Early waking 8 month old

[Ilovemycat13]

My 8 month old has lately started waking between 0430-0500 and takes an hour to get back to sleep. In that time he’s still clearly tired hence why trying to put him back down. When he is asleep he’ll sleep for another hour or so.

He isn’t a great napper in the day but it is improving, and he has 3 consistent naps currently. I’m aware that he ‘should’ have two but he’s not ready for that and I am being led by him on that. He only naps for short periods of time.

His bedtime is around 1830. Yesterday we tried earlier as he had a bad nap day, but it is the same whether we put him down earlier or later.

any ideas? Is this just a regression and he’ll grow out of it? I’m tired :(

It’s likely just a phase, but 5am isn’t an unusual time for babies and toddlers to be up for the day. I’d actually try putting him to bed a bit later, 6.30pm is quite early, try pushing back to 7 or 7.30 for a week and see if that makes a difference.

Thank you. Maybe we’ll try a later bedtime again for a bit and see if that helps. I can’t imagine being up and ready for the day at 5! But if it continues we may have to accept that’s just his awake time!

10-10.5 hours of sleep may just be the maximum he’ll do. If that’s uninterrupted then that’s actually pretty decent. If you don’t want a 4.30-5am wake up then you will likely need to tweak the daytime routine and do a later bedtime to fix it.

That’s far too early bedtime if having 3 naps. 10-11 overnight is average whilst still having naps. Baby is just done sleeping by then

So the plan today was to get him to bed later at 7pm - he’s had two naps today. Both just half hour. Don’t want him to be overtired but unsure he’ll reach 7 now. May try for 1830 tonight and try again tomorrow

His naps are on average only 30 mins long

Yeah mine only had 30 mins naps until we went to 2 naps and then she would sometimes go longer for 1 nap.

Done 7pm bedtimes the last few days. Still waking at 5 :( this morning he woke at 05.33, left him as he wasn’t crying until 6 when he started to look sleepy again. He fell back asleep I think around 0630 - his head has just wriggled out of camera view. I’m not sure what to do now. Il continue as I know it can take time but I’m all out of ideas.

It may just be his pattern for now then, 5.30 isn’t too bad a time for babies and toddlers really. My 2 year old has been waking at 5 for the day for the last few months, and has gone through phases of this as a baby.

Both of my children have been 5am starters , my 8 year old now sleeps in til 6am . Unfortunately theres not an awful lot you can do in my experience apart from get to bed early yourself.