My son is has just turned 6 months (and he was born at 37 wks) and over the past few days, he has started waking earlier and earlier. There seem to be a few reasons why this could be happening and I'm having trouble making sense of it. Could someone help please!? Here's the situation. (Sorry, going to be very detailed so you get the full picture.)
Since he was about 3 months old, ds was in a decent night routine where he'd be asleep by 8, df at 11:00, feed once more around 5, and then wake around 7:30/8. About a month ago, he started cutting out that 5am feed but was waking at closer to 6:30, which was fine with me b/c his bedtime had also moved to about 7:15. Then about 2 weeks ago, I noticed he was hardly nursing at all at the df so I dropped it, too. For the first few days, he still woke at about 6:30, but it's slowly been getting earlier so that, this morning, he was up at 5:30 and yesterday at 5:15. When he wakes at this time, I never go in right away but let him talk in his crib for as long as 45 mins, hoping he'll fall back asleep, which he never does. He doesn't cry at this time at all, just talks and talks, and even once I get him up, he doesn't seem hungry, although he does eat a full feed. I assumed that because he isn't crying when he wakes, it isn't a hunger waking, but looking at it now, I'm wondering if it's hunger related due to dropping the dreamfeed. Argh, and now he just woke @ 5:30, lay in bed until 6:15, changed, ate @ 6:30 and fell asleep nursing and went back to bed. This never happened before!
But I've also been reading around here that, at this age, EWs can be a sign that they're ready to extend A times and drop the CN. Currently, DSs A times hover @ around 2.25 hrs on average. Maybe this is too short for his age and the EWs are UT?
But it could also be OT because he's only been getting about 10.5 hrs at night for a few days, plus his last A time is often quite long (3 hrs or so) b/c he's started rolling over and getting stuck while trying to fall asleep. Also, I've been scared to put him to bed much earlier than his usual 7, even though he's been up so early, because I'm worried he'll just wake up even earlier the next day. 2 nights ago, he went down at 6:50, but then woke crying at 8:15 and dh couldn't get him back down until 9:45 (I was out) and then he woke for the day at 5:15 so I feel like this has only made a little, possible OT problem into a big, definite OT problem.
So as far as I can see, possible causes are: 1. hunger - should I restart the df or just feed him when he wakes @ 5, even if he isn't crying, and pray he'll go back down? My concern is that, if he doesn't go back down, I've started the day REALLY early and reinforced a bad habit.
2. UT - time to extend A times and drop CN?
or 3. OT - how do I tackle this monster?
And it just occurred to me that it may bee habitual and I could try W2S (SCARY!!!).
Here's a general idea of our EASY.
wake: 5:30 / 5:45
E: BF @ 6:30 (I don't feed him earlier than this), solids @ 7:00
A: 2hrs
S: 7:30 - 9:00
E: BF @ 10:30, solids @ 11
A: 2hrs 15 mins (on average)
S: 11:30 - 1:00
E: BF @ 2:30
A: 2.5 - 3.5 hrs
S: CN times are all over the map, going by tired signs, anywhere between 3:30 - 4:30
E: solids when wakes from CN, bottle @ 6:30
A: 2.75 - 3.75 hrs (ak! long!)
S: 7:15
Sorry this is so long, but I really hope there's enough info here that someone can help me sort this all out!
Thanks!
Sarah