5 month old waking at 5am

[cookiesaurus]

My just turned 5 month old wakes every day at 5/5.30am and will not go back to sleep. I end up getting up and killing time until we
'Begin' our day at 7am with a milk feed etc.

I've read loads of books on how to deal with it but I have tried resettling and feeding and everything else they suggest and she just won't sleep.

I cannot find how to deal with naps as a result of early waking. I tend to put her down at about 8.30am as everything suggests that anything earlier will reinforce the early waking into a defined habit. However, I feel like this is too long a wakeful period at 5 months.

She usually naps well except for the afternoon nap where she fights it and in total gets around 3.25/3.5 hours daytime sleep.

She does suffer from reflux for which she is quite heavily medicated. Her reflux is also affecting her milk intake but I have tried doing a 3am dream feed and it makes no difference to her waking at 5am! I've also had the issue where I have fed her at 3 and she woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep 🤦🏻‍♀️ I have started weaning her due to her reflux and milk intake but she is on very small amounts of super smooth veg purée.

I tend to base nap times on a wakeful period of 2/2.25 hours - so if she gets up at 9.45, her nap is at 11.45/12.

Any ideas?

Honestly some kids are just early risers. My 4 yr old has always woken up early (ie before 6am). Tried moving bedtime, tried cutting naps, tried exhausting him during the day, nothing makes a difference.

@DoodleLovin this is what I am thinking!
What did you do in terms of that first nap? Thanks for replying

I would ignore all advice to delay first nap. If she is waking at 5, she will be tired. I would have her back down by 7 am.

I think this is fairly normal..5 months is still very young, my 3 year old still gets up at 6am every day, always been an early riser. Just how it goes sometimes

@SpaceOp this is what I'm thinking!

@cookiesaurus he dropped the morning nap pretty young- when he started daycare at 1.5 yrs if I remember correctly. He only just dropped the afternoon nap a few months ago. Take me back to 2 naps a day!!!! I need the breaks 😭

Honestly I think for a lot of babies 5am is a phase they go through. Mine woke at 5am for about 2 months straight at that age, then he gradually woke later and later without me changing anything. He's slept 12 hours from a year old consistently. I'd just roll with it, 5 months is still really young.

Totally normal. Just roll with it.

Ds1 went through this for quite a while. Nothing I did made a difference and eventually he started sleeping longer. He's 5 now and woke up at 8am!!!

Is she waking in the night? If she's not, I'd embrace it!! You have quite a lot of positives going on here, the naps sound amazing (ds1 didn't nap either )
I know how difficult it is at 5am though so you have my sympathy.

What time is bedtime?

Generally speaking it's good to delay first nap because if you bring it forward too much, it reinforces the early waking, but since there is such a big gap between the actual wake time and desired wake time, it would probably be a good idea to meet in the middle. For example, if you want to start the day at 6.30am with first nap at 8.30am, but baby's waking at 5am, you could try doing the first nap at 7.45am. Or start with making it around 7.15am and try and make it slightly later each day?

Btw, my DD is 5 months and I'm trying to improve her sleep atm too so I'm doing lots of reading/thinking about sleep, whether I can put it into practice remains to be seen

She has reflux too but it's caused by CMPA and other allergies and is manageable, sometimes flares up but not too bad atm touch wood.

Totally normal, you feel like you've done a full day's work by midday. It's worse when they're toddlers and won't stay in bed so you just have to find ways to cope...for a few years...

Mine are now 14 and 17 and don't rise until the afternoon at weekends so it's not forever.

It's so nice to hear that they do eventually get through all of the sleep issues!

I am lucky in that she tends to nap well.

@NameChange30 my DD is also on CMPA milk but I'm convinced that she doesn't have an allergy but the paediatrician has said that it won't do any harm to continue with the milk. She drinks more of the CMPA milk but still not enough (although she's not underweight for some reason - 7kg and drinking 600mls per day). Hope your DD continues to improve 🤞🏻

I think she's waking at 5 because she's hungry and I just need to adjust her naps to to take into account her issues with reflux and the early waking.

I have a recently turned 2 year old as well, but thankfully, she is still in her cot for the time being although on the brink of dropping her nap 🙈

Thanks everyone, for helping me sense check this! Sometimes reading about an issue just makes it less clear than when you started! I'm trying to remember that everything is a phase.... 👍🏻👍🏻

@salty78 absolutely! My husband works really long hours, often into the small hours, so once they're in bed I'm trying to get the house tidy, cook dinner and do some exercise so it's often 11.30/12 before I go to bed. This is what needs to change as the 5am waking would be much easier to deal with if I had an earlier night!

I can't wait for the teenage lie ins!

This is the problem we're having. DS is 4.5 months and sleeps badly all night. But from 4.30/5am he's fully awake and nothing I do gets him back to sleep. I could feed/shh/pat/rock/bounce... Nothing. He's wide awake. He's always been an early riser so we consider anything after 6am "acceptable" to start the day which is still early and means he has to have his first nap of the day by 8am! But if he doesn't go back to sleep from 4.30/5, that nap has to be even earlier and he's back down for a nap before the bloody sun has even come up! Delaying that nap doesn't work as he really can't stay awake much longer than 1 hr 45 at a time at 4 months old... But I'm worried I'm reinforcing the early waking too! It's a complete nightmare. And if that first nap is stupidly early, the whole day is then off!

So to sum up, I have no advice or anything helpful to offer except SAME HERE and you have my deepest (confused) sympathies!

P.S I do the same, treat it as a night waking, no talking, keep dark etc etc. Makes no difference! We just battle until 6am when I chuck him at my husband and he takes him downstairs so I can get an extra 30-60 mins sleep...

@moonriver32 sounds like you're coping well. Hang in there!

I've had a bit of success - we removed the dummy from my DD about a month ago but we have given it back to her for naps and sleeping at night. This seems to have done the trick. We were just trying to avoid an awful weaning process.

Who knows if it will work longer term, but I'm going to stick with it for now.