Really struggling with 7 month old 5am wake up

[Positivethoughts92]

My LO is 7 and a half months and for the past 8 weeks has been waking up consistently at 5am (it’s actually been before this around 4.30am a few mornings this week). I feel like I’ve tried everything so any tips would be greatly appreciated.
She has white noise playing all night, the room is pitch black all night, I have the heating on an app on my phone and it’s consistant the same temperature. It doesn’t seem to be hunger as she doesn’t take a bottle to 6.46-7am and is happy with this (she takes 3 meals and 4 bottles a day). She goes to bed around 7pm - 7.30pm (either of these times she still wakes up like clock work at 5am) and I can’t push this any later because from 6pm she’s so tired and cranky. She self soothes and gets herself to sleep.
At 5am I give her the chance to self soothe, then go in a comfort her but usually she’s too wide awake and has no interest. She bes smiling and kicking about but if I lift her and hold her back to sleep she snuggles in and sleeps immediately in my arms which makes me think she is still tired. I usually end up holding her back to sleep (because she has absolutely no interest in getting herself back over) then setting her back in cot and she will sleep for 15 minutes then I’ll continue this cycle until after 6am. I never lift her out of the cot to start the day to 6.30am as I don’t want to encourage her with the 5am wake. My husband does help but because she doesn’t be crying in the morning just making fed up noises or cooing and screaming away to herself he’s happy to leave her but then she bes totally exhausted all day. I stretch out her first nap of the day to 8.30 and she is exhausted by this stage. She has 3 naps a day first could be an hour an a half then 2 45 min naps in the afternoon - I stick to the 2.5 - 3 hour wake windows.
I was going to go to a sleep consultant but when I checked the tips they were putting up on instagram they seemed to be everything I was already doing so reluctant to spend over £200. She is happy in her own room since Christmas so I don’t want to regress to cosleeping.
Sorry for the long post. What am I doing wrong??

Nope both my LO’s - 1&3 sleep/have slept 7pm-7am from around 8 months, no needing to go in and soothe, if they have woken they’ve soothed themselves back to sleep.
@OP I would say if she’s not screaming just leave her to it, she’ll eventually fall back to sleep herself. And yes as someone else said don’t follow the wake windows, at this stage I would say 2 naps is probably enough.

You're not doing anything wrong, babies of that age need contact and company, and can't self-soothe. So when you lift her and cuddle her she settles back to sleep, and this is all completely normal behaviour, and honestly I'm amazed she's sleeping 7-5 without waking as most babies would stir and need soothing back to sleep a couple of times in that stretch. It's not natural or normal for babies this young to sleep 12 hours without waking, so the best thing you can do is cuddle her in with you and both go back to sleep.

My ds was the same didn't matter what time I put to bed always 5am.
Now he's 3 he sleeps 7pm-6:30am so a bit better.
Some kids are just early risers.. I think with naps you also get a shorter overall sleep at night whereas now he's dropped naps he sleeps 11-12hrs.

Have you tried putting her down earlier?

I think seven months is a bit early to get a routine you need to follow their needs. That said I’d just leave her and go back to sleep if she’s happy

I think you’re doing so so so many things right!

I totally disagree with the poster who said morning naps should not be long!

My 8 1/2 month old has an hour and 1/2 morning nap and 45minute nap in the afternoon.

He goes down at 7.15pm and if I’m feeling shattered and don’t wake him at 7am will sleep until 8.30am which can then make it tricky to fit his bottles and naps in.

On occasions, particularly when teething he’ll wake at 5.30. He absolutely gets left in his room! Sometimes he cries but he always falls back asleep with 30 minutes and I find myself having to wake him at 7am. He’s a crank if he doesn’t get enough sleep, making sure he stays in bed and gets his sleeps set him up for the day.

before anyone jumps on and says I’ve got an easy baby or a good sleeper I absolutely didn’t!

Reflux, allergy and colic baby who has been sleep trained. After the first few months of co sleeping and not being able to put down to sleep.

13 hours sleep in 24 is right in the average for sleep needs for this age, the early waking might stop once she drops to 2 naps.
Around 10 hours solid sleep is incredible though, not at all jealous with my 2.5 year old sleep thief 😂

I’ve had 12 years of this. At least the last few years, I don’t have to get up with him. He can turn on the TV, read a book or play Nintendo but it was several years of 5am starts.

Both mine did this but fell back to sleep by themselves. It could take 30 mins though so I'd say you're going in too soon. Leave her and see what happens. Unless of course she's crying/distressed. Even if there's little whimpers or cries, just hold out if you don't think she's upset and calling for you (so to speak). I reckon you'll find she'll settle back to sleep. My now 7mo passed through that phase much quicker than my oldest and now if she wakes up around that time she's back to sleep within 5 mins.

@LetsGoOutside but you do have a good sleeper, notwithstanding the tricky start. Hardly anyone has to wake their baby at 8.30am.

@beverlytun
I do now, but I never used to.

He never used to sleep at all. He cried most of the night and day we could only get him to sleep on us or being rocked. When he did start sleeping he’d wake at 5am we were exhausted!

Learning to sleep, like any skill takes practise. If he woke and I went in and lifted him out he’d never learn to go back to sleep. He only sleeps now because he’s been taught how too. All babies are different but my point is there is definitely potential to teach babies how to sleep.

@LetsGoOutside our baby is also sleep trained and we have left him to self settle. But there is no way we'd have to wake him at 8.30: I don't think you can teach that.

@beverlytun I completely agree, you can’t teach a “lie in” that’s what we call anything after 7am.

My point was to highlight that we once had an awful sleeper so if he can be sleep trained and have a lie in, allowing any baby the chance to practise this skill will hopefully allow them to flourish - as in wake at 5am learn to self settle and sleep until 6.30-7.00. My case is an extreme a non sleeper to a great sleeper. I was trying to highlight how this is possible.

When people find out I have a baby who sleeps all night, like yourself, I’m not sure if had this comment “oh you must have an easy baby.” It really irritates me because we definitely didn’t!

Is the room warm enough? 2-4am temperatures dip, this may cause a stir & wake ..

also, when do you put baby down for bed at night? Try a little earlier, then if stirs around midnight dream fed, then you’ll get a sleep thru to 6am

Growth spurts and cognitive development around this age can mess up sleep patterns to be ungodly ..

This happened to us and it was a sign she needed to move to 2 naps. That fixed the issue (although my body clock now wakes me up at that time!)

We play whitenoise for the first hour of my little one going to sleep in his cot. I then will pop it back on if he stirs. So if he wakes for example at say at 4.30 or 5 I will pop it back on and he will go back off to sleep. Have you tried this instead of playing it all night?

That’s completely untrue - I bought into this lie before having a baby myself but actually almost all the babies from my ante natal class sleep 10-11 hours a night with no settling needed! It’s completely possible and normal for a lot of babies.

My kids couldn't do an 11 hour block of sleep at night until they dropped both day time naps. I think it's pretty normal for babies and toddlers to be early risers. I can can recall years of 5 am starts.

My son done exactly the same, I don't have the answer but he did grow out of it but took a few months, I would just continue as you are or if she is happy just leave her to it till wake time and she may realise it doesn't get her up any earlier and just sleep later. My son would actually cry so couldn't just leave him

It's quite normal for a baby to only sleep 10 hours overnight so if she goes to bed at 7pm then she'll wake up at 5am.

Both my babies were like this (and still are). You’d be better off accepting your new status as “early riser” and adjusting your sleep routine to cope rather than fighting her. However, if she’s happy chilling in her cot, I definitely wouldn’t be getting her up until she cried.

That is ten hours asleep. Sounds amazing for a 7 month old. Either go to bed early yourself or try putting her to bed later.

My now 8yo woke between 4.30 and 5am for the first 3 years of her life. Even now she rarely sleeps past 6.30, regardless of how tired she is/what time she went to bed.
She rarely sleeps longer than 9/10 hours now and never slept for the 12 hours we’re told babies are supposed to.
Mine also woke frequently throughout the night for the first 2 years too so didn’t even sleep through.
Some babies/children just don’t need that level of sleep. There’s nothing you can do to force it - unfortunately you’ve just got to accept it.

But it’s also completely normal for them not to. Out of all my friends’ children only 1 slept through the night like this. It’s fantastic when they do, but also completely normal when they don’t and people saying babies should be able to sleep 7-7 without waking just because theirs did makes people feel like they’re doing something wrong or that they can change something that is often down to little more than luck.

Hello, i think your little one is a great sleeper. My now toddler would wake up 3/4 times a night at that age... Every baby is different and most of the time there is not much you can do. One thing we found out was that at some point they need to skip a day nap but I think you can consider yourself lucky with only one 5am wake up :)