5am wake up

[edin16]

DS is almost 9 months old and has always been a rubbish sleeper but we've been working on it and now he self settles and wakes twice on a good night and a couple more times on a bad night. But the only consistent thing he does is wake at 5am. But not in a 'yes, I'm ready for the day' way but a 'oh my god, this is far too early and I'm going to moan until I sleep again' way.

If I manage to settle him in the cot he'll sleep for about 10 minutes, then repeat. So I tend to just bring him into my bed. But even there I have to have him on me constantly patting and shoogling just to get him to sleep for a little longer.

I don't think it's a habit and he knows he'll be picked up because I've persevered with not picking him up and it's not changed anything.

He's night weened but it's not hunger and the room temperature is consistent. I've tried changing his nappy but that's met with lots of tears and then he won't settle back off anywhere.

Any thoughts anyone?

Early waking is likely to do with over tiredness in terms of total amount of sleep over the previous 24h. So not enough daytime sleep, plus waking through the night.

The pressure to sleep is at its lowest point first thing in the early morning. You would be better getting up properly (despite the whinging) and powering through. Then two factors contribute to reducing the chances of it happening more:

• increase the amount of sleep he gets over 24h. This may mean more frequent naps, more naps per day, or longer naps.
• power through early evening with busy activities to establish a later bedtime. Aim to condense total night sleep into a 10-11h period.