8 month baby waking at 5am

[Aisha92]

Hi guys,

My 8 month old baby has started waking at 5am to start her day (sometimes even earlier) and will cry hysterically until we get her out of the crib. She also wakes for night feeds once or twice a night. So with the two things combined I am starting to feel like a zombie!

I am eager to get her out the habit of waking so early and also for night feeds but not too sure if it’s too soon to drop night feeds altogether

She is on 2 naps a day
1st nap is usually 8-10am
2nd nap is usually 1-2pm
She has solids with dinner around 5.30pm followed by milk

Bedtime used to be 7pm but recently she’s been going to bed much earlier around 6/6.30pm as she’s naturally tired and cranky by that point.

From what I’ve read I need to push her 1st nap a bit later and everything else too as it’s unrealistic for her to sleep anymore than she already is with such an early bedtime.

Just wondered if anyone has experienced this and has advice to offer?

Thank you in advance

You will get lots of people saying, "5am is perfectly fine, one or two night wakings is normal". And while they correct, it is no help to you. Her first nap could be pushed back a bit but you could try getting a shorter time between her first and second nap so you can get it longer than an hour without it going too much into the afternoon. Does she always wake up after an hour or would she nap longer?

The lighter mornings are very likely to be waking her up earlier. How good are your blinds and curtains? Although even complete black out ones never seem to help at this time of year unfortunately!

Let her cat nap at 6:30 (20-30mins) then put down for bedtime 8:30pm. Should then sleep through till 7ish.

She might be overtired.
My boy is 14 months and had the same routine since 7 months...

wake 6.30
nap 9-10am
nap 1-3pm
bed 6.45

sleeps through.
solids dinner we do at 5pm and still a bottle before bed.

He went through a period of early wakes , I sleep trained it and would keep checking in until my desired wake of 6.30 (basicly treated like an overnight wake)
also got black out curtains!

I hear you. My son wakes up at 5:30am every morning. I've given up fighting it and just roll with it now. I know its not helpful but maybe these tips will be. If you breastfeed then co-sleep if you can. It will give you more rest at night. Blackout curtains is great advice. 100% recommend. Our schedule is this:

5:30 wake up
9am nap one (45 mins at best)
1330 nap two (45 mins -1 hr)
17:30 bedtime

Have tried shifting naps etc but his internal clock is just programmed for early rising. Again, not helpful per se but know you're not alone. I also believe phases like this pass. They are usually due to developmental milestones and my coping strategy is adapting to survive ^^

I would combine the two naps and plough through the morning I put mine down from 1-4pm and
bed 8.30-8.30

My son is 11 months and we have the following routine

6.30/7am - wake up and bottle
8.30am -breakfast
9.30am till 11/11.30am - nap
12pm - lunch
1.30pm/2pm - 3pm - nap
5.30pm/6pm - dinner
7.45pm - bottle
8pm bed

I'd like to say he sleeps through, but at the moment we are having a lot of wake ups!

Clocks change in a week, if you can make it through to then you are sorted.

On a positive note, and if none of the suggestions work, we change the clocks soon and they 5am wake up will suddenly become a much more reasonable 6am. Good luck OP, there's a reason that sleep deprivation is against the Geneva convention....