8.5 month old early wakings

[Vicky1989x]

My DD has never been a great sleeper but I recently got her sleeping until 7am, but now we’ve gone back to waking anywhere between 3am and 5am. Yesterday she woke at 3am, I ended up feeding her at 4:15 (she hasn’t had night feedings for a while) and she went back to sleep until 7:30 but today she woke at 4:30, I tried the same but she won’t go back to sleep. Can anyone help? I tried extending daytime sleep, reducing it, giving more food, etc. Yesterday went like this:

3am: woke
4:15am: 6oz milk
4:45-7:30am: sleep
8am: breakfast (offered a top up of milk, didn’t want it)
10am: 30 min nap
11am: 6oz milk
12am: lunch
1:15pm: 1 hour 45 minute nap
3pm: 6oz milk
4:30pm: dinner
6:30pm: 6oz milk (offered 7oz)
7pm: bed and asleep

My routine is the same from 11am onwards but normally first milk would be at 7am and first nap is at 9/9:30. First nap is normally 45 mins - 1.5 hours and second nap is 1.5-2 hours. I’ve tried capping them, extending them, earlier bedtime, later bedtime etc but nothing has worked.

I’m just lost. I don’t know what to do anymore. Any advice?

My DD wakes at 5.10am on the dot at 13months and until we sleep trained 3 weeks ago would wake at 3 /4am for a bottle too.

I would try having dinner a bit later. 4.30pm for the last food of the day seems a bit early. My 2 would have tea at home say 5.30pm - on a nursery day it would be a light tea at 3.30pm followed by a full dinner when they got home at just after 6pm.

You could try sleep training (we used controlled crying) - so that if your DC is using the milk to settle back to sleep they will be able to do this themselves. However 8.5months is probably not unusual to still be having a night feed (at whatever time). It might be a case of riding it out - if they want a play downstairs for half an hour while u lie on the sofa at 4am before nodding off again maybe just go with it? Not ideal, but better than the internal rage and desparation at trying to get them to do something they cant/wont?

If I try giving her dinner any later she doesn’t drink her bedtime milk ☹️ But I guess I could try it today and see if it makes any difference!

She self settles on her own and usually sleeps within 5 minutes of putting her down so not really sure what else to do. I think she’s teething (no teeth yet) so might be why she’s wanting a feed again in the night 🤷🏼‍♀️

Thank you for your suggestions, will try giving dinner later and see what happens!

She might still need a night feed - I’d try a bottle before you go to bed at 10-11pm.

@StacySoloman I’m a bit worried about introducing a late feed now - I tried a couple of times before and she would then stay awake for 3 hours! Plus, I’m usually in bed by 9pm 😂

I’d feed her without waking her.