Early morning wakings for 6 month old!

[taygensmom]

I have a 6 month old son who has been waking early for the past 2 months. He wakes between 5:00AM and 6:30 AM and once awake talks to himself until I get him up at 7:00 AM. But because he is waking so early he is then tired and ready for amorning nap very early!!! I do not go in when he wakes up and he is not crying or hungry; however, the early morning wakings persist. He also consistently falls asleep without any props and does not wake at any other time during the night, so I do not believe there is any association problem. I have tried putting him to bed later, which helped a little... I have also tried putting him to bed earlier, on the premise that he may be overtired, but he actually started waking up even earlier with this! Timing of naps during the day are affected by these early morning wakings, and naps are also often only 45 minutes long!!! Any help/advice is appreciated!

[torontomamma]

Early waking is very common at this age, it does pass though.... can you post your schedule? thx.
Jaime

[taygensmom]

Schedule is:
7:00 AM - Get up (although he is often "up" between 5:30 and 6:30 in his crib)
7:30 AM - Solids
8:00 AM - BF
9:00 AM - Nap
11:30 AM - Solids
12:00 AM - Bottle
1:00 PM - Nap
3:00 PM - BF
6:30 PM - Solids
7:00 PM - Bottle
9:00 PM - Bed (This is so late because it initially helped to get him sleeping until at least 6:00 AM)
Between 9:30 and 10:00 - DF (this used to be at 10:30 or 11:00 but we have been slowly shifting it up to eliminate the DF.

The later bedtime did shift the early morning wakings to 6:00 or 6:30 instead of 5:00 or 5:30, but now he is waking earlier again. Last night I actually did put him down at 8:00 at the suggestion of an earlier bedtime on another post about naps, and this morning he slept until 6:30, which is a good sign...

I have been slowly moving the DF to eventually eliminate, but I do not think this is why he is having the early moning wakings, because he is not hungry when I go in to get him at 7:00 and often isn't too interesting in eating until around 7:30 AM. I am, however, going to try switching his BF/solids around so that he is getting the milk first, just to make sure he is taking enough milk in.

Any suggestions?

[torontomamma]

I agree with the earlier bedtime suggestion, 3-9pm is very long for a 6mos old to be awake.... I would try even earlier than 8.  It's probably not the DF.

When my lo was 6 mos she did about 4 hrs in naps a day, split between two 1.5 naps and a catnap.  So you could try earlier bedtime, or even a 30 min catnap around 4:30/5 and then a bedtime of about 8.

Good luck, and remember that this seems to be a wonky time for lo's sleep, but it gets better, just stay consistent.

Jaime

[Jodi and her boys]

We had early wakings at this age... it does pass.  Moving the bedtime later definitley did not help though.

At 6 mos, we did sleep from 7pm-6am.  He started getting more active and now sleeps until I wake him (this morning at 7:45am!).  Unfortunately it is somewhat developmental.  Just try to ride it out, but I would stick to your routine as much as possible. Try not to let your lo go to bed any later than 7 or 8pm...

Jodi