9 month old early waking

[bearhugs22]

At a total loss as to how to fix my 9 month old dd’s early morning wakings! She doesn’t wake up crying, I just hear her babbling away on the monitor. Nothing I’ve tried gets her back to sleep, she seems wide awake! Can anyone advise? Our day usually looks like this

• 5-5:30 awake (although today was 4:40!!!)
• BF first thing
• 7am breakfast
• 8:30 nap (anywhere between 40-90 mins)
• BF on waking
• 12ish lunch
• 1:30 - 2:30 nap (anywhere between 30-90 mins)
• BF on waking (sometimes this feed is before the nap instead)
• 5pm dinner
• 6:30 BF
• 7pm asleep

Her naps can vary in length quite a bit but she usually get between 2-2.5 hours in total. Yesterday she napped for 2.5 hours and slept 9.5 hours at night, so she only got 12 hours in total which surely isn’t enough?! I have been keeping the first nap at 8:30 regardless of what time she wakes but it’s made no difference (also reluctant to put her down earlier as it just throws off the rest of our day).

Grateful for any words of wisdom!

I would say overtired. That's long awake times from potentially 915am to 130pm. Unless I have read that wrong? Your lo might be just a 10 to 10.5 hours overnight kind of lo. My lo always is.

My kid always been low sleep needs. Some just are. I would suggest that lo needs to be hitting 3 to 3.5 hours sleep a day with less overnight. Bedtime needs to be 8pm.

Either add an extra short nap to get that and/or move your day forward every 15 mins every 3 or 4 days

Thanks Chitty. It is quite a long window in the middle of the day but she struggles in the evening if this nap is too early. She always fought her third nap so hard and it was so stressful, I was relieved when we dropped it, but maybe I can give it another go for a few days and see how we get on..

Or the other way which is how I did it. We had early wakes for ages too. Push that first nap as close as you can to 930am. Allow 1.5 hours sleep, even 2. So if lo wakes at 11am, 2pm to 215pm sleep till up to 4pm (3 hour awake time) Then that gets you 8pm. Then once the early wakes reduce cut the naps down accordingly, especially that first nap, second one not so much. I know then the first awake window Is long, but it's the hope that lo can catch up on the sleep during the day.

Just to check, lo not cold? It is dark enough? Etc. Adding a supper about 7pm ish helped us too.

Also it takes up to 3 weeks to see any changes in routine. Took about a week for us.

For 3rd nap, you could do one about 5pm but then would lo go to sleep at 8pm.....

It's so complicated with sleep. You never quite know what to do.

Oh and nice big feed and lunch etc before nap in hopes lo sleeps longer

Thank you! I put her to sleep a bit earlier this morning due to the exceptional early wake… she went down at 8:10 and is still asleep! I’ll try the next nap after 3 hours awake and see how we go. Then tomorrow I will try my hardest to keep her up till at least 9.
Her room is completely blacked out and warm enough so don’t think it’s that. I’ve wondered if the sound of the cat roaming round in the morning disturbs her but there’s not much I can do about that. She does have white noise on all night so so though that would muffle any noises!

Fab. Just be aware the theory is giving long morning nap so early can reinforce early wake ups.

Can you put white noise louder? We have a speaker from curry's along with old phone and downloaded it onto phone. It's loud and when I have slept in there with my lo I literally can hear anything it's bliss.

*can't hear anything I mean.

Yea it could go louder I guess, will try that as well.
I do think I let her nap a bit too long this morning (was enjoying my peace and quiet too much), how long do you think I should let her sleep for that first nap?

It's hard to know. Depends on your lo. Some Los you can put them down for 2 hours that early (8am) and that's fine. Some Los means it reinforces the early wake up, its trial and error.

Personally because it sounds like lo is overtired I would probably give 2 hours this morning initially. Then pop down about 1pm to 130pm. Then if you get to 330pm even 4pm that's 730pm to 8pm bedtime..... then tomorrow try and push that first nap forward more.

Do try white noise louder, it works beautiful for our lo.

What we did at that age
930am/945am till 11am
2pm to 215pm anything up to 4pm
8pm sleep.
630am to 7am wake.

This worked for us. But your routine may look slightly different

Just remember any changes takes up to 3 weeks to see a change.

At the early mornings - do you take lo out of room? I would literally do anything I mean anything to get lo back to sleep until 7am. Being quiet. No eye contact etc

Well she went to sleep for her second nap at 13:00 (3hr10 awake time) and she slept for 29 minutes 🙄 woke up crying, tried everything to get her back to sleep but it wasn’t happening. Once she had calmed down she was wide awake and chatting away!
I don’t try too hard in the morning anymore to be honest. She is wide awake and happy and trying to get her back to sleep just ends up in tears and a stressful start to the day for us all :(

I would try a nap at 430pm fir 30 mins? Then that helps with later bedtime. The first few days arr messy while you establish a routine

How did it go today??

I would suggest these tweaks to your routine
5-5:30 awake (although today was 4:40!!!)
BF first thing => don’t feed until 6.30am, before then it’s night time so keep everything dark and quiet with no interaction

7am breakfast => move to 7.30am or one hour after the breastfeed. Make sure it’s something substantial like porridge made with full fat milk

8:30 nap (anywhere between 40-90 mins)=> move to 9.20 for 40 mins and wake by 10 no matter how long the nap has been

BF on waking => try to drop this feed as it will interfere with lunch

12ish lunch => move to 11.30 and make sure it is protein-based eg salmon fillet or fish pie, or spaghetti bolognese, or chicken risotto. Offer a full fat Greek yoghurt afterwards

1:30 - 2:30 nap (anywhere between 30-90 mins) => move this to 12.30 and aim for a 2-hr nap. This nap is absolutely critical to combatting early morning waking. If she keeps waking early then reduce the morning nap or move the afternoon nap so it’s 1-3. But it needs to be a solid 2 hr nap

BF on waking (sometimes this feed is before the nap instead)

5pm dinner
6:30 BF
7pm asleep