How do I get 8 month old to sleep later in the morning?

[thecatwiththesilveryfur]

I wrote another post but on reflection think it's too waffly and doesn't get to the crux, which is:

DS wakes between 3 and 5 every morning and won't go back to sleep without (and often with) extensive intervention. He goes to bed at 7pm and puts himself to sleep then and for naps. During the day, he naps for half an hour at 9.30am and for as long as he will at 12.30 (often only half an hour then, though we're trying to extend this).

How do we get him to sleep later in the morning? He used to sleep from 7-6am every night before five months - not sure what changed! All advice gratefully received!

My son is 13 months and will still wake for a bottle at 10am and 4 am if We are quick enough ( one of us will hold him and rock and keep sleepy while the other makes the bottle ) and he will 97% of the time go back to sleep 😴

He did have about 1 month of 4 am wake ups at your sons age and there was no way I could get him back to sleep ( I would try for at least an hour )

What time does your son have milk in the night?

He doesn't feed overnight (hasn't needed to since 12 weeks). When his sleep was really bad (around 6-7 months), I would sometimes feed him to get him back to sleep, but now that he doesn't feed to sleep for bed or naps anymore I'm reluctant to do that overnight as I think it gives mixed messages. He isn't hungry when he wakes at 3/4/5, but will feed if offered because he knows it will send him back to sleep.

I'd do the option that gets you the most sleep tbh!

Small feed the second he stirs at 3am or whatever. Hopefully this will break the cycle of the early morning wakings. Once you've done that, push back the morning nap gradually, 9:30 is pretty early, but understandable with the early wakings.

Hopefully that'll sort it, and then you can slowly reduce the amount of milk you offer at night.

Another reason could be that he's cold.

Does he have milk before he goes to bed?

Is 9.30 early for a nap? Happy to push that later if that would be better! The naps are based on the Little Ones routine, which has been great for improving his napping, but hasn't touched the night sleep.

I don't think he's cold - we have a radiator on low in the bedroom all night, so it never gets cold in there.

He has a breastfeed about half an hour before he goes to bed, and dinner at 5.30 (though he still throws more on the floor than he actually eats!).

Mines went through a phase of 5am up for the day starts. It was crippling being up from then and then going to work for a long shift.

Now sleeps til 7ish and I'm happy with that. Didnt do anything different. Little one was in midst of sleep regression, teething etc and we ended up cosleeping for sanity. Now back in her own bed after a few months and sleeps through to morning. (Not every night).

Think sometimes thetes something else going on- developmental leap, teething, weaning etc

Early ish, I think. Naps do move around a bit of course, and I think timing of daytime naps can affect their sleep like this. Moving back daytime naps was the only thing that helped when mine thought 4am was an acceptable time to wake up. That went on for over a year, it was pure hell

Think sometimes thetes something else going on- developmental leap, teething, weaning etc

His sleep certainly went bad at the same time as we started weaning. But I don't know what to do about that - we can't stop giving him people food now!

Moving back daytime naps

I'm definitely open to this. What sort of times would you suggest? I'm desperate for someone to give me a schedule to follow precisely! It's why I liked the Little Ones scheme so much - it's very prescriptive - but it doesn't seem to have fixed the problem.

Can he have some porridge just before bed? It could be hunger or thirst waking him so with the porridge then it's not hunger.

Treat a 3am wake as a night wake. Small drink of water in his dark bedroom and a little shh pat in his cot then leave.

Oh and I think a 9.30am morning nap is fine, as is the 12.30 lunch nap.

He hates porridge 🤦‍♀️ would yoghurt do? It's the only thing he'll reliably eat! Or banana?

Hopeful bump for anyone who has any more ideas... I'm pretty sure the early morning wakeup is a habit one, rather than because he's hungry. Any ideas on how to break that habit?

Honestly, first of all i'd just feed him when he wakes, and see if that solves the problem.

Try not to be too prescriptive. I was very routine led with my first and tbh it just make life Uber stressful.

My boy would be absolutely beside himself if he went from 1pm to 7pm without another nap. What about an earlier bedtime? Sounds odd but sleep promotes sleep they say. I also agree about the development side of things, we’ve had some recent unusual wake ups with rolling, weaning, Illness, swinging from the chandeliers etc etc.

My boy would be absolutely beside himself if he went from 1pm to 7pm without another nap.

Oh yes, mine too! If he only sleeps half an hour at lunch, he has another at 4.30. Again, that comes from the routine we were following, and it seems to work quite well during the day, but hasn't fixed the night sleep.

My concern with an earlier bedtime is that DH doesn't get home till 6.30, so if DS went to bed any earlier than he does, he would never see him!

Try not to be too prescriptive.

Thank you - I think maybe I needed to hear that. I like to be in control and am finding the unpredictability of babies difficult to come to terms with! I'm afraid of setting up bad habits like feeding overnight which later have to be corrected when he's old enough to know what's going on.

I would just feed at 3/5am. Personally a night feed then is far better than starting your day then. Early morning waking is the hardest thing to change. I don't think it will be harder to cut out that night feed in a few months compared to trying to get DC to sleep longer now. It might be a habitual waking but currently the only working solution seems to be a feed.

So an update on this: I started giving him a feed when he woke, but he now wakes at 4am and doesn't go back to sleep. He'll doze if he's being held, but effectively we now have to get up at 4am. He's also refusing to go down for naps unless in the pram or the car. Even when he's obviously tired, he just cries when I put him in his cot. Wtf is going on with him? He's exhausted (and so are we!). What do we do? Is it sleep consultant time?