4.30am night waking

[Elissamelady]

 Hello

I am looking for suggestions from those who have experienced this issue. My 9 month old has been waking pretty much at 4.30am every night for about 2 months now. She used to sttn from the age of 5 months but this ended at 7 months partly because we went to stay with family, where we had to share a room and she got a cold, so basically her sleep was disrupted and the only way to settle her considering we were all in the same room was to nurse her back to sleep. Once we were back we had set a habit. I fell back into the old routine of nurse her to be her to sleep. I don't feed her to sleep, it just settles her and then i put her in her cot awake, but she rolls over and goes to sleep until 7ish.

Anyway, I would love to hear of suggestions on how to break this. I cold let her cry but it can take her up to 2 hours to settle, by which time its almost time to get up and if I let her sleep it messes up the nap and feed routine we have!

This is how it looks currently

4.30 nurse
7.30 up and nurse
8.30 breakfast (fruit and oats)
9.00 activity
10.30 nap
12.00 nurse
12.30 lunch (veg)
1.00 activity
3.00 nap
4.00 nurse
5.30 dinner
6.30 bath
7.00 nurse
7.30 bed

I started to wake her from her am nap because it was effecting her afternoon nap, now she has 2 1 hr naps which allows for the second one to happen.

Any help, advice appreciated!

[becj86]

Are you waking her from both naps?
Has she been left to cry for 2hr? Just wanting to clarify my understanding of why you've written about taking 2hr to settle. It will also affect what we do in terms of sleep training if necessary.
Have you seen the FAQ link about 10-11month sleep gone wonky on the general Sleep board? That is a good place to start if you're having this issue with naps.

[Elissamelady]

Hi, thank you for getting in touch.

I can't seem to find the info you mention on the sleep board? Can you email me the path?

I would never let her cry for 2 hrs no, but she has moaned and stayed awake for up to 2 hours in the past. Basically she tends to wake at around 4.30, but it can be 3ish too. I would normally just go in and feed her and she is settled again in 20 minutes. Which I know is good considering some mums have to deal with multiple night wakings, but I am on my own with my Dh away on business 3 nights a week and its starting to really take its toll.

So what I have done in the past to see if she is actually hungry or not is to go in, comfort her without picking up and leave. She usually calms but stays awake moaning for a while. If I go back in she actually gets more worked up, so I feel like I am actually keeping her up!? The issue with her being up is that 2 hrs from waking at 4.30 means she is going to sleep at 6.30 and we start the day at 7am, so she starts the day exhausted and if I were to let her sleep, she would only get one nap in the day?

Re the naps, I only wake her if the first naps exceeds 1.5 hrs and the second 1 hr, otherwise I just can't fit 2 naps in.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks again and I will continue to check the FAQ

[Elissamelady]

I found the thread under FAQ, and it makes at lot of sense. Think I will ensure first nap is no longer than 1 hr and go from there. Hopefully the 4.30am waking will go if she is not too rested in the day.

Thanks again