5 month old waking too early!

[beckys]

My 5 month old baby has started waking at about 5 to 5.30 am every morning and won't settle.  I try feeding her and I try not feeding her and neither makes any difference. If I don't feed her she just cries, if I do feed her she cries or tries to wake up and chat.
She wakes up sometimes a couple of times before 5 am too...
She goes to bed between 7pm and 8pm - dreamfeeds between 10pm and 11pm - I've been trying to not feed her for 4 hours in the night - so won't feed her every time she wakes up.  She usually settles ok except when it gets after 5am.
I really don't want the day to start at 5am - any ideas?
she is on a rough 31/4 to 4 hour EASY - though this can get disrupted a lot when we are out and about...

[Katet]

What is her day routine like?
How long are her naps?
If you can give me a rough idea of her daily routine, I can probably give some suggestions

[beckys]

This is what I'm not very good at!  It is hard to have a consistent routine as we always have different things happening each day.
I feed her about 6.30 or 7am when she gets up.  She then naps at about 8.30 am for an hour and half to two hours.
I generally feed her every 31/2 to 4 hours during the day.  She has a nap about lunchtime and then again in the afternoon.
She can spend long periods of time awake - if we go out she often doesn't fall asleep in the car or in the sling when I carry her.  And she can often seem alright without sleeping.
I have been trying to maintain a consistent pattern to the day, but just seems really hard to do.  I've mainly been sticking to feeding her at regular intervals and putting her down for a nap as soon as she is tired, whenever possible.
Nap lengths vary from 45 mins to 2 hours plus...
I thought I would try just encouraging her to sleep longer by not interacting with her at all - not feeding her or talking to her and just putting a hand on her (she sleeps next to my bed) and wait it out until 7am.  hopefully she'll get the message after a few days?

[Katet]

based on your information she doesn't appear to be getting too much day sleep which could reduce her need for night sleep & if she manages to do cycles longer than 45mins, then she knows how to self settle into a new sleep cycle, so the only things I can think are that the night waking is due to developmental reasons & that she really only needs to sleep until around 5am.
does she wake up happy most of the time? If she does I sould just leave her  & maybe move her from your room so she can just lie there & not disturb you, I know my ds#2 wakes up sometimes & talks for awhile & then goes back off to sleep.
Does she use a pacifier/dummy to sleep? if she does that could be a problem as to why she wakes during the night, even though she sleeps longer stretches in the day.

[beckys]

Hi Katet,

thanks for taking the time to reply.  It's hard to follow EASY sometimes as her nap lengths do vary so much and she does usually wake up happy...  I don't use a pacifier so I don't think that's been part of the problem.
I was wondering about not letting her sleep for more than 2 hours in the day...
Found another thread with interesting stuff on re: active mornings - is she too young for that?
Definitely think there's some developmental thing going on - she's so much more interested in the world these days - grabbing things and playing things all of a sudden.  She doesn't want to miss out on all the exciting things going on around her.  She will only stay asleep if swaddled with white noise, so I guess she is a spirited baby...

Thanks again for your help.

[Katet]

I am sort of battling a "new" 5.30am wakeup with my 4mo, & I just keep resettling him until he goes back off.
given the information, I wouldn't let her sleep longer than 2 hours & yes probably would try to "up the stimulation" in her awake times.
I find days when Liam spends a lot of his awake time in the pram (we are out doing toddler/family things, are often followed by days when he needs less early am sleep, the last night /early morning sleep cycles are the hardest to deal with.
You will probably find when she gets mobile things will improve.
Not that it helps, 5am ish wakings are very very common & I think stem from the fact historically 5am (dawn) was not considered early!

[beckys]

Hi Katet,

thanks for taking the time to reply - it does feel good to have someone else to turn to.  DH tends to leave all the thinking to me!

Early waking has been superseded by another problem - the last few nights she's been waking in the night - earlier than usual and not going back to sleep.  I've kind of decided not to feed her til 3am - so doing a DF at 11pm, then feed at 3am then 7am...  However, she just won't settle.  We stay awake til 3am and then when I feed her she still won't settle.  We've been awake at least a couple of hours every night for the last few nights.  I try changing her nappy too.  Nothing seems to make any difference.  Can't see any visible signs of teething...
Just read elsewhere about the DF disturbing babies is they wake up for it.  My baby nearly always wakes up for it now - she's got used to having it, I guess and wakes up expecting it.  Maybe I should drop the dream feed or go in a lot earlier (10pm?) so she doesn't wake up?

She's been having naps late afternoon until about 6pm before bedtime, so don't think she can really be overstimulated.  Just don't know why she's so unsettled at night.  She makes kind of whining crying noises, doesn't really sound like hunger to me.  I just put a hand on her and wait it out.  Don't think I can cope with many more nights like this though.

Any thoughts from Down-Under?!

[Katet]

I actually don't do a df myself, as with my ds#1, I had lots of night waking & even now he isn't the best sleeper (talks in his sleep & has nightmares) but it was a big drama weaning him off a 10pm feed so I just decided with Liam I would let him develop from bedtime, which worked for me as I love going to bed early
I think if she is waking for it, I'd bring it a bit earlier, so she doesn't wake up & see what happens from there.