5 Month old Waking at 6:15 every morning

[katers09]

Hi,

My 5 month old used to sleep until exactly 7am or 7:15 like clockwork each morning.  Now, for the past week he has been waking at 6:15/6:20.  Once I fed him, and he went back to sleep and I had to wake him at 7:15 to keep the schedule.  The next day, I tried to just re-settle him and he went nuts, and wouldn't calm down til I fed him.  He is CLEARLY still tired when he wakes at 6 something, whereas when he used to wake around 7:15, he was chatting and smiling.  We recently moved his bedtime up from 7pm to 6:30pm because he has seemed incredibly tired...is that the reason for the earlier waking?  I really do not want to start getting up before 7am...7am has been hard for me!

Here is our current schedule:

7am- wake feed
9am- nap 1 wakes and cries twice usually, so it's not a solid 2 hours
11am - wake feed
1pm - nap same as nap one, we rarely get a solid 2 hours, but we try to keep him in there to teach him
3pm - wake feed
4:30 - nap
5:30 - I wake him from the nap so he can be a wake before bedtime!
6:00 - start bedtime routine (we just started doing this 1/2 hour ealier because he is SO SO tired after the last nap
6:30 - asleep
11:00 - Dreamfeed


I would really appreciate feedback on the matter.  Thank you

Katey

[Tweakster]

Hi there Katey, yes at 5 mths I think he's ready for more A time.  Typically you see 5 mth olds having 2x 1.5 hr naps + a 30-45 min CN to bedtime.  So the fact that he's even still doing his 11-12 hours at night is great.  If his last nap is too long he probably sees it as part of night sleep which is why he's grumpy and tired when you wake him.  I would cut this CN back because an hour is too long at this age.

Here is the link for A time, 5 mths is normally around 2 hr 15 or more:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.msg476652#msg476652

You say his naps are not solidly 2 hrs...how long are they?

[katers09]

Thanks so much for the info!

His first nap is almost 2 hours, and for the second nap, it's more like asleep for 45 minutes, crying, then resettling for another 20 or so.  We have just recently moved out of the 45 minute napping stage (thank goodness!!!).  So how soon before bedtime do you think his CN should be?  Also, he seems so tired after being awake for 2 hours. In fact, most times I find myself distracting him just to keep him up for the full 2 hours!  Any ideas there? 

Another question: right now we are feeding (bf) every 4 hours during the day.  If he were to only nap 1.5 hours, would I feed him after 3.5 hours instead of 4?  That's what throws me off when thinking about extending the awake time past 2 hours.

Well thank you again SO much for the help....I truly appreciate it! 

[Tweakster]

HI there, ok if his first nap is 2 hours he might not be tired enough for that second nap and is only giving an UT nap...what do you think?

Finn could only do like 1.5 hours after his 30 min CN but some LO's can do longer. 

Yes with the keeping them up it's tough...we had to do extra long wind downs with Finn to keep him up and less cranky.  Took him to his room and sang a bit more, rocked a bit more, just generally entertained him a little bit longer.  I had to work really hard at pushing out his A time.  Some LO are just not good with A increases when their bodies get used to a certain routine.

You don't have to feed immediately upon waking...as long as there is A in between, quite often routine will look like AEAS :-)