Sleep & Wake times for 5 1/2 month old?

[Little Bear's Mum]

My ds is 5 1/2 months and usually wakes happy between 5.15 - 5.45am. I don't get up to him before 5.45am though. I'd love to extend this out, but as he has 11 hours sleep at night approx, don't know if he needs it extending.

Secondly, if he only sleeps for 40mins - 1hour for the first nap whether I keep him up for 1 hour or 2 1/2 hours after waking, and he's showing slightly tired signs either way (a little bit grizzly but no yawns or eye rubs) what am I best to do. If he's really tired I do put him down. Would longer awake at this time help further?

He can then stay up about 2.25 - 2.5h between his other naps. But still only naps about 1 - 1/2 hours.

Should I be trying to keep him up even longer? I put him down when he starts yawning/rubbing his eyes. And he always wakes happy from his naps. Only a few weeks ago he was awake for 1.75h and the extending out has been very easy. But as his naps are relatively short (ie not the big long 1.5 - 2hours consistently that people talk about) does it mean he really can be up longer?

His total napping for the day is between 3-4 hours.

[Aarismom]

If he's waking up happy from his naps, then you can rest assure he's getting the rest he needs.

I think he's right where he needs to be. If you want to try to extend wake time by 5 or 10 mins, you can try that. But it sounds like he's getting the rest he needs. If he's sleeping 11 hours at night, then he only needs to make up 3-4 during the day.

As for morning wake up time, you may have to live with that for awhile. Most babies are "hard-wired" to wake up at a certain time of the am, and you can try to extend this time by 15-min incraments over the course of a few weeks, but you may or may not be able to do this. Mine was waking at 5:30; we just made it a point never to go to her until 6 unless she was crying out, which she never did. Eventually we got her up to 6:30, but that's about as far as we could get her to sleep. Sometimes she'll sleep as late as 7, but we normally get her up at 6:30 to set her biorhythm for the day.

*HUGS*
Sonya =P