8 month old early wakings

[beggingforsleep]

Hi. I was on here a couple of months ago with sleep problems - my baby was waking a lot and would only do his naps on me. Those problems are just about solved, for now, but the new one is early morning wakings.

He goes down brilliantly now around 7. Goes down awake and sends himself to sleep in a few minutes and generally sleeps through and if not then a quick shushing will get him back down.

But he wakes at 4:30 for the day! It's too early! It needs to start with a 6!

He does two naps a day. Usually 8:30/9 for an hour and a half and 1/1:30 for an hour and a half. It's a long push till bedtime after that but I can't get a catnap in anymore. He fights it and I have my toddler around so it's just not achievable.

Any tips? He's currently fallen back asleep on me after being up for a couple of hours because there's no way I could push him from 4:30 till 9 for his first nap. The rest of the family will be up in 20 mins though.

Thanks

It sounds a bit counterintuitive but you could try putting him to bed earlier - I find when my DS has a spell of early waking I just put him to bed a little earlier and he sleeps longer. This will also help the day feel less horrendously long after his second nap, and will fight the over tiredness from not having that catnap anymore!

Could you try waking him after 30 mins in the morning nap? And not let him go over an hour in afternoon in the hope he speaks longer?

Sleeps not speaks

I found at that age that not enough sleep in the day effects night sleep and leads to early waking. Then it's a catch 22 situation. I don't think less sleep in the day is the answer. An earlier bedtime might help like PP suggested. Whenever my DS dropped a day nap his bedtime got earlier until he adjusted. Although we did go through a period of early waking too and there wasn't much that changed it. So you might find that nothing helps. If you are going to try to something different though it is worth trying it for a substantial period of time before declaring it hasn't worked. I hope things change because the early starts nearly broke me. I feel your pain.

So sorry, I didn't see your replies, moving house at the moment and it's all a bit hectic.

Thanks everyone. Still no improvement in the early waking but I'm going to give bringing forward bedtime a try. It's been creeping later and later recently.

He was sick last night so in bed with me and I ended up feeding him at 4:30 as he was wide awake and after that he slept till 6:30. Hope he doesn't come to expect that and then I get a whole new problem!