Author Topic: 10month old early morning wakings  (Read 4943 times)

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Offline Hoofbeat

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10month old early morning wakings
« on: November 02, 2017, 15:44:33 pm »
My 10month old has been waking up earlier than I'd like for about 6 weeks now (on and off). I let it go initially as we were going on holiday and had a 5hr timezone change, but we've now been home several weeks and he's still doing it, so I need some advice!

We have a fixed WU time of 7am and he used to be really good and sleep until about 6:45am at the earliest and sometimes we would have to wake him at 7am. However, it's been creeping earlier and earlier and now ranges from 6:15-6:30am usually, although I'm also hearing him stir around 5:15am and go back to sleep and a couple of times he's been chatting to himself since 5:45am! We need a 7am WU time to fit in with my husband's routine and for when I start back at work and it worked great for us until he was about 8.5 months. I've tried delaying bedtime by 30mins, but that made no change (although we've stuck with it) and last week I started postponing the morning nap incase that was the issue, but he's been doing a later nap for a week now with no change to his WU. Could someone take a look at our EASY and make some suggestions?

6:15-6:30 - DS wakes up and lies there chatting and eventually starts grumbling.
7:00 - Fixed WU. Bottle.
7:30 - Breakfast solids
10:15 - Wind down for nap.
10:30 - Asleep (so awake time should be 3.5hrs if he wasn't waking early!). Sleeps for about 2hours usually
12:30 - Awake. Bottle
12:45/13:00 - Lunch
15:30 - Bottle
15:45 - Put down for nap (awake time has been 3.5hours).
16:00 -  Asleep (although sometimes he takes longer than 15minutes to sleep as he's too busy practising crawling!).
16:30/16:45 - Awake (I wake him after 45 mins if he hasn't woken himself).
17:00 - Solids
18:50- Bath, book and bottle
19:15 - Lights out.
19:30 - Asleep (sleeps through til morning).

 I wonder if it's the fact he always has his long nap in the morning that is the problem, but ever since he was little he has always favoured having a longer nap in the morning! He still also hasn't dropped a bottle and is on 4x7oz bottles a day. He doesn't always ask for the bottle, but I always offer it and he is happy to take it. My HV said I should still offer it until he starts routinely turning it down.

Thank you for any advice!

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #1 on: November 03, 2017, 21:13:22 pm »
Hi
Mine always took a long nap in the morning too, he did ned a very long A time in the morning to stop the early WU time though.  Although you've moved the naps and BT later you might just need to do it again.  First A time could reasonably be 4hrs or more (depends on LO of course but don't be scared of a long A time in the morning so long as he keeps doing the 2hr nap).  He's clearly okay with 4hrs as he's doing it now 6.30 - 10.30 so perhaps if you moved the nap 15 mins later for a few days and then another 15 mins later you could encourage him to wake at 7am and nap at 11am.
You would likely need to move the rest of the routine on too, but not looking to make all A times 4hrs, you can keep proabably the others shorter.  Something like:
WU 7
A 4
S 11.00 - 1.00
A 3.5
S 4.30 - 5.00
A 3 (mine would accept a shorter A time here so you could try that)
BT 8pm
11hr night

This is also the age when some LOs routines start moving towards the 2-1 nap drop.  This can mean later BT, shorter night, or reducing the CN but for now I'd probably stick with the 30 mins he takes (maybe not the 45 he sometimes takes unless you don't mind the chance of BT going later) and see what happens.

The 4 bottles is fine for now, he might show less interest in one or more in a month or so and then you can switch one to a solids snack with a drink of water instead.

hope that helps


Offline Hoofbeat

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2017, 09:07:40 am »
Thanks Creations. My slight worry about doing what you've suggested is it means he will have a very late lunch and will cause issues when he's at nursery 2days a week when I start back at work as they have lunch there 12-12:30pm. I wonder whether I should just try and bite the bullet and switch his long nap to the afternoon (am I right that in theory that an also help with EWs?). I think you are also right that I do still need to push the morninng nap later still to nearer 11am anyways.

This morning he woke at 5:15am although he did fall asleep about 6:50am for 10mins before I woke him up. He's now been up nearly 4hours (ignoring the 10min nap!) and is happy as anything and doesn't seem overtired, which I think proves the first nap is still too early.

I think I might start by pushing first nap later and then when he's used to that start waking him after say an hour so I'm aiming for:

WU 7
A 4hrs
S 11 - 12
A 3.5hrs
S 3:30 - 5
A 3hrs (I think he will happily accept a shorter A time here)
BT 8

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2017, 10:38:54 am »
I've heard switching to a short morning nap can help with EWs but I don't have experience of it. Mine couldn't have done that but I hear it's possible.
When do you go back to work? Is it imminent?

Another possibility is that some people settle on 2 naps of 1hr each. In theory neither is fully restorative as they are not 1.5-2hrs in length but I've seen this on the EASY samples so that could be an option perhaps?


Offline Hoofbeat

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2017, 15:37:44 pm »
I haven't had it agreed yet when I go back to work (it could be in a few weeks, or if HR agree with my request it won't be until January), but either way he's already at nursery one day a week now and we will soon be going to 2 days to get him used to it before I start back, and I don't want him to miss lunch there if we can avoid it (I know they'd save him some food, but I don't want him missing the social interaction as he gets to eat with older children too and I'm sure that's part of the reason he's such a good eater!).

I didn't realise that a nap needed to be 1.5hours to be restorative? I thought that the minimum length of a nap should be 30minutes, otherwise it's effectively 'wasted sleep' - does that change as they get older? I think he needs longer than 2x1hr naps during the day - I feel he is happiest when he's had a total of 2.5hours day time sleep.

Today we only pushed the morning nap later by 5minutes, as he was so exhausted given he'd woken himself up at 5:15am (he rarely wakes that early usually!), but we are going to keep gradually pushing it to 11am. Once we've established that we'll see how he goes with a shorter morning nap and a longer afternoon nap. He's just gone down for his afternoon nap (took about 2minutes to fall asleep which is unusual at this time of day!) at 3:30pm as we woke him after only 1.5hrs this morning, so fingers crossed we might get a 1hr nap now.

Thanks for all your help.

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2017, 08:37:13 am »
I didn't realise that a nap needed to be 1.5hours to be restorative?
Yes that's the basic idea of the EASY routine. I wouldn't be able to point to the page in the BW books though, it's so long since I read them.  The 1.5 - 2hr sleep is for it to be restorative whereas the CN is only intended to help get them through the evening bath and bed routine.

It sounds like you know what you're doing and what our plan is - shout if you need a hand.


Offline Hoofbeat

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #6 on: November 14, 2017, 11:52:41 am »
So I'm back I'm afraid!

I delayed his morning nap, shortened the morning nap (and managed to lengthen the afternoon nap) and moved BT slightly later and for about 5 days it was perfect and he was back to waking on his own just before 7am which was perfect! But as of a couple of days ago we are back to early morning wakings - this morning he woke at 5:41am and chatted to himself/grumbled until I went in at 7am!

Our new EASY has been:

WU 7
A 4hrs15mins
S 11:15 - 12:15
A 3hrs30mins
S 3:45- 5:15
A 2hrs30mins (he seems fine with this shorter A time, i.e. he goes to sleep fine)
BT 7:45

I know originally I was planning to push the BT to 8pm, but he's only just started managing 1.5hr naps in the afternoon and I'm conscious he's only getting 2.5hr naps during the day - is that enough?

I'm not sure what to try next, other than pushing the morning nap even later (or shortening it to just 30/45mins?) and pushing the bedtime to 8pm.

How much daytime sleep do LOs need at 10.5months? Can they cope on 2-2.5hrs at this age rather than 3hrs? I know you said some people decide to do 2x1hr naps during the day, but he's always been a really keen daytime napper (he'd go 2.5hrs in the morning if I let him!) so suddenly reducing the daytime sleep to only 2hrs feels a big step! I'm still certain he's not yet ready to drop to just one nap a day (I think he probably will be by the end of the year though).

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #7 on: November 14, 2017, 19:42:34 pm »
Hi there
It's great to hear things went well for those 5 days :)

It's not unheard of for a young LO (say 8 months) to have one longer and one shorter nap so if his mood is okay I wouldn't worry too much about the amount of day time sleep, it looks enough. Night looks a decent length too - although not if it's getting shorter.

Was his mood okay during those days that the routine was going well?
My first idea is that he got used to the longer A time and things went well but then he needed another tweak to the routine. But I'm also aware that a sudden earlier waking like that. reducing the night sleep, could be due to OT.  I would look at his general mood and behaviour to work out which.
If he's a little UT I'd probably make the first nap start 15 min later and cap it at 45 min, so it ends at the same time it was then same A, same nap, same BT.  And see if losing 15 min day sleep helps to extend the night again.

He's a bit young for moving to 1 nap, I wouldn't try yet tbh unless there was real nap refusal or long cot parties in the middle of the night.


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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #8 on: November 14, 2017, 19:53:14 pm »
Thanks. He was perfectly happy when I changed his routine and has been ever since (although he does get a bit upset when I wake him from his morning nap!). I'm fairly sure then he's not UT as he's ever so happy all day and especially so at bedtime. Will try capping the morning nap shorter and see if gay helps.

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #9 on: November 15, 2017, 12:52:46 pm »
So I haven't tried tweaking his routine any more yet as he's at nursery today, but I will try it tomorrow. However, I was just wondering if at this age early waking can just be a habit? This morning he woke bang on 5:41am again (literally the exact same time he did on Tuesday AM) so I'm wondering if it continues if it might just be a habit?

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #10 on: November 15, 2017, 21:50:23 pm »
Looking at your posts I think he was more in the habit of waking just before 7am wasn't he? And the EW started creeping in, then went again with routine change and then crept back in. So I am not convinced I would say it's habit but it is of course possible and you know the situation much better than I do.
Another possibility is if light is getting into the room - not sure where you are, sorry - here (UK) we are fine at the moment because it's winter and dark in the early hours but even this year (my DS is 6yo) as soon as Spring was on it's way my DS started EW again and he's old enough to complain about being tired from it too.  I had to triple blind his windows to fully black it out and he immediately slept his full night again.


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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #11 on: November 16, 2017, 12:26:39 pm »
Thanks Creations. You are right he used to mostly wake 5-15mins before 7am (and sometimes would still be asleep when we went in) but was happy amusing himself for that short time and would usually just sound like he was stirring or chatting to himself. However, the EWs happened, we changed routine and he went back to sleeping in to almost 7 for 5 days, but now we're back with even earlier EWs! This morning he woke at 5:30am and the two days before 5:41am! This morning he grumbled for over an hour before going back to sleep at 6:40am and I had to wake him when I went in at 7am. When he's awake he has his thumb in his mouth and is making grumbling sounds like he is trying to go back to sleep, but is struggling. I never go in as he isn't crying and I don't want to teach him he needs me to resettle him, but these EWs are starting to tire me out, especially listening to him grumbling for over an hour! Last night he also woke up at 11:45pm, grumbled and took 45mins to go back to sleep - he usually never stirs at all in the night and sleeps quietly through and has done for months now.

We too are in the UK, but his room is pitch black thanks to blackout blind and dark curtains, so there is definitely no light getting in there. No1 is awake at that time of the morning, so I can't imagine any noises are disturbing him (our heating/hot water doesn't come on then, so it can't be that making a noise and waking him up).

Today I feel like he's OT (most likely due to him loosing 1hr45mins sleep by grumbling) and this morning I'd planned for him to have his first nap in the car on the way home as we had to go out for once, but he didn't sleep on the way back (he dosed for 10minutes on the way there!) and even though he was exhausted when we got home, he took ages to go down for his nap and didn't fall asleep until gone 12pm! So now he's even more OT! I'm thinking that today and tomorrow I might just let him get more daytime sleep so we can start afresh with tweaking the routine once he's caught up on some sleep. He also hasn't had a 2hr nap in over a week now since I started shortening the morning naps, and although that didn't bother him to begin with I'm wondering if that is part of the problem too.

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #12 on: November 16, 2017, 13:08:28 pm »
OK. I've asked for some extra eyes to pop over here if possible as I'm not really familiar with switching to the short morning nap as well as needing the long A time there but I know people have done it so there must be someone who can help out.

Those long periods of wakefulness in the night can be developmental and Tracy covered them in the BW books, she said if they are not crying don't go in, it's normal...but I can remember mine doing it and it is still disturbing in the night if you are listening out and LO still ends up tired the next day too so hopefully this can be helped with a routine tweak.


Offline ginger428

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #13 on: November 16, 2017, 20:34:48 pm »
Hi there...
I have a feeling this is a developmental phase and that soon he'll be back to a normal routine.  We had a ton of sleep disturbance around this age.  He seems like a very independent sleeper before this, so I'm inclined to think his brain and body are in high gear as is the case during wonder weeks... periods of active and major developments.

It does sound OT is creeping in.  When we had such early morning WUs along with disturbed nights, I didn't cap morning nap and capped the PM nap for a couple days. Like your instinct is telling you, I would probably let him nap as long as he needs for a couple days, then reassess.  We had to toggle back and forth from short am/long pm to long am/short pm for a little while when things seemed off. 

Any signs of teeth? If so and you're willing to medicate, I would do it 30 min before bed, and for us... bc it sleep got so bad, I also medicated for the first nap so that he would sleep better and be rested for the rest of the day. And in the thick of it, I gave a dose around 3am-4am bc I knew if it was bothering him, he'd be really fussy between 4-6am.  But please note that I had major signs of teething... red cheeks, drooling, swollen and red gums, bulging gums, etc... And mine seemed extra sensitive to the teething pressure. Lots of fussing and crying.
 

Offline becj86

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Re: 10month old early morning wakings
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2017, 20:16:14 pm »
Hi :) I did short AM, long PM for a while with my DS so can answer some questions. We too had to have a long A time in the AM to get him to nap but I did a purposely OT nap and got him up for an ultra-short 2hr A time which I packed with activity like eating to keep him happy(ish) then he did a long PM nap.