5 am wakings!!!

[Avarose8]

Hi all,

My little girl is now 4 months nearly 5 months old. She's a poor day time sleeper but brilliant at night, sleeping through from 7-7. We feel very blessed! But over a month ago she got a sickness bug and was waking up early which we responded too. Problem is that she's now still waking at 5am and will just not go back to sleep. She will happily play in her crib and kick the hell out of it for 2 hours. We are still getting up with her at 7 but by this time she's cranky and overtired. The day then goes down hill as she'll not sleep for longer than 30 minutes. So I have lots of tantrums, crankiness and crying all day. Is there anything I can do to try had get her to wake up a little later? Thanks x

So she is sleeping 7pm-5am? That's quite A reasonable length of sleep at this age. While 11h overnight is the average, a range of 10-12h would be normal.

I would work towards making bedtime later (8pm) and for this by getting up for the day when she wakes and focusing on appropriate timing for naps.

Nap lengths of 30-45 minutes are usual

Awake time between naps wants to be 60-90 minutes.

So waking and getting up at 5am, and assuming 30 minutes naps (they may be longer/shorter, so this is just a suggested aporoximate):

5am wake, feed, get up
6am nap
8am nap
10am nap
12pm nap
2pm nap
4pm nap
6pm nap
8.00-8.30pm bedtime

In terms of making naps happen, try relentless bouncing in the bouncy chair. Subdued room, TV volume low, park yourself on the sofa with the TV remote and the bouncer at your feed (and a cuppa). After 1h has passes from baby last waking, ensure not hungry, well winded and nappy is clean and put in bouncer. With your feet, just keep on rhythmically bouncing non stop for a good hour. Font how anywhere or do anything unless you have to, just keep going.