Early wakings...does our routine need a tweak?

[Grace's Mom]

My daughter is 10, almost 11 months old.  She started waking at 5:15ish about 6/7 days ago.  I have been in the process of trying to get her back on track and I thought I would post in case anyone had any additional advice.

We just recently moved to 2 naps so her bed time is now 6/6:30 (use to be 7pm).   I can't lessen her naps anymore or her bedtime will be at 5pm and that definitely can not happen as I don't want her wake up time any earlier.  It's hard enough getting her to 6pm bed time iykwim.

Here is her normal routine....

6am wake
6:30 bottle
7:00 breakfast
9am nap (only a 30 minute nap....if she sleeps any longer it will mess up her 2nd nap and the rest of the day will be shot)

9:30 A time
11am lunch
12:30 bottle
1:00pm nap until 3pm sometimes until 2:30

2:30/3:00 A time
6/6:30 bed time

When she wakes early she is happy....wide awake.  I leave her in there until about 6:15 and she just happily plays.  When she wakes up early I try my hardest to get her back on track with out making her overtied as that will just cause even shorter naps and an even earlier wake up the following day.  Most days I can get her back, like today, but that's because she woke at 5:40am instead of 5:15am.  she is slowly inching her way back up to 6am so that is good news as two days ago she woke at 5:30.  I think we are close.

I think she might fix it on her own, but if you see anything suspicious in her routine that you think needs to be tweaked I would love to hear about it.

Thanks.
Melissa

[Grace's Mom]

Well, she woke at 5:15am this morning  and that was with perfect naps yesterday and going to bed perfectly.

Something definitely needs to be tweaked.  I just can't imagine what.  When she switched to two naps recently that coinsided with being able to stay awake 3 hours.  Could she need more A time already?  She is sleepy when I put her down and usually falls immediately to sleep right after I leave.

[*Mona*]

Mel,
Maja goes to bed at 7pm and wakes up 6:30 or [usually] a bit earlier. so I know she just doesn't need more night time sleep. SO what I'm thinking is maybe Grace doesn't need more sleep to and in order to have her sleep longer in the morning you would actually have to force later bedtime upon her...

 

[samijoe]

mel,

monika could be onto something for you.

i did the same for avery....against all i stand for and know about late bedtimes!

for a long time, avery consistently did 3.5, 3.5 and 3hrs for the longest time.  then i noticed everytime i put her to bed, she was playing for 20-30minutes (until 8pm).  i don't try to keep her up longer, but i had to tell myself that she was falling asleep when tired....and now she sleeps much more soundly right until wakeup time.  Now that she is a consistent 3.5hrs for all A times, she sleeps much better.

maybe try this,

6 wake
630 bottle
730 breakfast
9 nap 45minutes
945 up
1000 small snack
1130 lunch
1230 bottle
1 nap 2hrs
3 up
4 dinner
530 bathtime
6 bottle
630 bed

hmm...that doesn't look much different?

i am not sure she is ready for a 30min nap in the am.....it might just be causing her to be overtired a tad.  in the routine A times are 3hrs, 3.25hrs and 3.5hrs, but that tiny 15 minutes might make a huge difference in her day.

hth
or are you more confused by me?  lol
sami

[*Mona*]

i am not sure she is ready for a 30min nap in the am.....it might just be causing her to be overtired a tad.  in the routine A times are 3hrs, 3.25hrs and 3.5hrs, but that tiny 15 minutes might make a huge difference in her day.

that's what I thought so too...

[samijoe]

thanks monika....

i was feeling a bit lousy at my attempt to 'fix' her routine. 

ha ha sorry mel.  lol

sami

[Grace's Mom]

Thanks guys.

Actually Grace wakes after 30 minutes on her own her the morning and has for months.  No matter what I do she will not sleep longer than 30 minutes unless not feeling well and then it's only for an additional 15 minutes.  I have tried keeping her up longer and putting her down earlier and it's still 30 minutes each time.  So that must be all she needs.  When she has slept long she won't sleep more than an hour in the afternoon and it screws up everything. 

I actually have been keeping her up around 3.5 hours her second A time to get her to go down at 1pm.  If I put her down any earlier she'll only nap until 1:30/2pm and that's no good.  She can handle it so I may as well keep it up.

Before the 5am wake up thing started, I tried putting her down later to see if she needed less sleep and she still ended up waking up at the same time in the morning. Not sure what that means.

I am probably making this more confusing.

I guess I will try to keep extending her A times so hopefully she'll have a later bed time.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Again, thanks.

Mel

[rinajack]

Mel, Zara was still waking early no matter what her bedtime was too - we realised it was actually a habitual wakeup, and started working on that.  But we had to force her into a later bedtime first, because she rarely sleeps any longer than 11 hours also.

There is a useful thread that we have been posting on - let me find it for you....I will be back

[rinajack]

Early Wakings

[samijoe]

hey rina--you figured out how to do the quick link thing!  lol

i still don't know how...

sami

[rinajack]

You have to use the little globe thingy up near when you can change colour!

[samijoe]

thanks!

 :Dsami


sorry mel, didn't mean to hijack your post!

[Grace's Mom]

Gosh Sami....so rude    J/K.

Thanks Rina.  I'll take a look at it tomorrow.  Off to bed!