Early morning wake ups!

[Melsie]

WOWZA!!
I haven't been on here for years and was just looking though previous posts of how difficult it was to get my daughter to sleep!! Bless her!
Anyway, now I have a little 6 month old boy who is much easier! No rocking, co-sleeping or hair twizzling like baby number one!!  but wakes for his day at 5am everyday!! Just wondered if this is just the way it is or if there is some tweaking I might be able to do to his routine?

E - wakes at 5am and wants a bottle but usually only takes about 4oz so obviously not famished.
A
S - 7am for 1.5 hours
Y
E - solids at 8.30 am then a bottle at 11
A
S - 11.30 for 1.5 hours
Y
E - solids at 1 and a bottle at 3
A
S - 4.00 a short nap of about 30 mins to 45 mins
Y
E - solids at 5
A - bath and massage at 6.30
S - 6.45 bottle and bed

I have to admit I have no idea if this is any good. Its a combination of muddling through and following baby's lead that we have come up with this!

Thanks in advance :-)

[jessmum46]

The long early nap is probably not helping you here.  I would be working on pushing out that first A time 10 mins or so every few days aiming to get closer to 3 hours over the next 2-3 weeks.  That should have the knock on effect of moving your second nap later in the day, and hopefully start to drag morning WU time later too. Ideally over the next few weeks you could then try to drop the catnap and hopefully that will help . What do you do at the 5am waking? Do you actually get up and start the day?

[Melsie]

Thanks for your reply. I will try this. I do get up and start the day. I forgot to mention he is  still feeding in the night as well. Usually only once between 12 and 3. Is there anywhere I can find a sample of an ideal 6 month routine? x

[jessmum46]

There are some sample routines here: Sample EASY Routines from 0 - 13mths+ although a very typical BW routine at 6-7 months would be 3h A time with two naps of 1.5-2h. 

I'd be very cautious about getting up and starting the day at 5am if you don't want that to become a long-term thing.....personally speaking I would keep LO in the dark with no interaction until a 'reasonable' WU time - for us that was no earlier than 6am at that age and now not before 6.30am.  If he gets used to getting up and into the light so early, his body clock will become very firmly set to that early hour and then it can be a nightmare getting out of it! 

[Melsie]

Hi

Firstly, thank you so much for your advice. I followed it and now my Little one wakes between 6 - 7 and is in a fantastic routine!

I just wanted to ask when is an appropriate time to drop the night feed and what's the best way to go about it? He will be seven months early June and is now having 3 solid meals a day as well as 4 seven ounce  bottles. He wakes once in the night between 12 and 2 for a feed at the moment

thank you

[jessmum46]

That's a great update, thanks! and well done!

I think Tracy's advice about night feeds was to do it once solids were well established, from memory she said about 8 months but I think both mine stopped night feeds at about 7 months.  How much does he currently have?  You could gradually reduce the amount you offer every couple of nights until you're down to an oz or two and then just use shh pat or something else to settle.  It may be worth posting over on bottle feeding about it just to see what has worked for others

[Melsie]

Okay, will do so 😊 thanks again xx