered if any one had any advice.

My little one is ten months old & has always slept 7-7 for months now. Recently he has started waking at 5.30am I try and get him to get back to sleep but he's raring for the day ahead. He's then trying to go back to sleep about 7.30/8:00am. If I let him go to sleep he will sleep for atleast an hour. If I don't let him sleep he has become inconsolable. I'm assuming by going to sleep at this time he's extending his night time sleep? How do I keep him up longer during the day & do you think it's best to try and keep him up and miss the morning nap? I've also tried for 2 weeks to put him to bed later but he just woke at the same time.

Thanks

My 11 month old wakes at 5am every day you could almost set your watch by him

He goes to bed at 7pm every night