Five Month Old Wake Time

[Rowlie]

A question about my DS’s sleep. On an ‘average’ night he will be in bed between 7-7.30pm and wake around 12am for a feed, then back to sleep until 6am ish, which is great. However really I want him to wake at 7am so I resettle at the earlier waking with a feed as assume he is hungry. He then generally drops back off, and is now still asleep at nearly 8am. Do I start to wake him up at the desired wake up time of 7-7.30 (depending on when he went to bed), or should I count the first 6am wakeup as his morning? The thing is he doesn’t seem ready to wake up then as is grouchy whereas he wakes chatting when happy. He’s also not a great sleeper in the day, usually a serial catnapper having around 4x 40 minutes, although recently one of the morning naps has started to lengthen to 1hr30, but not consistently, when this happens he usually will just have 3 naps.

Anyway, what would you do?

1. Treat 6am wake as morning (even though that only gives him 10-11 hours overnight)
2. Resettle and let him wakeup when he wants (8am ish)
3. Resettle but then wake him up between 7-7.30am? (This might mean he’s just dropped off and I then wake him 20 minutes later)

I’m not a strict routine person but a different wake up time each day does mess things up a but regarding nap times and feeding.

Thanks for advice!!

Oh and I just gave the nap info as I wonder if he does need that extra hour or so resettle if not getting much in the day?!

I'd do either 1 or 2 - 3 seems pointless to me. He's only 5 months so there is lots of time for his routine to change.

Are you saying you feed at 6am if he wakes or that he wakes at 6am if he is not fed at 12?
Personally I would just go with the 8am wake up time if you've nowhere to get out to and enjoy the lie in. I would also try and resettle at 6 without a feed - will he take a dummy? One wake up a night is brilliant, so no reason to change anything but have you considered a dream feed at 10 when you go to bed to save you getting up two hours later.

1 or 2. I would choose 2 personally as it's more sleep at "night" and not giving me a really early start.

Definitely not 3. He's far too little to be made to wake up when his brain/ body wants to be asleep.

Thanks all.

@fighoney He wakes around 5/6 even with the 12/1am feed. He can only do about a 5hr stretch in one go at night, sometimes 6. He is almost EBF and under 25th centile. If he wakes at 5am I always resettle, but 6am seems a bit more acceptable so wondered if I should get him up. He has a bottle of formula at midnight from my husband who is happy to wake at that time as I then do the early morning wake. If we woke him at 10-11 to feed I assume he would be up 3-4am for another feed, so doesn’t make too much difference. Won’t take a dummy and is very good at self-settling (self-settles all naps and at bedtime) but feeding is the quickest way during night and I do think he is hungry. We can rock shush him to sleep if he’s having difficulty self-settling but takes so much longer.