5mo (almost 6o) old waking every day at 5am..HELP!

[SB1712]

My 5 month old has always been a tricky sleeper but in the last couple of weeks has been waking earlier and earlier and now wakes anytime between 4.30 and 5am

She only dropped her night feed about a month ago and would self soothe with the dummy and although she woke for that she would go back off til nearer to 7.
I can cope with 6am starts but I am exhausted with the constant night wakings and then the 5am call time
She goes to bed around 7pm every night and it’s worth saying will sleep quite soundly until she wakes at 4, occasionally she is restless and needs the dummy being put back in.

She’s really not a good napper either, only going down for 30 minutes at a time in the day. I feel exhausted and feel like I’m not doing enough for her because other babies get so much more sleep. No matter what I try whether it’s pram, car, cot she will not stay asleep more than 30/40 mins max.

Because of her bad sleeping habits I feel she is growing more and more cranky as the days go on.
At home our room has a blackout blind, I play deep white noise in the background, she has a comforter and dummy and can normally for the most part get herself to sleep.

Does anyone have any advice or has been through something similar?

It's completely debilitating isn't it. I feel like a zombie most days

My almost 3 yo is up between 5-530 every single day. No matter what time he goes to bed. This is marginally better than it was, for about 6 months he was up 430-5

He hasn't napped since before he turned 2. We are on our knees with tiredness.

The 7 yo isn't much better, she's up at 530 every day as well.

Neither will lie in and as soon as they open their eyes they want to go downstairs. I'm hoping they eventually grow out of it but for now we are resigned to our fate of early risers!

My toddler still wakes at 5. you just used to it and adjust your day. I work full time so I go to bed earlier than I did before I had DC.

Sounds familiar. We went through this for a while....it'll pass then come back then pass (if like us you have an inconsistent sleeper). Just hang in there and go to bed earlier.

She's sleeping loads. 5am really isn't that early?!

Morning nap might be too early ? To echo what others have said. She is sleeping really well for her age. I think you may just have to ride it out my dd is 16 months and only really started getting up later 6 rather than 4-5 once we got rid of milk.

@SilverGlassHare

And there’s always someone who says ‘I always treated it as a night time waking’ - well, my DS did not treat it as a night time waking! If he woke in the night, a quick pat would send him back to sleep. If I tried that in the morning, he’d just cry endlessly, no matter how much I patted or fed or changed him. Obviously I could try to ignore the wailing but a) it was distressing due both of us and b) I couldn’t sleep through the noise anyway. DH and I just took turns getting up with him - at least then one of us went back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Ah well. I should know better than sharing what worked for me. Note to self, make sure it works for absolutely everyone in human existence before offering it as a suggestion.

Apologies.

Im just in awe she's sleeping right through. Neither if mine did that at that age! You are actually incredibly lucky!

5 30 starts were normal here for a while too. We had coffee and cbeebies for an hour while I woke up.

We did try later bedtimes to see if that would help and at the time blackoutblind in case it was the sun (not midwinter then!)

Eventually a gro clock helped but I think that was around 3yo. Then with preschool/shool 7am was more common.

I am still jealous of your sleep!

Hi, sounds like you're doing an amazing job! My baby had a hell of a 4 month regression and I was up every 1-2hrs from 3.5mo to about 7mo then it slowly whittled down to 3, 2, 1 then he slept through at about 12mo. After 4.30am he would always need to sleep on me.
I would be in bed by 8.30pm and asleep by 9pm as even then I'd be getting about 4hrs broken sleep each night. I had no life till he was about 8mo.

Either with all the wake ups, or sleeping through, he always has about 10.5hrs sleep at night. I dont know many babies that slept 12hrs. Once they start consolidating down to 2 then 1 naps, the nights can get longer but 12hrs is still pretty unheard of.
Before about 7mo his naps were no longer then about 30mins long if in the cot, then the first one started to get longer. I would often have him nap on me or out in the pushchair to have at least one long nap a day so you could try that.
I would definitely try feeding at the 4.30/5am wake up.
You could try shifting everything by 5mins each day towards an 8pm bedtime but I wouldn't go pushing the wake windows too much, this will not help the nap lengths.
Could also try an earlier bedtime to combat any overtiredness but I doubt this will get you much past 5am either.
If you change things up you'll need to do it for about a week to see a shift in pattern.
I know it's really frustrating and no matter what your sleep situation there will always be something to improve to get to the perfect routines in the books and Instagram but I think they are largely unachievable!!
Good luck x

I'm Another person who treated it as a night waking. What worked for me.
Stay in Los room and do whatever you can do to get lo to sleep. Even if you bridge the gap by feeding until older, and holding lo to sleep and staying like that. Get as close to 7am as possible.

Black out blinds to make as dark as possible.

My lo hung onto this 5am feed for a little while. Introduce a dreamfeed about 11pm (my oh did this) some do a 3am dreamfeed it's to help 5am wakings along with nappy change - it's meant to reset their system. Keeping them fuller at 530am and a little less wet.

Later bedtime 8pm worked for us, as my lo was having 3 naps a day, so worked well for us.

Nap routine, even if lo woke up at 5/530am. Get first nap as close to 9am as possible - then only allow hour sleep. I think I saw you lo only sleeps 30 mins - at 25 mins Mark hang right next to lo and start patting or putting hand on chest to soothe into next sleep cycle. It might not work straight away but keep trying. Then lo will hopefully sleep longer cycles in the next month.

9am nap wake 10am.
1230/1pm nap usually woke at 220pm/230pm
430 /5pm nap woke by 515pm then bedtime 8pm.

Just a reminder any changes to routine takes up to 3 weeks for baby to get used to it, and adjust with their cardiac rythem or something.

This is the all advice I got from mumsnet when I searched. It can be a bit rough while lo is adjusting but it worked for us.

The other way is wake to sleep. Basically about 430/5am you stir lo awake by slightly lifting or similar not waking then the hope is they sleep past that time their waking - I have never been brave enough to try it. Takes up a week to work apparently 🤷🏼‍♀️

I say it worked for us my lo still wakes about 615/630am 😂 but will stay in cot till about 7am, unless she's impatient that day x

When my children were babies, I went to bed at 9 most nights as that was the only way I could function the following day.
How much formula is she having at bed time? Maybe try to give her another ounce. Also, what time does she go down for her first nap of the day?
I have 2 grandchildren and their routine at 6 months was as follows:
Get up around 6am, bottle, weetabix, play.
Nap time 8.30 - 9
Lunch time 11.30
Nap time 1 - 3
Tea time 5
Bath time 6.30, bottle 7, bed

At bath time, one parent sorts the baby out, the other sorts the evening meal out so parents sit down to eat around 7.30.

@Fancyties
It’s called a circadian rhythm. But you’re absolutely correct, it needs to be reset and can take time to settle.
www.sleepfoundation.org/circadian-rhythm

@soontobe60 whoops I was brisking the post I wrote and thought that didn't sound right 😂 thanks

She’s still only 5 months old - prime sleep regression territory, plus I don’t think you can expect too much by way of “normality” at that age

For ref my boy is 19 months and still doing this in phases. Currently in 5am phase. Woke at 4 this morning.
A good run will be consistent 6ams.

They’re all different and unfortunately some are just early risers - although we resist lifting him before 6 trying a milk in bed etc.

As PPs say, treat it as a night waking and try to break the habit again.

Howpefuly they don’t turn out to be an extra early riser in long run!

My daughter has been doing this for the last couple of weeks, she's 10 months. I don't know what's going on but she's done this before so I always assume she's just going through something and she will probably go back to her 6:30 wake up again soon.

I feel so tired! Especially with all the Christmas celebrations too

@SB1712

It’s hard as when you google it (which I often do when she wakes up!) it says anything before 6 is considered early waking and it doesn’t help that those around me have babies that sleep way later and you can’t help but compare. I don’t feel she gets god quality sleep from 4.30 and then as a result I worry her first nap of the day comes too late as I try not to bring her back up til before 7.30.

If she napped more/better in the day I could probably get my head around the 5am starts a bit more but I never feel she wakes up refreshed from the 30 minute cat naps and from 4pm I feel it’s a fight to keep her going until she goes down.
Should I perhaps bring bedtime forward slightly?

There's so much nonsense on the internet, it just makes you doubt yourself

I follow Lyndsey Hookway on Instagram and I find her so reassuring, highly recommend her and her books

That's a great sleeper you have there OP. Try going to bed yourself a bit earlier. Wrt cooking, can you do easy things in the slow cooker to free up your evenings more?

With the daytime naps, if she wakes before 45 mins, you could try shush-patting for 10 mins or so to try to encourage her to link her sleep cycles and have a longer nap. You could try getting rid of the dummy too if she is relying on it.p to get to sleep. If she was having longer naps then you could have a little down time in the day and an earlier bedtime for you might not feel so bad.

If it were me, I'd try to get all my cooking and eating done before she goes to bed, then as soon as she goes down at 7 it's chill time. Then get myself in bed by 9. A solid 8 hours uninterrupted til 5 am! That's really very unusual at 6 months old and I think you are exceptionally lucky. I don't know what you are reading if you've got the idea that this is a bad sleeper!