7 month old wakes up early but tired after half an hour

[AnnamariaHun]

My son used to sleep through until 7 30 but recently he started waking up earlier and earlier.today it was 6am which i'd not mind if he was awake and active but after about half an hour he gets tired, we tried to keep him up until 9am, he then goes back to bed and sleeps for about 2hrs
He's not hungry in the morning as he doesn't drink all of his milk, his nappy is quite wet but it never bothered him before,
he gets about 2 , 2 1/2 hr sleep during the day and he goes to bed around 6 30-7, he's got black out blind in his room

Any suggestion?
Could he be getting too much sleep during the day?
i tried to wake him up early from his morning sleep, but then he's grumpy for the rest of the day

Sorry, no advice but a bump for you. I'm in a very similar position with my DS (waking early but not hungry, still seems tired when he wakes), who will be 8 months next week, so will watch this thread with interest. My DS will only agree to one nap in the day which is 1.5 - 2 hours in the morning so by the time bedtime comes he's past himself! He's started going through the night again but maybe the early waking is due to being overtired. Not sure how to get him to take more naps though!

The advice I've read for early waking is to move the first nap later - what is happening is that the first nap is actually an extension of the night sleep. Moving the nap later can apparently lead to a later wake up.

The book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child says the most common cause of early waking after 4 months is a too-late bedtime. It suggests trying to make bedtime earlier for 4 nights to see if it makes a change, and then continue moving bedtime 20 mins earlier for 4 nights at a time until your baby. It says to stop at the point where your baby no longer easily and promptly falls asleep - then revert to the bedtime in the step before that.

Not tried either, but might be worth a go.

Fabulosa, have you tried putting him down for naps on the 2-3-4 plan: first nap 2 hours after waking, 2nd nap 3 hours after waking, bedtime 4 hours after waking?

I've not heard of the 2-3-4 plan but it sounds very sensible. I've posted on another thread about how I've decided to enforce gently persuade DS to have a nap in the afternoon. I only let him have an hour this morning, 2 hours after he work up as it turns out; then he had another nap after lunch. He grumped and squeaked to himself for about 10 minutes then slept for 2 hours when I woke him as we had to collect DS1 from school! The second nap started nearly 3 hours after he woke from the 1st nap, then bedtime was 5 hours later, which I guess is a bit long but he has that to allow me to get DS1 sorted and into bed first as he has to be up for school.

The last couple of nights he's woken at about 10.30, screaming. He does seems quite bunged up though, so perhaps that combined with overtiredness is the reason for the waking. We'll see how we go tonight. Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread, hope things are getting better Annamariahun.

also i have just found out that the very wet nappy does bother them! we just had a spell of night waking with my 1year old reasons ranged from hunger (growth spurt) to teething (molars coming through)but I noticed that whenever she woke her nappy was wringing wet so i changed to the next size and a half up and she has slept through since.

Thanks for the advice, i only let him nap 1hr at 9am now, then he only has 30min at lunch time(around 12 30-1pm) then he goes to bed at 6 30.
I've noticed that the following morning after being to playgroups, he slept through to 6 30-7am and he was a lot happier too, so could early wakening be due to lack of stimulation?
Anyway i'll keep an eye on the changes

thanks for all the advice again