10 Month Old Wakes At 4:30am Every Morning?!?!?

[Spectra]

Okay so my lo use to sleep from 8:30pm to 8am no problem. The last couple weeks she's been waking up at 4:30am, except maybe a few days in between, screaming and crying real bad.  If my husband goes down to her she still screams until I come. Once there I hold her, sitting, for 10min, then let her flip the pages of her bedtime book again and put her in her crib, where she will then fall asleep until 8 or 9am.  I don't know what to do. Her schedule looks like this.

8 or 9am wake and feed.

Nap at 1:30pm to 4:00pm

Bed at 8:30pm

[Colin Macs Mom]

I imagine that it's separation anxiety. Is she any clingier during the day or anything like that?

[Spectra]

Yeah she is actually, wants me to hold her more than usual.  So what do I do for that?

[Colin Macs Mom]

Reassure her as much as possible. When she wants you, be there for her. Play peek-a-boo a lot - that will help her understand object permanence (that just because you can't see something doesn't mean it's not there). She needs to learn that it's ok that you and her are two different people and that you'll still be there for her when she needs you. It takes some time, but she'll get it 

Does she really only have one nap, and not until 1:30? And she does well with this??   

[Spectra]

So if I go in and pick her up and won't ruin her and make her all dependant on me?

Yeah I use to give her a long nap in morning too, but then she started not sleeping at all in the afternoon, and i'd rather her have her nap in the afternoon. So I first let her only sleep 45min in the morning and then 2 hours in the afternoon, but she started cutting her afternoon nap shorter and shorter, so I cut the morning nap all together, and it works great as now she doesn't want to sleep at all in the morning, I tried when i think she's tired, but she won't do it.  So I wait until about 1:30 and she passes right out and sleeps for 2 to 2.5 hours.  She seems to work better on it.  In regards to her sleep patterns she always seemed to have a sleep pattern of a much older baby.  At 6 weeks old she was sleeping 8 hours a night.

[Kimberly®]

No you wont ruin her by picking her up. As long as she's crying go to her. Have you read up on walk in/walk out at all? might be an idea to check it out. At 10 months its more walk in pick up/put down walk out.
We had to start at about 10 months too.

Is she waking at exactly 4:30am each time? have you tried w2s?

[Spectra]

Thanks, I will read up on walk in/pickup routine in the book.  It was 4:30 every morning, but now that is starting to change, the other day it was 2am.  Is this the same reason as to why recently it has been harder to put her to bed?  What is w2s?

[Kimberly®]

If its SA yes thats where the difficult bedtime is coming in.
w2s = Wake to sleep  basically stir her till she is semi-awake but still mostly sleeping. Don't wake her compleatly. Its ment to disrupt the sleep cycle and help her sleep better.

[Colin Macs Mom]

So if I go in and pick her up and won't ruin her and make her all dependant on me?

Definitely not, just be sure that you can tell when she's through the SA and you'll be fine.

[Spectra]

Awesome, thanks guys!!