6mo baby waking at 5am

[WaitrosesCheapestVodka]

5 and a half mo DS wakes at 5 everyday. With soothing he will sometimes fall back to asleep on my arms but not in her cot for more than a few minutes. I'm so tired! He is now able to put herself to sleep at 7 so I don't think it's necessarily that she lacks skills? I don't know.

He also is a terrible napper. I try hard to follow a schedule but she will usually only take 2-3 30/45min naps. He wakes up happy and very much awake.

Our day (very roughly) looks like -

7 Feed
9 Nap
9.45 Feed
11.45 Nap
12.30 Feed
4 Nap (only if in buggy, really)
4.30 Feed
6 Bedtime routine, bath
6.30 Feed
7 Sleep

He's also (oh god) a bit of a snacker. He will usually only take 2-3 decent long feeds a day, so often if she hasn't fed well I'll offer him
a bit of extra boob.

Massive gender fail there. I have a DD. I was trying to be sleuthy. Don't try to be sleuthy when exhausted.

Sounds normal to me, I just used to bring my daughter into bed with me at that point (if she wasn't already) and give her toys/books and doze while she explored. It's a killer. She might grow out of it, she might not 🤷🏼‍♀️ it could be down to a developmental thing. My DD is nearly 3 now and still wakes between 5 and 6am. She gets cuddles in with us but we don't usually go downstairs til after 7.

We went through that when the clocks went back and we hadn’t pre-prepared for it, we put DS to bed half an hour earlier for a week and he went back to 6.30am eventually in that time. Sleep promotes sleep they say. Maybe try an earlier afternoon nap and bedtime. Worth a try. They’re all different of course!

Is she sleeping through? Can't you just go to bed earlier yourself?

She's not sleeping through. She has a dreamfeed at 10, then usually wakes at 2/3 and 4.

Is this really normal? Does it get better?

Yes really normal! It's so hard though, lack of sleep made me depressed. My DD got better at sleeping at 11 months then regressed again around 18months. Babies sleep isn't linear, it changes all the time.

When she wakes up at 5am does she have a feed? I see you say she has one at 7am, but just wondering what happens at 5? My DS wakes up at 5am/5:30am every morning (5.5 months old) but is usually ravenous so just wondering if it's that? Or it could just be the time she likes to get up (which she will hopefully grow out of! Either way, you have my sympathies, these early mornings are torture aren't they!

I offer her a feed, sometimes she falls back to sleep but only for a few minutes