Early waking

[Oggy]

Hi wandered if anyone had any advice for me.....?

My daughter is nearly 8 months old and has always been a good sleeper.  She goes to bed without a fuss at 7pm. 

The problem is up until 4 weeks ago she was sleeping for 12 hours and waking up at 7am but now she is fairly mobile (not yet crawling but rolling and shuffling) she has started waking from 4 am onwards.  I am up at least twice in the night, when she calls, to remove her from the corners of the cot or where she has rolled onto her front and got stuck!! From 4/ 5am she can be crying for attention every 15 minutes where she is in a light sleep and consequently we don't get back to sleep either.

Current routine:
7am - milk
8 - 8.30am - breakfast
9 - 9.45 - nap
12 noon - lunch
1 - 3pm - nap
3pm - bottle
5pm - dinner
6pm - bath
6.30pm - bottle
7pm - bed

Apart from the clocks moving forward to summertime and increasing her solids, her routine has not changed.

Any advice?

[teezee]

you may want to try extending A time in the morning a bit - 2 hrs seems a bit short for an eight month old and this will extend the whole day so that lo won't get overtired at all from the stretch to bedtime kwim? it is true that the shortest A time should be in the morning but i think you would be able to slowly extend it to at least a half hr longer. 4 hrs is quite a stretch before bedtime and you may want to try putting lo down 15 min to a half hr earlier to keep her from getting overtired.
it looks as though lo is getting about 2.75hrs of naps/day...am i correct in saying this? depending on your lo it may be a bit long also - maybe try cutting naps down to no more than 2.5hrs or a bit less even (again, depending on your lo...) it is true good sleep begets good sleep, but lo will sleep less at night if getting TOO MUCH sleep during the day - let me know about the naps though.

[Oggy]

Thanks for your reply.

LO gets grumpy at 9am ish and as much as I try and extend her awake time as soon as I put her back in her cot she's asleep, bearing in mind she's been awake from about 6.15am so this is nearly 3 hours active time. I know I should work round her routine but 9am is also a good time for me to get showered and dressed for the day whilst she's asleep!

I would put lo down earlier in the evening to avoid getting her overtired but I fear this would lead to earlier waking times in the morning!

We were out of the house today and she didn't get to sleep until 1.45pm today and woke up at 3.30pm.  She was still tired this evening at 6.30pm.

I would happily adjust her routine now she is getting older but she wants to keep to what she knows and when I put her down for her lunchtime nap she falls asleep straight away and wakes up on the dot 2 hours later!!!

[teezee]

i misunderstood and thought b/c she was feeding at 7am that was when she woke as well since you didn't mention a wake up time -sorry about that! i think that maybe that since lo is up from 9:45 to only 1 for the pm nap that you could def extend that nap (slowly if needed as lo is used to sleeping at this time) and lo should be able to make it at least to 2.5-2.75 hrs A time before the nap and then this would help with bringing the wake up time later. i would also cut the A time in the morning a bit as this should be the shortest A time of the day. i think you will just have to tweak a little here and there for you to figure out what 'works' for you and your lo.