14 weeks & early morning waking - not hungry....

[auntyspan]

DD2 is 14 weeks and FF since 6 weeks. When she was 12 weeks she started sleeping from 8pm - 7am with a dreamfeed at about midnight. The past couple of days she's been waking about half past five (this morning it was 3.45am) and she's not hungry, it seems she just wants to play.

She's not a great sleeper in the day, she has about 4 30-40minute naps but nothing longer.

The only thing different we've done is not let her have a nap after her bath at 6.30pm - would this make a difference to her sleeping at night?

Any ideas would be great!

I sympathise as my 11 wo DS seems to do much the same - I don't have the answer but a friend of mine's baby wakes at 6 each day, she plays with him for an hour and then they go back to bed for another two...maybe that would work if she's waking at 5.30 (not so much fun at 3.45 I agree, which is when my DS seems to choose to wake!) We just use the dummy to try and get him back to sleep - sometimes works for an hour, sometimes just a few minutes...

A friend of mine has a theory on overtired babies. I can't say from personal experience but here goes. If babies does not sleep enough during the day then they get so tired that they go into a very deep sleep at bed time right away. This causes early morning waking because they are fully rested. She said that when she was moving flats her 8 month old would wake up at 5.30a every morning because he wouldn't get his daily naps properly. But once settled he went back to his 6.30a waking. You did mention that you dropped her last nap. May be you can move that nap to 5.45p or so and keep it short like 15mins instead of dropping it entirely.

Could you try putting her to bed after her bath at 6.30? Sounds counterintuitive but with DD if she goes to bed too late she wakes up early, it's the overtired thing...