7 month old waking at 5.30

[Liloosmum]

My 7.5 month old DD wakes at 5.30 nearly every morning, coo-ing quite happily for about half an hour and then crying to be fed. She used to go back to sleep again until 8ish, but now plays for about 15 minutes before crying and wanting to get up. We give her her last bottle at 7pm and put her to bed around half past. My DH is convinved that it is because she is hungry, but I am not because I think she would wake up crying if that is why she is waking.

She has just started having a longish (1-2 hour) sleep at 9 and then another sleep for 45-60 minutes around 2-3. She is usually really tired and crotchy from 6.30, but we make her wait until 7 when she frequently falls asleep during her last feed and we usually wake her up to put her to bed.

I am not sure if I should just accept that she will wake up at that time and it's unreasonable to expect her to be able to sleep longer, or if she would sleep longer if I changed/cut short her naps, especially the morning one. I know she already sleeps longer than a lot of babies her age, but my nephew sleeps every night from 7.30pm to 7.30-8am religiously !

Sorry for the long post, but I am new to this and wanted to make sure I put as much info as possible!

Any thoughts?

have toyed with later beddimes and have put it into actin but lo is so fried by then it is not fair. Also, it necessitates an extra nap which seems too much hassle.

DH and I are nocturnal anyway, so the extra hour in the morning is necessary, losing the hour at night is of no matter because he works nights and if i'm tired, he has DS for a bit when he gets home while i get a nap.

Its not ideal, but you do what works. We tried getting him to bed for about 7, but then he wakes up around midnight and is up til 2am, so that was a no-go.

kaishay - my ds eats really well at teatime and rarely takes more than about 3 - 4 oz of milk at bedtime. i wish he would take more but he just isn't hungry. btw he has aptamil 6+ months follow on too

Gahh, she won't go back down again at 530 anymore! Feel like its time for bed NOW as have been awake SO long. I too can't really put bedtime back as DD is knackered and ready for bed by 630 and yes, Cruise, would somehow mean an extra nap somewhere in the day. And also I LOVE my evenings with DH and that they start early! Have blackout blinds so not sure what else to do. Tried ignoring this am but by 6 I couldn't bear it any longer and couldn't see the point as I was STILL awake from 5.30!

sydney - ds woke 5:20am today . i left him grizzling though and i'm certain he dozed on and off. got him up at 6am which felt reasonable . still better than the 2 hourly wakings ogf a month ago

Haven't read the whole thread but my 13month old is in the 5.30 club too. Doesn't matter what time Iput her to bed, she is up with the lark. In fact, i need to do something about those larks.....

Can I join you?! Have just done cc with my dd (6 months) and it has worked very well after only one night of hell, but she is now waking at 5ish as well as a middle of the night feed. For the last couple of nights I've done cc to try to get her to self-settle between 5 and 6, but it doesn't seem to work - i.e. she keeps crying until i go in at 6 and feed her - so I'm planning to ditch this as I just seem to be unnecessarily upsetting her and trying to swap the middle of the night feed for a dreamfeed tonight to see if I can get a longer uninterrupted stretch before the 5 am wakeup, so will let you know how I get on...(takes a deep breath after v long sentence )

5.45am this morning, gurgled for 15mins then fell back to sleep till 7am. Sweet!
Moving bedtime back does nothing for us either plus I like my evenings too. (hello chablis...)

Cruise like you I can't get dd to take much of her last bottle. I feed her supper at 5pm and then begin bottle about 6.30pm. She is totally not interested so it's a real chore.

My 3mo DS is going through a phase of waking between 5 and 6 too - think the light mornings might be to blame. (We have an east-facing bedroom so even with dark sheets up, the light sneaks in.) I BF him and if he's asleep enough, sneak him back into the crib... if that doesn't work then bring him into bed, stick boob in mouth and hope he drops off for another couple of hours.

blah... DS has been awake since 3am courtesy of some stupid shouting drunks and a DH who can't get him back to sleep for toffee..

On way back to bed now... never leave a job to the men that you can do yourself sigh i am going to have acranky baby all day now.

kaishay for you both. bloody men! i never evm ask dh to help. far better to get the job done properly .
rislip - pain in the neck isn't it?! he faffs about slapping the bottle away, examines his hands as if they are the most amazing creation ever, repeats dadadada a million times. v. cute but not very productive . actually last night he downed 7oz and slept 11 hrs . still up before 6 tho

Mine were both early risers - it's funny how 6.00 seems to be the the cut off point - one minute to 6 was awful - one minute past was bearable!

Trouble is, they reset my body clock so thoroughly that even now neither of them often wakes before 7.30, I find it reallly hard to stay in bed past 6.30! Grrrrrrr

yesterday he only had 45min nap in the afternoon until 2pm so he had to go to bed earlier as he was exhasuted. i wonder if that is why he slept 11 hours? mind you, he really does need around 1.5hrs in the afternoon. so confusing arent thye?! my dd was never like this!

5:30am yesterday morning, 5:45am this morning [yawn]

Have decided to make like a treehugger and go with the flow for time being.
So, went to bed early last night!
Still knackered, though.

my eight month dd wakes at a similar time but fortunately she will have a feed a go back to sleep for a couple of hours. she goes to bed around 8pm but it is hard to get back to sleep around then considering dh gets up around 6am and then ds will come in soon after so its basically like getting up every day at 5am!! hopefully change soon. x

my ds 10 months was awake at 5.20am, in my bed so hard to ignore him. little darling has now been back in his cot for an hour! I've had so much bloody caffeine I couldn't sleep if I tried. God bless them!

1.30am, 3.00 am and then 7.30am! So, in order to get further than 5.30 she needs to wake twice in the early hours... hmmm.

sydney - not sure that is a good trade off .

hi boys and girls

sorry my posting is a bit sporadic as i'm really busy at the moment ( new job)

I'm having a tiny amt of success by gradually moving the feed forward. My cut off now is 6.30am and when he's doing this ok i'm gonna gradually move to 7am.

I think the big thing is this - how much sleep does your LO really need/want at night. I know for a fact that my ds could NEVER do 7pm until 7am. At the moment he is doing 9pm - 6am and I am gradually gonna extend the times but I doubt he will do better than 8.30pm until 7am.

I do it like cc - increasing the times and going into him and reassuring him. I wonder why i'm bothering sometimes cos we are going on holiday at the end of june with an 8 hr time difference!! Oh lord, why are holidays so depressing these days!

DS usually sleeps from about 10pm to 7am, give or take half an hour each side, we get up, have a bottle and are usally asleep by 9am and he'll sleep til about 10.30am (which is ideal for a nocturnal me,lol, because i can't sleep before 1am)

But then he will have 3 or 4 naps in the day of about 30-45 mins. I guess he's getting about 12/13 hours sleep a day, which is about right.

kaishay - how old is your lo? mine is 8.5mths

Ferber has a chapter in his book about a baby who woke always at 5.30am, then went down for a nap after not really very long awake. He deduced that her last portion of night sleep had simply become detached, and recommended that the nap be started a few mins earlier every couple of days, until it joined up with her night sleep. Though if Tutter's little one doen't need a nap until 10.55am, I don't suppose this would work ...

What is this Ferber book? The only book I have is the dreaded GF one.

Cruisemom, same age! He's 9mo on june 5th.

Its called "Solve your child's sleep problems" Dr Richard Ferber