help...to get 6 month old sleep longer in mornings??????????

[Virgobaby]

hi everyone, my dd is 6 months now and is a good baby.. she goes to bed at 7pm but has been wakening at 5.45am now...and im due back to work soon, i rather her sleep till 7am..but how? what adjustments do i need to do? she naps 9am-10.30am, and 1pm-3pm and 5-5.30pm...pls help..

[Ima shel Alon]

Is she going down well for the CN? I found it so hard that at 5.5 months I stopped with it.
Have you tried to settle her back to sleep with pat/shh or BT an hour later?
I am not sure it will work, but maybe worth a try. She is sleeping a reasonable amount of time. My DS has the same night sleep as her, he wakes up at 6:00 and I read somewhere that it doesn't consider to be an EW.

[*Ali*]

It may be that she is moving towards dropping that last CN. As her A times increase she will drop that and (hopefully) do a longer night.
So ideally you are working towards something like 2x 2hr naps and 3x 3hr A times. Then she won't need that CN. Do increase her A times gradually though so she doesn't get OT. It will happen in time. I expect this time next month you'll be there.This can be a tricky stage where the LO can't quite make it to BT without the 3rd nap but having it does take away from the night sleep.

[Virgobaby]

over the past few days i have cut her CN out in the evenings, given her a later bedtime, increased her A times and even cut back on her first morning nap from 1.5 hours to 1 hour, and she has woken this morning at 6 am, was 6.30am last two mornings but now gone back to 6am...im baffled and honestly dont know if there is anything i can do to adjust it??

[*Ali*]

Well that's a lot to have done in a few days. Do you think she is getting OT now?
What is your current routine?

[Virgobaby]

today she woke at 6am, 8oz bottle @ 7am, solids @ 8am, nap from 9am-11am, 4oz bottle @ 11.30am, solids @ 12.30pm, nap from 1.30pm-3.30pm, 50z bottle@ 3.45pm..then bedtime bottle @ 7.15pm, asleep by 7.45pm...we were out and about all evening so no CN, and i havent introduced solid at 5pm yet...would OT cause early wakenings??

[*Ali*]

Yes OT can cause EWs because she LO is restless in the mornings and cannot get back to sleep as a result of the OT hormones that built up before she went to sleep. LOs have worse quality of sleep when OT unlike adults.
The last A time before BT is very long. I think you need to give her an early BT for a while now she's not having a CN. After a 3.30pm wu from her last nap I probably would have had her asleep by 6.30pm or shortly thereafter. Most LOs don't wake earlier from an early BT and even if they wake at the same time as usual at least they have had a more restful night and will be in a better position to do long A times the next day. If you can get a good, long night out of her, maybe you can start to slowly increase that 2nd A time and push that last nap back a little to avoid needing a long A before BT.

[Ima shel Alon]

I agree with Ali about the BT, we also had to bring it earlier when we dropped the CN.

[Virgobaby]

ok girls thanks for advice. today she woke at 6am, eventually went back to sleep at 6.40 but i woke her at 7am to start our day..so confusing now to know when to put her for her naps.. would 2.5 hrsA time be sufficient?? i was trying to extend her BT as im due back to work in 3 weeks and would like some time with her in evenings...how do i do this then if her A time isnt long without CN, am i better to give her a CN?

[Virgobaby]

ALI what do you mean by "maybe you can start to slowly increase that 2nd A time and push that last nap back a little to avoid needing a long A before BT. "

[*Ali*]

I think you can only really do a later BT in the long run if yu can get her to sleep later in the morning. If she is up at 6am and going to bed at 9pm that is a 15hr day when ideally you want a 12hrs day, 13hrs max. I personally would not use the CN to extend her day to be so long.
I guess you have already done the morning A time by now. How did that go?
What I meant is ideally to have her only taking 2 naps (so no CN) you need her A times to be an average of 3hrs. So since your middle A time is still only 2hrs that leaves you with a really long 4hr A time to bed. Over the next month or I would aim to increase her middle A time by about 5-10mins every few days so that it eventually reaches 3hrs. Doing it slowly like this rather than jumping straight from 2hrs to 3hrs will avoid her getting OT from it and ensure she's ready. Does that make sense?

[Virgobaby]

hi ali, today she slept from 9.15-10.45 (1.5 hrs), she was awake at 6am, but fell back to sleep at 6.40am - 7.10am so she got another 30 mins here.. so her A time was 2.15 or little more?? then i didnt put her down for her 2nd nap until 1.30pm (so her A time was 2hr 45 min) and its now 3pm and still asleep...im hoping she will sleep beyond 2.5hrs so it might be easier to make a later BT?..i understand what your saying now and i agree i wont get a later BT until i achieve a later wake up time..maybe i should have just let her sleep this morning when she did go back to sleep at 6.40am rather than waken her when i did..thank you for helping me..i appreciate your advice as im seriously confused and stressed over this...

[Virgobaby]

she has just woken ali at 3.15pm, so do u reckon i should have her in bed by 6.30pm?

[*Ali*]

So if you want her to have say an 8pm BT I would let her sleep until 8am on any day that you can. That way you can let her have a 12hr day/night and put her to bed at 8pm, hence getting your later BT for when you go back to work. Keeping a 12hr day is especially important when you are in the process of dropping the CN so she doesn't get OT.
BTW I think when writing my last post I thought you had said she goes to bed at 9pm sometimes but that I got a bit confused with another thread. Sorry about that.
Try not to stress too much. I think it is common for babies to have quite big leaps in A time around the 6-7mo age. I know my DS was doing 2hrs at 6mo but could do 3hrs at 7mo. So hopefully soon she'll be doing 3hr A times easily and the CN will be long gone.

Oh just seen your last post as I was typing. Yes I would do an earlier BT since she woke at 3.15.

[Virgobaby]

its 7pm and she is asleep for the night now please god... wonder will she sleep till usual 6am or wake early now cause she in bed earlier???does early BT mean early WU?