Early Rising

[RadioGaGoo]

My eight month old has started waking at 04:00. Currently teething and have moved house, so I am wondering if that has unsettled him. He's also not taken to weaning just yet. Started BLW at six months and have since also tried spoon feeding and finally purees. Just not interested yet. Still BF on demand. A typical schedule is this:

Wake at 04.00 (bring into bed, if lucky can sleep until 06.00, sometimes not)
First nap anywhere between 08.30-09.00 and can be anything between 30 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes
Second nap anywhere between 11.30 - 12.30 and is normally around 40 minutes
Third nap around 14.00 and can be up to two hours if we co-sleep in bed, or 30 minutes if not
Sometimes a fourth nap anywhere between 16.00 and 17.00, around 30-40 minutes.
Asleep for the night by 19.00. Generally stays asleep until first night feed around 00.30.
Second night feed around 02.30.
Third night feed 04.00 and awake.

Not the greatest schedule I know. Any advice?

Bumping as I am going through the same thing. It was 4-30 this morning for us and I am so tired.

That's almost 5 hours daytime sleep max? I understand daytime sleep should be up to about 3/4 hours MAX according to various sources.

I used a sleep consultant at 5 months as ds had cmpa/ severe reflux and was waking up to 15 times a night. Once we get it sorted he continued to wake as he had gotten into poor habits. She told us to follow this routine - 45 mins at 09:30ish and 2 hours at 1:30ish. He started sleeping through 7-7 with one feed (bottle fed).

I would try cutting down daytime sleep to see if that helps.

Also read up on the 8/9/10 month sleep regression...

Just written a long reply and lost it!

Anyway, DS 11mo has tried this a couple of times so I feel for you! Definitely treat 4am as a night wake up - so pick up and straight into bed if you're not already cosleeping. Keep it very dark, no talk no it movement and persist with feeding.

As for naps, we were on 4 naps for a long time (transitioned from 3 to 2 very quickly though) but I'd try to get down to 3 now.
8:30-9:30 Nap
11:00 Lunch
12-2 Nap (definitely cosleep for this one, try 11:30-1:30 in the early days if you need to)
4-4:30 Quick cat nap
7 Bed

Possibly too many naps. I would drop the second one. At that age mine would go roughly 3 hours between sleeps.

You need to aim for:

9.30-10am nap 1

12.30-2.30 nap 2

No more. If they don't do full 2 hours at lunchtime you could do a 15-30 min nap around 4.30, but do not let them sleep any later than 5pm