Hi all,
Our 14-month-old dd has been waking very early (anywhere from 4:00am onwards) since we got home from recent holidays (a 2 hour time change). She will wake up, and then proceed to either whine or just talk, often calling out “Mama? Mama?” or calling/talking to “La-la” (her teddy bear, Lucky, who is in bed with her).
More often than not, she will be awake for a few minutes (and usually fussy), and then fall asleep for no more than 15 minutes, and then wake again and call out for me, following this pattern until we get up for the day. If she starts this at 4:00am, it makes for a very long day for the poor little tyke. I go into see her if she starts to sound distressed, but that is usually worse, since then she thinks it is time to get up and play, and will howl if I leave the room again.
I have checked her on several occasions and can not find any obvious discomfort (e.g. she's not wet through, too hot, too cold, etc.). If I do offer her milk, she drinks less than 2 oz, so I know it isn't hunger or thirst.
She has been taking one long afternoon nap (1.5 – 2hours) since about 10 months old and has had, up until our holidays, a great schedule that really worked for her. Almost 2 months ago, we were finally able to drop a 5:00am wake up (which had become a bad and very long-term habit) and I’m concerned that she’s now getting back into that habit (she’s a very light sleeper from about 4:30am until she is up for the day).
Here is her normal schedule (before the early-wakings):
6:30am - 7:00am – wake and get up
7:30 am – breakfast with sippy of homo milk (she weaned off all bf’ing last month)
9:30am – snack
11:30am – 12:00pm – lunch with sippy of homo milk
12:30 – 2:30 – nap (between 1.5 and 2 hours, and sometimes she doesn’t fall asleep until closer to 1:00pm, due to talking and playing with her buddies in her crib)
2:30 or 3:00pm – snack
5:00 – dinner with sippy of homo milk
6:30 – bath and pj’s
7:00 – snack and milk; brush teeth; bedtime stories
7:30pm – into crib (awake) and falls asleep on own within 5 minutes.
She has four molars through, and a couple of the incisors are now poking through, so I’m not sure that it is teething. No new developmental milestones at this point, although she has had a large and growing vocabulary since about 11 months old (~40+ words to date that she uses on her own). She's not walking yet.
I am also not sure what to do if it is SA (maybe since our holidays, she’s not sure of her old routine?), or if she is just OT. I also don’t know if I should be going into her room if all she’s doing is talking and a little whining, or whether that makes it worse.
So, any thoughts on how to fix this would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
C.
