occasional 5am waking - how to manage the routine

[BlueandPinkMum]

My (nearly) 9month old has a good routine (below) but often wakes up in the morning around 5.15am (poo-o'clock). I normally BF her (count as first morning feed) and pop her back in her cot where she'll go back to sleep until her brother (2.5yrs) wakes her at 7am!

Therefore I count her daily routine as:

Wake up: 7am
Nap: 10am
Wake: 12
Nap: 3pm
Wke 4pm
Bed: 7pm

She has just started (please don't let this ruin it by saying it out loud!!) sleeping through the night, 7pm - 5am. Put this down to fact she's started crawling and pulling herself up so she is worn out.

I want to say that I don't so much MIND the 5am wake ups - my son did it at the same age for MONTHS and I learnt to live with it, as he got older he slowly started waking later.
My DD wakes happy.

My question is on days she wakes at 5am and WON'T go back to sleep, how to I change the EASY routine without having to add an extra nap in? She's more tired in the mornings, as you can see from the mammouth 2hr nap she takes (which I have to wake her from!). It makes for a long day and I can't put her to bed any earlier than 6pm due to my toddler being around.

Is it a case of just trying to pull her through the day, given that it's not every day she wakes for good at 5am (would say 3 times a week)?

[becj86]

Waking for good at 5am is a pretty strong sign that she needs more A time first thing in the morning. I know she's probably tired because she's been up for a while chatting to herself or whatever she does in the early hours of the morning but that's likely also related.

I saw the EAS you wrote and went to check the age because I thought I may've read a 6 as a 9 - this is a great routine for a 6mo baby but its a pretty high amount of sleep for a 9mo.

[BlueandPinkMum]

Thank you becj86

Ahh...she's a week away from 9 months but that's 'as good as' for me. Just having a look at the 9month routine and makes more sense. She can stay awake a lot longer post 11am - i.e. 4hrs! Without too much quibble. But she does struggle in the morning, gets tired so quickly.

Ok, will start to implement the change and see if it makes a difference.