8 Month old waking at 5am!

[Sayer19]

Since before the DST clock change my DS has woken at 5-5:30am. I thought the time change would solve the problem but turns out he's highly adaptable!

When he wakes he's bright eyed and raring to go but generally happy chatting to himself until I hear him around 6 when we get up and start the day. Even if I try and resettle at 5 he won't go back down, or if he does it's after an hour or so of being awake so it's then like his first nap? I never get him up before 6.

He sleeps independently, well in his cot with a dummy & white noise in a dark room.

He's having 27oz plus 2 meals & maybe a snack so I don't think it's hunger.

We do 2 naps a day following huckleberry wake windows but I wont put him down for his first one until 8:30 to try and push our day back to schedule.
His naps are 1 hr 15 minutes or above, generally 2.5-3 hours over the day.

I've tried an earlier/later bedtime but he still wakes at the same time, he went down at 8 last night but only ended up having 9.5 hours of sleep!

Before this he was an amazing sleeper doing 11hours overnight & about 3 hours in the day.

Any advice welcome!!
Is there something I'm doing wrong or that I can tweak? Or is this another stage he "should" grow out of?

TIA

I would fo a week or two of an 11pm wake and reset. So when you/DH goes to bed, wake baby up. Properly wake him. Do a nappy change and give a full feed, then resettle back to sleep.

The idea is to restart the night - clean nappy and fill tummy. If this works, stop waking him and see if you've shifted routine. If he goes back to waking early once the feed stops, then the problem is/was calorie deficit.

You need to give this up to 2 weeks to try, rather than a couple of days and assuming it's not worked.

If after 2 weeks of wake-feed-nappy-resettle, if baby continues to wake early, most likely cause is chronic sleep deprivation - baby needs more sleep over 24h than he is getting. Not just the day before, but every day. I'd suggest you'll need to move both naps earlier and add in a third nap.

@FATEdestiny

I would fo a week or two of an 11pm wake and reset. So when you/DH goes to bed, wake baby up. Properly wake him. Do a nappy change and give a full feed, then resettle back to sleep.

The idea is to restart the night - clean nappy and fill tummy. If this works, stop waking him and see if you've shifted routine. If he goes back to waking early once the feed stops, then the problem is/was calorie deficit.

You need to give this up to 2 weeks to try, rather than a couple of days and assuming it's not worked.

If after 2 weeks of wake-feed-nappy-resettle, if baby continues to wake early, most likely cause is chronic sleep deprivation - baby needs more sleep over 24h than he is getting. Not just the day before, but every day. I'd suggest you'll need to move both naps earlier and add in a third nap.

I was hoping you'd pop along! Thankyou for the advice, we'll give the resettle a try. He sleeps like a log but hopefully the nappy change should do the trick!

He tends to get at-least 14 hours in a day and is generally a happy baby throughout the day. He'll have 11 hours overnight with a 6pm bedtime + naps but it's like the whole thing is just shifted too early. I did a transition between 2-3 a couple of weeks ago as the third nap was getting too late, would take an age to get him down and then he'd still be buzzing at 8-9pm
If I had to shift back to 3 would I keep the first nap around 8? or work from his actual wake time? I'm worried about making the situation worse by feeding into the pattern

Thanks again for your time

If you go back to 3 naps, your initial focus wants to be 'More Sleep', rather than routine. My suggestion for 3 nap days is 2-2.5h wake windows through the day. Aim for 2.5h, but if baby is grumpy (esp earlier in the day), then be ready to reduce wake window to 2h.

Stretch the wake window immediately before bedtime, as opposed to stretching the wake window first thing in the morning. This WW wants to be 3-4h.

So a 5am wake, I'd go for:
(2h awake)
7.00-8.30am nap
(2.5h awake)
11.00-12.30pm nap
(2.5h awake)
3.00-4.30pm nap
(3h-4h awake)
8.30pm bed (plan for 8.30pm, but 7.30pm onwards is fine if baby is ready)

Two weeks of ample daytime sleep plus a consistently later bedtime should then shift your wake up time. With a later wake up, you'll have less hours in the day to fit in a third nap.

I would just leave him to it until 6 if he's happy (as long as 6 isn't too early for you).

If you are trying a later bedtime I would shift it gradually (15 mins later every 2 days type of thing and if necessary put an extra nap in to avoid overtiredness) and keep the later time for 2 weeks before deciding it hasn't worked.

A combination of these 2 things worked for me.

My son is now 6 years old , he has woken since a baby at 5.30 am everyday !! We tried everything possible he is just an early riser ! . Since starting school we get the very rare 7am wake up!

My mum thinks it's my own body clock when he was still inside as I would be up and off to my horses by around 5.30 am everyday X

Hey! I would love to know what ended up working for you. We are in the exact same situation and nothing seems to work.