9mo 5am Waking

[Rowlie]

From 7m, DS started sleeping through 7pm- 6/6.30am ish. I appreciate we are very lucky.

However over the past month he has started waking anywhere from 5-5.30am. I do leave him as he’s not crying and he will go back to sleep but only for 30 minutes, and it can take 30 mins or more of him shouting and making a lot of noise (which I can’t sleep through) for him to fall back asleep.

I have researched early waking and there seem to be some many potential causes I have no idea what to do.

He has 2x naps a day, roughly on 2-3-4 schedule. First nap is always 1hr 20 and second nap can be 1hr 20 or 2 hours (seems completely random!). So is having about 2-3 hours day sleep.

Is he overtired/under tired? I try not to put him down for first nap until 8.45am earliest, whatever time he wakes. Second nap is 1.30pm and awake by 3/3.30pm.

He has white noise, black out, sleeping bag (1.0tog) and I have tried pushing bed back later but made no difference.

Has anyone solved this? Is it something he will just grow out of? A phase? I’m feeling very anxious about it. I go to bed by 9pm but still so tired and don’t think he can be getting enough sleep in 24 hour period.

It's within the normal range. You'll get used to it but he may need 3 naps. Or longer ones. Bottle before bed, later meal.

Dts we're like this and still are at age 10. Some kids are just wired that way. Especially in summer.

Completely normal and if he's asleep at 7 that's 10 hours sleep he's getting. And if he's sleeping through I think you need to adjust your expectations a bit. If you're going to bed at 9 you're also getting a reasonable amount of sleep too tbh,maybe worth seeing the GP to see if you're taking in something?

I know some kids always wake early, but mine have always gone through phases of waking early and phases of waking later. I always treated wakings before 6:30 as night wakings, but you can't force a child back to sleep so you'll still be awake with them. If you're feeling exhausted you need to prioritise catching up with sleep somewhere else - either by going to bed earlier or napping in the day when he naps.

I think I just find it hard that he was sleeping an extra hour, now isn’t. Could it be that he just needs less sleep now in which case should I be cutting his day sleep? I’ve tried putting him to bed at 7.30pm for a week and it made no difference. Randomly he will do the occasional morning where he sleeps past 6 and it makes all the difference. Could it be a regression?

@fighoney thanks. I work full time so can’t nap but on the weekend my husband and I take turns so one of us sleeps a bit longer.

Honesty,he's 9 months, he's doing what be wants to because that's what babies do.

Try getting up with him when he first wakes, pushing his first nap back until 10am earliest, get outside of the house between waking up and that first nap so he really separates nighttime sleep from day time nap, be as active as possible between waking and first nap, when first nap comes let him sleep as long as he needs. End any subsequent naps by 5pm at the absolute latest and keep bedtime consistent at 7pm. Try it for 2 weeks to give him time to adjust before judging whether or not it's working.
If it doesn't work and he's sleeping 11-14 hours in a 24hr period then that might just be his new pattern.
Good luck.

I would say now he’s a bit older he needs less sleep in a 24 hr period. Can you try putting him to bed slightly later?

my 9mos sleep has recently gone horrible but before that she was having an 8.30 bedtime otherwise she was awake at 4/5am

@Downbythebayy I was wondering if that was the case but he’s sometimes only having 2 hours in the day and 10 at night. I thought they needed 10 minimum at night, ideally 11-12, and 2-3 hours in the day. So 14 hours in 24 total?

Wow you're lucky getting all that sleep full stop. They might need it, doesn't mean they do it or want it! For a 7pm bedtime 5am isn't that bad!

@Crimsonripple I know I do realise many would kill for this. I had four months of him waking every 2 hours so do understand.

We solved it. But can take up to 3 weeks to adjust little ones internal clock so to speak.

Simply put a later bedtime. If we put our lo to sleep at 7pm she be up at 5am. If we do 8pm bedtime we get between 6am and 7am.

Checking usual factors of lo not cold? Hungry? Etc? Everything all dark and blacked put? Birds not waking lo?

Think personally I would play with nap timings moving everything forward. Some people cut morning nap down to get a longer afternoon one..... up to you and whether you have yo think of other children.

I had this with my first dc
I cut nap 1 to 45 mins. Start 10am.
And also move bed to 8pm and after a few weeks it moved to 6.30. Mine only ever did 10.5 overnight.
dc2 does 11.5 - they are all diff!

We've had about 6 weeks of this starting around 9 months, but now settled back to 18.30 - 6.00. I wonder if it is a developmental thing or perhaps just the time of year? I've slightly changed a couple of things which might have helped, but I'm not sure - capped daytime naps to 2.5 hours total max (usually first nap is 1 hr, 2nd 1.5 hrs, I wake her up if she's going over this), adjusted timings so she's not sleeping later than 2.30 (6.30 pm bedtime), swapped her to a short sleeved vest for night time sleep as I wondered if she was too warm. I personally wouldn't push bedtime later - overtiredness tends to cause early waking. It's probably just a phase (like everything) that will work itself out soon.

Our schedule currently is as follows:
Wake 6am ish
1st nap 8.45 (1 hour)
2nd nap 12.30/13.00 (1.5 hours)
Asleep 18.30

@MGee123 yes I’m hopeful it is a phase. I’ve read sleep can be at its worst 8-10m, so perhaps part of that. I do realise his sleep is good though compared to many others his age so thankful for that, just frustrating when he is clearly waking still tired.

I make sure all naps finished by 4pm so 6.30pm bedtime would be too early for us.

What time is he going to sleep? If he's napping until 4pm you wouldn't expect bedtime to be until 8/8.30? If it's earlier than that, that might be why he's waking early as he's not built up enough sleep demand?

@MGee123

Routine currently looks something like this:

5-5.30am - wakes
(leave in cot until 6/6.30am sometimes goes back to sleep)
9-10.20am - 1st nap (1hr 20)
1.30-2.50pm - 2nd nap (1hr 20 but sometimes this nap can be 2 hours finishing at 3.30pm. Sometimes he is put down a bit later so wakes at 4pm)
7-7.30pm - bed

We’re working on 3.5hr wake windows max.

Christ. I wish my 3yo would sleep that well, never mind my baby 😳 7-5 of solid sleep is really good! Maybe adjust your expectations?

I would just stick to your routine and see if it changes again as he gets a bit older & the Autumn arrives. We're already past the longest day.

im in my 50's and currently waking about 4:30, sometimes 3:30, occasionally 5. Always do in the summer months. It's definitely NOT that I'm not tired, or that I've napped too much (chance would be a fine thing!!). Sometimes the birds are making quite a lot of noise, but not always. I think it's just body clock,

it's lovely here at 5:30, so I just try to embrace it!

it would be better if I could go to bed early, but I can't.

could you try a change of mindset to enjoying the extra hour with DS before work? I find it really affects the way I feel to embrace it & enjoy it rather than get annoyed by it, but I know I'm waking, not being woken.

if you want to 'try' things, I'd try an extra afternoon nap so he's not over tired. Counter intuitive I know, but can work for babies whose afternoon nap us quite early.

@IDontDrinkTea I do appreciate this is good for a 9mo, although I seem to speak to quite a lot of people whose babies do 7-7?! He woke every 1-2hrs until 4 months so I understand sleep deprivation. I guess everything is relative and from 5-8m he was doing 7-6-6.30am, so just trying to get him back to that if poss.

I’m not annoyed by it and I do understand expectations, I just know he needs that extra hour too. We have white noise so don’t think it’s birds waking him. Have blacked out room but some light still gets in.

@JugglingJanuary we dropped his afternoon catnap at around 7-8m as it was getting too close to bedtime. He is up from his last nap between 3-4pm so this seems ok for a 7/7.30pm bedtime. I have tried a later bedtime but he still woke same time, so even more tired.

I think a 4pm nap time wake up is far too late! I also think you're obsessing a little too much about how much sleep they should have. They will have as much as they want. You can't force it otherwise you just stress them and you out. The fact he's getting some good solid sleep in without waking up is brilliant. At 9 months we still had multiple wakings and 4.30am wake ups. Whilst I appreciate it is all relative...For the people like myself who've had it tough for the last 3 years (child only started sleeping through consistently at age 3) find these hard to read when people are still complaining and they're getting 8 plus hours a night and multiple naps!

@Crimsonripple I’m not complaining. Just asking others for any advice. Fully prepared for it all to change again too as sleep isn’t linear. Yes he’s currently doing really well but it may be completely different again in a month.

He currently seems to be able to stay awake 3/3.5hours max so a 4pm wake with a 7.30pm bedtime seems ok currently although I know again that will change as he gets older.

find these hard to read when people are still complaining and they're getting 8 plus hours a night and multiple naps!

Its not a race to the bottom. Someone has always got it harder but doesn’t mean op can’t ask for advice 🙄