9 month old baby - wakes anytime between 330-530am. Is this normal?

[lilasmum]

I hope I am putting this in the right place. 

My daughter is 9 months old and a pretty decent sleeper.  Her day naps are great and she sleeps well at night and we very rarely hear from her before 3.30am. 

She will sometimes go through to around 5am (often earlier though) and will go back to sleep until 7ish am with a bottle.  I don't know if it's true hunger that wakes her though or habit - I have tried giving her smaller amounts of milk to see if it was really hunger that woke her, but she goes back to sleep regardless of whether it's a full bottle or just 100 mls.   I would love to get a full night's unbroken sleep (til 6am would be great!) and I have recently started work so am pretty tired and rundown.  Are 9 months old really able to go a full 12 hours without a feed?  I feel like I have shot myself in the foot by getting rid of her pacifier at 6 months because now the only way to settle her seems to be with a bottle.   

She self settles really well for all her sleeps and is usually asleep within 5 mins of going into her cot.

She goes to bed at 7pm and is on the 97th percentile for weight so she definitely isn't starving.  Our routine is pretty concrete and usually stays within 30 mins each day.

Anytime between 330-530 - Wake, bottle and back to sleep
7am ish - Up for the day
8/830 - Breakfast
930 - Nap for up to two hours
1130 - Bottle
1230 - Lunch
2pm - Nap until no later than 4
5pm - Dinner
6.30 pm - Final bottle
7pm - Bed

[jessmum46]

I wonder if she could be UT?  4h day sleep is an awful lot for a 9 month old and her A times are low too.  Has she always been on the high side of sleep needs?  Does she wake up chatty at that time of the early morning?  Do you go to her as soon as she wakes or do you wait until she's calling for you? 

IIWY I'd try to increase her A times to at least 3h and limit her day sleep to max 3h too, even 2.5h - generally one long and one short nap.  So something like:

WU 7am
Nap 10-11.30
Nap 2.30-3.30
BT 7pm

What do you think?? 

Are 9 months old really able to go a full 12 hours without a feed?

Some are, some aren't.  But if she is getting 20-24oz milk plus a decent amount of solids during the day, I would have thought she should be able to.

[lilasmum]

Thanks for replying! She has always been a 'sleepy' baby. We had catnapping Issues up to 6 months and we have both been enjoying her longer naps. I've noticed that her naps are getting naturally shorter - her morning nap was always 2+ hrs and her afternoon one up to 2 hrs, but over the past few weeks, shes been getting down to about 3.5 hrs total a day.

I usually let her sleep as long as she wants in the morning but am strict in the afternoon. I hate waking a sleeping baby but it sounds like I need to do it

I am going to try your suggested routine and see how it goes. Thanks so much again!

[lilasmum]

And when she wakes early, she whinges and it usually escalates to her getting a bit upset. I never go to her straight away either.

[jessmum46]

You're welcome   It does sound like UT if she's not particularly upset at first.....

Give the new routine a few days to let her adjust to it.  You don't need to do the jump to 3h all at once if you think she can't manage it - try an extra 15 mins for 3 days, then increase again.  I'd do exactly as you said and let her sleep as long as she wants for one of the naps (up to 2h), then cap the other to make sure she's not getting too much day sleep.

Hope it works out for you xx

[lilasmum]

Wow! We cut down her naps yesterday to 10-1130 and 2-330 and got a 6 am wakeup yay!! I didn't go in until about 615 when she started whinging and I gave her a bottle and she went straight back to sleep. It's almost 7am and I'll wake her in a bit. I guess the next step is trying to extend her until 7 to feed when she gets up? I am worried though that if she wakes at say 6 again and won't go back to sleep without a bottle, she will be super tired and not able to stay up til 10?

[Lilysmummy]

YAY what a fantastic result for a first day of changes! I've always found when you are trying to get a new routine going its best to do everything you can to stick to the new times regardless of the WU time. Sounds hard and it can be but nice gently A time before hand and lots of cuddles and it should come right. Normally within a couple of days it will settle. Good luck you are doing great!

[lilasmum]

Thanks so much!

[jessmum46]

Great job

[lilasmum]

We had two really good mornings of over 6am wakings.  There is one day a week (which was yesterday) where I need to wake her early as I go to work.  I woke her at about 605am and then today we had a 5.30am waking.  She would make a few noises and move around (awake) and then lie still for about 5 minutes and then repeat.  She did this until my husband gave her a bottle at 6.30am in the hope she would go back to sleep but she didn’t.  I know this is probably a temporary blip but it’s still a bit disheartening.  I am super super tired lately. 

[jessmum46]

(((Hugs))) - if you keep on pushing through with increasing the A times you should see those later mornings becoming more consistent.  Is she teething at the moment?  We always get unsettled dozing on and off from 5.30am when DD is.....

[lilasmum]

(((Hugs))) - if you keep on pushing through with increasing the A times you should see those later mornings becoming more consistent.  Is she teething at the moment?  We always get unsettled dozing on and off from 5.30am when DD is.....

She could be teething - she had 8 teeth at 7 months and we doctor has said she will probably have most of her teeth by 1. But no other signs of teething so I'm not sure if that's it.

6am wake today and she played for 20 mins with no sound and went back to sleep. It's almost 645 here now and she is stirring. But I think this is the longest she has gone with no feed!! Hooray hehe!!!

[jessmum46]

Brilliant

[lilasmum]

I'm back   I am not sure what has happened but now I am worried she is having too little sleep.  It all seemed to be working fine, but for the past week or so, she has been waking earlier than 6am (545 today) and not going back to sleep . So that means she is having around 10.5-11 hours at night (max) and her naps are still cut down during the day. Sometimes she will play for an hour or so in her cot and go back to sleep, but by that time it's almost 7am and time to start the day. 

Her current routine

Around 530 am wake and stays in cot. We don't go to her until 7.  I would go in if she was distressed, but she hasn't been to date.
Bottle 7am (doesn't seem particularly hungry at this time)
Breakfast - 830
Nap - 10am (woken up by 1130)
Bottle - 1130
Lunch - 1
Nap 230 or 3 depending on how tired she is - woken after one hour
Dinner - 5pm
Bottle - 630pm
Bed - 7pm and asleep by around 710 usually

The only thing I can think of that has been affecting her sleep is that I removed the super classy black garbage bags that we had up over her windows to keep the light out.  This was on Sunday though, so Monday would have been the first sleep to be affected by the change.  It is getting very light here at 530am as summer is coming and daylight savings starts in a few weeks.  She has blinds but light comes in around the edges and her room is pretty light in the morning. 

Any suggestions?  We are going away tomorrow for 4 nights and I am going to put the garbage bags up ready for our return. Do I just give up and face the fact that she isn't going to sleep til 6am ever? 

[Erin M]

It could be the light -- when we were at my parents' house, my ds woke with the sun -- our room there is so much brighter than his room at home!