Hi there,
This is my first post so bear with me! Isabela is a happy angel/textbook 6 1/2 mo who has been on the baby whisperer routines since birth. She is an excellent eater and generally an excellent sleeper but I have an EW issue we cannot resolve so advice please.
She goes to sleep between 1900 and 1930 each night. However recently has been waking between 0515 and 0545. She is making quite a bit of noise but is not crying. She appears ready to start her day. We have ruled out hunger. We have ruled out too much day sleep. I have tried W2S (4 days so far) but no success. I suspect it may be a habit brought about by the 6mo growth spurt when she did start waking at 0330ish on and off until the morning until we resolved the food issue. She used to sleep regularly until 0645 - 0715ish.
I also suspect that I have been a bit fast getting in there previously as when she started getting mobile she would hit her head against the cot and get her limbs stuck between the bars so I did start going in there at first noise. Now I don't, I wait and only assist if she is upset or has limbs stuck etc. When I do assist I do the minimum - give her the dummy, give her her muslin she sleeps with and maybe quickly pat her back or head. Often she will re-settle but it is not for long. I never feed her before 0630. If she wakes at 0530 between then and 0630ish I will go and assist her perhaps twice. She may sleep lightly but the rest of the time she will be babbling, squealing (happy), rolling around, kicking her legs against the cot etc. By 0630ish when I get her up she is pretty grumpy though.
During the day she usually goes down for a nap between 0830 and 0900 which is the longest I can reasonably keep her up as I aware too early daytime naps may rob night sleep. For the last two days she has been sleeping for over 2 hours for those naps. On those days she just takes 2 shorter naps (30 mins) to get her through. Average day sleep would be about 3 hours. On days when she only gets 2 hours total it doesn't mean she sleeps any longer. Also I often go for a walk with her around 7 for 45 mins and recently she has been crashing out on the walk so I don't think she is waking because she has had enough night sleep. We have been doing this for months so is not a new thing and she does not normally sleep.
It seems the only thing I could do is tweak her day sleep however I really feel like I know her well and I put her down when she is tired. However willing to do it if there is a solution in sight.
I wonder if this is just a phase... She went through a 'only sleeping for 30 min nap phase' during the day and she just seemed to grow out of it. She is a very active, involved wee girl so maybe things are just a bit interesting now for her to want to sleep at those hours! Lol
Your advice would be much appreciated.