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?

mine 9months on june 7th ! bless their little hearts - our beautiful virgo babies

off to bed. late night for me! wonder what the morning hold in store.... see ;you all bright and early [hm]

I hope not! Here's wishing you LO wakes up later than usual!

Ok, so she did it again but without night wakings. Am in state of shock. Seems to be The MN Effect. If I post something on MN, it then changes. Just started weaning but I didn't think THAT was supposed to have an effect on sleep. Confused.

You must feel good SydneyB. Well done. How are you getting on Cruisemummy? We had a 7.30am yesterday - shock horror and this morning 6am on the dot. So random.

I feel kind of rested for first time in SO long. Went to bed at 9.30pm you see. Not going to get complacent though as, as you say Rislip, it is utterly RANDOM! Cruise, how was your night?

sydney- hey for you!!! lo slept from 7:15am - 5:50am so not too bad. he was cooing and babbling till i got him 6:10am. he had a great naps yesterday and today (so far) so things looking up! funny how 6am seems reasonable these days. I never though i would hear myself say that

7:15pm obviously

Yippee at least we are not the only one's up at 5.30am every morning..on the odd occassion we do get to lie in till 6am!!! & one day last week she woke at 4.45am so I bf her & she went back to sleep until 7.30am!!!!
She is 10months btw. i am also struggling with the waking early so needs to nap early thing but I have decided to push her am nap back 5 mins every couple of days & cut it down to 20mins to see if it makes any difference. At the mo I put her down at 8.45am she will whimper & chat for 15-20mins then I wake her at 9.30am. She then has another nap at 12.30/12.45 until 2.30pm & then we have her in bed for 7pm. I have tried pushnig bedtime to 7.30pm..no change infact woke earlier & have tried putting her to bed at 6.45am...woke at same time. She has her tea at 5pm so am thinking of giving her a drink of formula & a rusk after her bath to see if this makes a difference. I only bf her once now at 6.30pm...15mins both sides but I wonder if this is not enough to see her through the night. She will eat anything & everything she can. She is eating us out of house & home at the mo!

Since starting this discussion last week, somehow we managed to have 4 mornings of 6.15-6.30 (felt like a lie-in after 5.30)! Not sure how it happened, she started sleeping for an hour an a half every lunchtime and then I'd take her for a walk about 5ish to get her to go to sleep to make sure she made it to bed time without being too tired. I always said I'd never go for a walk just to get her to sleep, but she seemed tired and wouldn't sleep in her cot.

It all went wrong at the weekend though, again not sure why, and we're back to 5/5.30. She's had just a short nap at lunchtime and because of the weather I've not wanted to go for a walk!

DH is convinced it's just random.

She's having a long nap again today and so don't know whether to risk not taking her for a walk for a snooze a bit later.

liloosmum - we have had a couple of 6am wakings which seems like a luxury . hoping he learns to crawl soon and wears himself out!

Wonder if daytime naps are part of it? We had a 5.15 wakeup this morning and yesterday's naps were awful. Today's have been good so i hold out hope... a dangerous thing to do..

Ooh mine too. I think she thinks that I have to get up early to go and work in the fields and she is doing me a favour .

madamplatypus - obviously living in a parallel universe your dd

I do think that good day naps = good night sleep. Also I find if my dd has a good sleep at lunchtime she goes in her cot less tired at 7pm & doesn't fall asleep when I feed her so goes into her deep sleep later & therefore sleeps later in the morning. I'm not talking hours late just 6am instead of 5.30am...but for me every minute in bed counts! Last 4 nights she has been waking up between 9-11pm & we have been cuddling her..silly I know so last night she woke twice. 2nd time we just left her 40mins later was fast asleep & didn't wake until 6.40am!!!!!! I had to check the monitor at 4.45am to see if I could hear her breathing! Although it is fab having a lie in??!! I am now all to pot with her naps. She normally goes 3-3.5hrs between getting up & her 1st nap & then between then & her lunch nap. So she started yawning & rubbing her eyes at 8.50am so I took her to bed at 9.05am. She chattered on for 10mins then started crying, went in & she was sitting up in the cot. Lay her down, didn't pick her up, & left. By 9.25am she was becoming hysterical so went in & lay hand on head, blew in her face..weird I know but it calms her down & she goes to sleep..by 9.35am was asleep so tiptoed out of the room. So I was going to let her have 20mins nap so I can still put her down for her lunch nap at 12.30-1pm, where she will have anything from 45mins to 2hrs...hopefully if I cut down on the am nap she should sleep longer at lunch?
Anyway at least she wasn't up at 5.30am!

Or maybe she thinks we should be getting up to do yoga?

Well she was tired yesterday afternoon, and I tried to get her to go to sleep in her cot twice, but she wasn't having any of it. It had stopped raining for 5 minutes, so I went for a walk and hadn't got 2 minutes down the road and she was asleep!

Last night put her to bed about 7.30-7.45 as normal and she woke up at 6.30 and was happy to stay in her cot until 7!

Today she had a really short nap after lunch and fell asleep on her bottle at 4 for an hour. She really does need a sleep late afternoon, we'll see if an hour is too much!

lilosmum- oooh i want one of those... a morning that begins at 7am . how do you get one.....???!!

oh crap! 5:25am today . and thats with a waking 11pm for 30 mins . uuurg. i dont want to limp lofeless through another day . tell me this will stop!!!

or even 'life'less

DD was 5am today. Took her downstairs and she was asleep in my arms in 2 minutes. I gave up and took her upstairs to bed with me where she fell asleep until 7. The problem is that DD would like to sleep like a puppy - snuggled up with her entire family and that just isn't practical/comfortable for us so I am trying to cut back on the co-sleeping. However, between DS and DD I was up about 3 times last night. DS woke me up at 2am to ask if he could give DD 'small bear' to sleep with.

ahh for your ds - how very thoughtful of him . my ds never sleeps in my arms. i brought hm into bed at around 5:40am he downed 8oz and started to play! I was NOT amused. I am chanting "it's just a phase, it's just a phase"...... ad infinitum...........

and now he has only napped for 45mins aaargh

Glad we are all in the same boat. Kind of! My theory about good daytime naps is obv. not applicable to DD. Night after good naps, 4.30 wake up!! Managed to settle until 6.30. Can't decide whether that is better than 5.30 wake up and then day starting... This am, back to 5.30 again. I go back to work in a few weeks so got to get this sussed!

sydney - if you find a cure...pass it on¬!