Having a bad time w/ early wakings- need advice

[sl60]

Thanks to all for good advice given in the past. I need to figure out what is going on w/ DD. She's 16 mo's old. I started doing grad. withdrawl for going to sleep and night wakings at the breast a little over a month ago. It has gone very well- after only a few days she was sleeping through the night.  Now for a couple of weeks she has been often waking up at 5-5.30. Yesterday it was 5. I decided to try to put her back to sleep. She was hysterical until almost 6- whe she almost went to sleep (still sobbing). She was wide awake though after 5 min. at which point I picked her up and took her to my bed and breastfed her. I would not let her go back to sleep though. She took a 20 min catnap at about 9.30 am (in the car) then almost 2 hr nap (nursed to sleep-and when she woke up a couple of times) at 12.30 pm.  She was cranky all day. She refused to stay with the baby sitter that comes to  the house if I was not in sight- and even kept clinging to my leg (never done that before).
Did I make a mistake this morning letting her cry (I was with her- I just didn't want her to think she can always get up at 5 for a nurse-nurse)? Have I harmed her?
What do I do now?
She goes to bed at 8 pm. She used to nap from 1-3.30, but since she gets up at 5 she goes to sleep earlier.
If she sleeps in the am she doesn't sleep long enough in the afternoon. I think she's ready to go to one pm nap, but how do I get her there? I also want to wean from nursing to sleep in the pm. but how?

[*Natasha*]

What time was she waking before she started waking at 5/5.30am? Could you post your routine please?

[Leosmama]

Hi Sienna,

The one area I can help with is the nursing to sleep.  In the past month I have broken the nurse-to-sleep habit for all naptimes and bedtime.  For bedtime, I decided to slowly start moving the nursing back in the routine; i.e. before his story instead of after.  This week, I moved it back again, this time making it before his bath, so it really isn't even a part of the actual bedtime routine anymore.

As for getting them to sleep without being nursed, it wasn't as difficult as I feared.  After reading him his story, I held him as we went to turn off the light, and I softly told him it was now nighty-night time and was time for him to go to sleep.  I put him in his crib, and he definitely got upset, but I just stayed with him right next to his crib and soothed him however I could.  Whenever he stood up, I'd pat the mattress and tell him to lie down, and as soon as he did I'd rub his back a little and sing to him.  From that point on, I stuck to the 'gradual withdrawel' method, where you move a little further away from the crib every 3 nights till you're out the door.  It really does work!  And I thought ds would never, ever be able to fall asleep without a boob in his mouth!

I wish I could help with the early wakings, but we started dealing with the same thing as soon as ds started sleeping through the night.  We've tried everything under the sun to extend them, with no luck.  I hope someone else can help you here.

ETA: my son has also been quite clingy since doing all this; I can't help but wonder if part of it is because he's lost his main "lovey", which has been the breast.