7 month old EW's - cant figure out what to do.....

[Oliviasmum2]

I have posted here before and had some excellent advice from becj86 so am hoping someone can help me again.
My daughter is 7 months old and we have followed BW since she was 6 weeks old. She started sleeping through the night at 5 months with PU/PD and is an independent sleeper.
We have had problems with early wakings for around 6 weeks now and I feel like I have tried everything to tweak her routine. I can't work out if she is over tired, under tired or her routine needs to change.
She typically wakes for the day at 5 or 5.30am and there is no chance of getting her back to sleep even with PU/PD.

Our routine (on a 5.30am wake up day) is:

5.30 - wake
6.30 - feed then breakfast
8.40 - sleeping
11.00 - wake (always has a 2hr 20min nap in the morning) and feed
12.00 - lunch
2.15 - sleeping
4.15 - wake (usually sleeps for another 2 hrs in the afternoon but on the odd occasion this nap is 1hr 40mins) and feed
5.30 - dinner
7.15 - sleeping
10.15 - dreamfeed

I have tried cutting her naps back and letting her sleep in the day for as long as she wants but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I have also tried to extend her A time by 15mins but again it seems to have no impact. One night I managed to push her bedtime out until 8pm but she still woke at 5.15am ready to start the day.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

[becj86]

I'm guessing there's something environmental - a noise or the light of day is dawning or something at about that time; or teeth (she's had enough sleep to not *really* need more but could do with a bit more if she was completely comfortable).

Either of those ring a bell? If not, I shall have a think about some tweaks, they'd have to be pretty specific I think, as that routine looks pretty good to me.

[Oliviasmum2]

I dont think its anything environmental. Where we live it currently doesnt get light until aprox. 6.45am but when she is waking its pitch black. There is no noise in our house and the street outside is a very quiet one with no noise at that time in the morning.
I have thought it may be temperature as we have to have the AC on througout the night but I have tried adjusting the temp in case she is too hot/ cold and it doesnt seem to make any difference.

I thought she may have been teething by now but there isnt any sign of teeth coming through and she isnt drooling/chewing things any more than she usually does. Plus she has had these EW's for at least 6 weeks so would think if its teething then one may be through by now?

She has had the same A time (between 3 hours and 3hours 15mins) for a good few weeks now, do you think she needs to by closer to 3.5 hours at 7months? The reason I have been hesitant to push to that is because she is still doing really long 2 hour + naps on that A time so seems right but I could be wrong?

[becj86]

Have you tried resettling since its still dark and quiet? If the EW has been hanging around for so long, maybe it started off as a hungry waking during a growth spurt at 6 months and now its just become habit?

Two possible tweaks I can think of:
* push that first A time out and see if that discourages the EW then, since there's nothing environmental causing it.
* cap the PM nap at 1.5hr just to reduce her day sleep a bit - it could be robbing night sleep.

What do you reckon?

[Oliviasmum2]

Thanks for your suggestions, will try that today.
I do have a gut feel that she may be getting a little too much daytime sleep (4.5 hours seems so high at 7 months and didnt change even when she started STTN).

My husband and I have tried to resettle her nearly every morning but she is happy, smiling and wanting to start the day so she just refuses.
Will let you know how it goes.

[~Lori~]

Just following along...I have a 6mth old who has EW's for quite some time now...just reading the advice you are getting and will try some too

[Oliviasmum2]

Update on the last 2 days:

Woke at 5.30am
A time of 3hrs 15mins
Nap - 2hrs 20mins
A time of 3hrs 20mins
Nap - capped at 1.5hrs
A time of 3hrs before bed
She woke at 4.50am and I had to go in and turn her over and then again at 5.15am and I did the same but she feel back to sleep until 6.10am which was great.

Yesterday
Woke at 6.10am
A time of 3hrs 15mins
Nap - 2hrs 20mins
A time of 3hrs 20mins
Nap - 1hr (she hasn't slept this little in the pm for a long time but she seemed happy to wake up) A time of 2hrs 45mins before bed at 6.45pm Woke this morning at 6am with no previous wake ups - yeay!!

A 6am start is great for us and we have no issue starting the day at that time.

So based on yesterday as being the best day, do you think I should cap her pm nap at 1 hour if she doesn't wake on her own?
That would still mean she gets 3hrs 20mins sleep during the day, not sure if this is about right for her age?
The slight push in A times 10-15mins also seemed to have helped.

[becj86]

So based on yesterday as being the best day, do you think I should cap her pm nap at 1 hour if she doesn't wake on her own?

I'd cap it at 1hr15, but she may well self-regulate to 1hr anyway. Being woken seems to reduce the A time LO can cope with after the nap.