Early wake ups!!

[Olivebranch5]

Hello!
I have a 5 month old who is currently waking up at 3.30-4.30am and is wide awake, happy and ready to play. She stays in her cot for up to an hour playing and talking to her bear but by 7 she’s exhausted and so am I.
We’ve struggled with the naps but she usually gets around 3/4 naps a day that total 3.5 hours, one in a sling and the rest in her cot (we’ve had to do a lot of work to get her there!).
She is usually in bed asleep between 7/7.30 and on a good night wakes up once for a feed but I’m not really sure she’s hungry. The fact she’s so happy when she wakes and doesn’t have a feed until half 6ish makes me think this isn’t a hunger issue.
Anyway I’m torn between thinking she needs an earlier or a later bedtime. I’m loathed to try an earlier bedtime in case it ends her night even earlier but the things I’ve read about sleep suggests this is what she needs but it seems very early.

I think she’s probably totalling 12 hours of sleep over 24 hours which I don’t think is enough but I don’t know whether to let her nap later and put her down later for her night sleep of just bring the bedtime forward.

I’d love to hear if anyone else has managed to shift an early waker to a time that is slightly less antisocial!

And just to add she has blackout blinds so it’s not the sunrise that is waking her

Struggling with daytime naps and waking up early are both the same issue.

You struggle with these more than bedtime because sleep pressure is low. This is the amount of force the body clock puts on us to sleep. Even though we might need to go to sleep, the pressure to go to sleep is greatest at bedtime and is less during the daytime and early morning.

Both will ultimately be solved by looking at the method you use to get baby to go to sleep. The key, important thing is that baby goes to sleep where they stay asleep. So going from fully awake to fully asleep in the cot rather than (say) going to sleep mostly in your arms and then being put down in the cot.

The reason this is important is to do with the fact that we (adults and babies) sleep in cycles of light and deep sleep with very brief periods of wakfullness between cycles. Imagine you want to sleep in your bed and between sleep cycles you rolled over and glanced at the clock ready to settle back to sleep... then suddenly realised you are in the backseat of a car. You wouldn't just roll over and go back to sleep. Your mind would be going WTF happened? Where am I? Why am I here? And in your confusion you would wake fully up.

This brief waking between sleep cycles happens in babies too. It is greater when sleep pressure, in particular early morning. So if baby didn't have good sleep habits in going to sleep, you see the effects greatest in early morning and daytime naps when sleep pressure is low.

So firstly, look at the way you get baby to sleep.

Secondly, and maybe in the interim while changing your methods in going to sleep, make going sleep as easy as possible for baby when sleep pressure is low.

So, for example, try to get to baby and resettle as quickly as humanly possible. The easiest time to resettle is just as baby goes into very light sleep but before actually waking up. You might just see a shift in position or facial expression when this happens. When crying starts it's getting too late.

If you miss the chance to resettle, try feeding as soon as you can and redoing what you'd do at bedtime. The feeding isn't about needing nourishment, it's about comfort and soothing baby back to sleep as quickly as possible.

In terms of timing - it's reasonable to expect 10-12h of night time sleep at this age. So working to an average of 11h, your 7pm bedtime should be a wake up at 6am (or in the 5am-7am range). I'd personally push this towards 8pm so that morning wake up is 7am (give or take an hour), but it's more about personal preference.

It's fair to say 7pm to 4am is not likely to be her natural sleep time overnight, it wouldn't be a healthy amount of sleep. So solving this isn't about saying I'll slide bedtime later do she still has 9h sleep but at a different time. It's moreso about solving the reason for early waking so she has more sleep overnight.

Thank you so much for your reply fatedestiny! It makes sense the naps and the early wakes are linked. She does fall asleep in her cot but it’s very early days with managing to achieve this (about 10 days) so do you think perhaps persevering will gradually help solve this naturally? She largely catnaps but has one longer sleep a day but it’s unpredictable so I’ve just been putting her down to sleep as soon as she seems tired in the day rather than set times.

So even though she seems so awake and ready to start the day at 4am do you think it’s worth feeding and resettling as soon as she wakes up even if she doesn’t appear hungry?

Also how late would you let her nap in the afternoon/evening if you’re aiming for an 8pm bedtime? She gets so grumpy in the evening which is why we’ve ended up with a 7pm bedtime.

Yes to feeding her. Don't consider 4am morning - it's not, it's a night wake up that happens to be at a time she struggles to resettle. She hasn't had enough sleep on 9h a night, it's just the timing of the wake up is when sleep pressure is low so she finds it very hard to resettle. So make it as easy as you can to resettle - which is the purpose of the milk feed. It's not about needing the feed for hunger, it's about the soothing and settling effect milk/feeding has.

Another thing to consider is the temporary introduction of late night feed. The idea is to disrupt and restart the clock on her main sleep. So whenever you/DH comes to bed, you wake her up (and try to actually wake her). Maybe change her nappy so she's not so wet early morning, give her a milk feed and resettle back in cot. It's like a stop/start button to encourage the body clock to shift the 9h block sleep later. You don't need to do the 11pm feed long term, 2 or 3 weeknight be enough to make the switch in her body clock to wake later in the morning without it.

Also how late would you let her nap in the afternoon/evening if you’re aiming for an 8pm bedtime?

At this stage is be expecting daytime awake times of around 60-90 minutes (about double nap length), certainly not more than 2h awake in any one stretch.

Personally I'd be flexible on bedtime, depending on naps that day.

So if you get a 45 min nap at 3.15pm to 4pm then I'd do another nap at 5.30pm (because 3h awake from 4pm to 7pm is too much). Say wakes at 6pm then bed is 7.30/8pm.

But if naps happen to fall so that there is a 4.30pm to 5pm nap, then rather than trying to get through to 8pm I'd instead go for a 7pm bedtime (at the latest) because of the 2h max awake window.

Thank you so much for such helpful advice. You’re right, 4 am is the night and we need to be trying to settle her again rather than accepting the night being over. I’m going to try a late night feed first to see if this helps and work on settling her until 6-7.
The nap advice also makes sense as she falls asleep with much less fuss if she isn’t overtired so I’ll focus on that too to see if I can start to make an improvement over all.
Thank you for you help x

@Olivebranch5 please let us know how you get on! My 5 month old has been waking exactly the same time... he goes down at 6pm and sleeps through until around 3am for a feed then only down for another short while until 4am then wide awake! I've been reluctant to put him back on the breast at that time and trying to leave him in the cot but this morn he screamed so much it took him ages to settle after. Then he's ready for first nap at half5/6!
Moving bedtime even earlier that 6pm seems a bit crazy to me? I don't know, might try the 11pm feed too

The late feed didn’t work as she took an hour to resettle after it and has still woken up at 4.45, mind you that’s slightly later than it has been. I’m feeding her now but she is so wide awake I think I’m going to have to set an alarm to feed her before she wakes up naturally at this time. I’m going to try putting her down but she won’t be happy as she thinks it’s time to start the day!