9 month old waking early

[Aisha92]

Hi guys,
My 9 month old baby girl has a 7pm-5am sleep schedule. She was waking up twice for feeds however I recently dropped the earlier feed and then she herself slept through for 3 consecutive nights (needless to say I was on cloud nine!)
When she wakes at 5am I give her milk however she has now started to wake up around 4am for that morning feed and then won’t go back to sleep.
Does anyone have advice to offer?
Thank you in advance

Maybe try an earlier bed time around 6:30, sometimes an earlier bed time can help. Is any light coming into the room at 4am? Is there a particular noise that wakes her?

No advice but our 7 month old is the same with the early waking. I'm feeding him right now and doubt he will go back to sleep after. Except about half the week he doesn't go to bed til 8-9pm and also wakes roughly two hourly all night long for milk, with often other wakes in between where he just cries for ages and we don't know why.

It will pass! I'd assume it's the light thought, have you got black out curtains? You could try a groblind too?

We have tried an earlier bedtime which didn’t change anything besides a lot of fussing at bedtime (assuming she wasn’t sleepy enough)

There is the slightest bit of light that comes in from the top of our blackout blinds so it could be that impacting her sleep possibly? It’s just so hard to keep it completely dark!

Oh gosh sorry to hear that he is waking so much, like you said it WILL pass!

We do get a bit of light that comes in from the top of our blinds so the gro blind is actually an idea definitely worth considering. Thank you x

I would imagine baby is waking because they are hungry and can’t make it to 5, so maybe re introduce that feed in the night again, then in a few weeks trial taking it out again and see how they get on. Amazed a 9 month old sleeps like this, you’re very lucky.

Have you tried a later bedtime? 7-5 is 10 hours of sleep which is in the range of normal for a 9 month old (we aim for 8-7 but frequently get more like 8.30-6.30). I would always rather less baby free time in the evening to get me a later wake up!

Try putting a towel over the curtain rail tonight so no light comes in and see what happens! Play some white noise too and see if that helps.

I agree I was saying to my husband that I think she’s hungry by then and don’t mind giving her one feed during the night if it means she isn’t waking at 4am to start her day.

She’s only recently just started sleeping like this. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs but that’s just a part of it! Lucky regardless x

We haven’t but could give it a go. She wakes from her last nap by 3pm so just wondering if a later bedtime would mean the wake window is too long for her to handle.

Ah I prefer a kid free evening 😅 Both my 5 year old and 9 month are in bed at 7pm.

7pm feels like a very early bedtime? What time are her naps?

8.30 - 10.30am
1.30 - 3pm

Thats usually her nap schedule though it differs some days

I would recommend a dream feed at about 3!

That’s a really long morning nap - pretty sure mine had 45 mins morning & 2 hrs lunch nap. Then 7-7. DS only ever needed 11 hours at night so he slept 8-7 or 7.30-6.30.

I would feed & keep room dark at 4am & treat as a night wake up.

I think you need to shorten daytime naps as they are obviously getting the right amount of sleep per day.

This makes sense, thank you!