5am wake ups!

[jb1305uk]

Hi. I've posted before about this, thought it was resolved although we've stepped backwards again.

LO is 10 months, goes to bed at 8 but wakes up for the day at 5. We persevered and it naturally extended to a 6am, sometimes 7am wake up which was great. This lasted for a month and now we're back to 5am.

LO is on 3 meals and drinks around 25 oz of milk per day still. We tried introducing porridge for supper but LO would be sick later on as too full. LO naps for 3-4 hours per day and is normally ready to go back to bed by 7.30am, we try to wait to as close to 9am as possible so this nap isn't an extension of nighttime sleep.

Have tried the following which have all been unsuccessful:
blackout blinds and white noise
treating 5am wake as night feed (doesn't want to go back to sleep though)
resettle with dummy
bring into bed with us for an hour of cuddles

We can cope with getting up at 5am as we need to get up at 6am for work anyway. My concern is LO getting overtired and upset at nursery as they are struggling to nap there. This results in them being upset and refusing to eat.

I'd appreciate any advice!

For my two that would have been far too much daytime sleep. She is sleeping 12-13 hrs of 24, if you want more of it during the night I'd rejig her daytime naps maybe 1.5hrs and 45 and reduce further if needed.
Dc1 had one 1.5 nap from 9 months, dc 2 had two 45 min naps.

Thank you!

LO did sleep for 40 minutes as a morning nap at nursery yesterday which I thought was a reasonable enough sleep but slept for about 3 hours in the afternoon at home! Think I'll give cutting the naps shorter a go and see what happens.

At that age especially I found sticking with 45 min sleep.cycles helped a lot so 45min, 1.5hrs ect.
From 18 months 20min sleeps started to.work as well.

Is the white noise going all night? It wants to be quite loud.

Your blackout blinds, do they leak light around the edges? Most do, it makes them much less useful. I found blackout curtains, set higher and wider than the window much more useful than blinds which sit within the window recess. You can also get stick-on blackout that fasten directly to the window frame.

I notice you said wake up "extended to a 6am, sometimes 7am". When trying to establish a routine, having a very rigid wake up time is the most important aspect of that routine, since it sets the day. So in your sentence mentioned, the "sometimes 7am" struck me.

I know lie ins are a nice reminder of your pre-children time, but young children strivstrive on uber consistancy. Flexibility will come with age, once LO is settled into an established routine. But for now, if your wake up time needs to be 6am for work, make it 6am 7 days a week, 365 days a year. For now at least.

So when (it will happen, don't worry) wake up time naturally extends again, keep it at 6am all of the time. A later morning here and there will throw out the routine and while a child in an established routine will soon get back to normal, without an established routine it is much, much more difficult. Consistant morning wake up time is really important.

Talking of consistancy, your post reads as though there are huge differences in routine at home compared to at nursery. This is far from ideal. You might need to look at settling techniques and sleeping environment used to try and take a more united approach that works at nursery as well as at home.

Sounds like lots of daytime naps - my DS was probably having about 2.5 hours in total at that age and I generally wouldn't let him sleep past 3.30pm (but that was more to do with his evening sleep being awful)

I also think the naps are 2 much my DS goes down at 7 and wakes anywhere between 5.45 and 6.45 at 8 months old. She naps for around 2 hours a day has a 7 ounce bottle and rusk for breakfast dinner another 7 ounce bottle at 2.30 and then tea and 1 more 7 ounce bottle before bed. I think with more sleep she would definitely be up later at night and earlier in the morning. I'm not rigid with naps but usually try not to go too much longer than 3 hours so if she's up at 6 she naps around 9 then if she sleeps till say 10.00 the next nap is 3 hours after that so 1.00 if she then sleeps till 2.00 ish there's often no other nap. Sometimes she'll have another 10/15 minutes in the car but I always wake her after that and never let her sleep past 5. I also never fetch her out of her cot bedroom until it's past 6. So even if she has woken at 5 which she has the odd time. It's dummy music box on which she falls to sleep to at night and ignore. She may whine or even cry but she isn't hungry so we don't get up.

DD god I cannot get used to having a girl got two other boys!!

I find this the most accurate sleep charts for the average baby, by age:

www.mybabysleepguide.com/2013/02/average-sleep-charts-by-age.html?m=1

10 months = 2.5h-4h of daytime sleep over 2 naps.

At 10 months mine was having 1.5h-2h twice a day. A Gina Ford type baby would have 45m morning nap and 1.5-2.5h in the afternoon, I think. But both of these assume 11-12h sleep At night and the OPs baby is currently having only 9 hours (8pm-5am)

I think the amount of sleep overall is about right so 9 hours at night then 3-4 in the day. So 12-13 hours total but I think 1-1.5 hours of it should be at night not in the day. So 10.5-11 hours at night if possible then the rest in the day. Also if you cut back the nap in the afternoon the bedtime becomes earlier so 7 then if you have a wake up at 4 it really is still nighttime your psyche won't consider getting up and you'll be more prone to settling if you think there could be another 2 or more hours of sleep. If your confident there's no hunger I think this is best 4 hours napping in the day to me send excessive but that's only my opinion all kids are different and some are very sleepy babies.

Thanks for all the input.

I've always felt that LO has needed the lower end of the sleep ranges. They are happy and very active/alert, have never really been a sleepy baby. We soon know if LO is tired though!

We have a white noise machine and tend to leave it on all night, but to be honest when staying away from home LO has slept well without it- doesn't seem to make a difference. Was useful in the early days for settling.

With regard to consistency in approaches with nursery, I put LO down awake and settle in cot, nursery do the same. I appreciate that it's a very different setting there though. That's outwith my control unfortunately.

I don't want to be chained to the house by routine as we go to classes, visit family etc and naps sometimes take place in the car or pram. But I do know that I can't have my cake and eat it. I think we will try cutting down the length of naps and see if that brings back 6am wake ups.