5AM Wake Up

[NYMom]

I have a 7-month old who, except when teething, is a wonderful sleeper. After her last "week of misery" we got her back on track very quickly, except for one little detail -- she has been waking up at 5AM for the past 4 days. She wakes up in a good mood, and plays quietly in her crib for a while before calling out for attention...but 5AM is still nighttime, and we would like to get her back to her normal 7AM wakeup. PU/PD doesn't really apply here because she's not crying...and she just laughs at us when we try it...

Does anyone have any advice on how to get her to sleep those "extra" two hours?

[Colin Macs Mom]

Have you tried wake to sleep?

[Layla]

Hi there

What does her day look like?

[momofclaire]

Oh, she's so cute, I will play with her in the morning. 

[October]

Hi,
Can I jump in and say we have the same issue with our 7-month-old (he's actually 5 mths corrected age)..
He is waking any time from 5-6am and I actually heard him wake at 4.20am the first time today...luckily he went back to sleep that time !!!!!!

Our LO moans LOUDLY until we go in. Usually, if it's around 6am (or just before) we wait till 6.30am to feed him. Today I tried to re-settle him as it was 5.10am and we needed to sleep ! He wouldn't go back to sleep and seemed in pain as he was chewing on anything he could lay his hands on.

Is this a teething thing ? We have had EWs before but then he was like clockwork, waking at 5am, not anymore so I think the reason has changed, i.e. sore gums ? No teeth yet and as he came so early our doc. said he's likely to be late with his teeth...........soooooo, this goes on and on ?

HELP (sorry for crashing your post NYMom) 
   

[Layla]

Could you please post his daytime routine/sch....

[October]

Sure. Our day is typically like this :-

Wake 5-6am so the rest depends really
E 6.30/7am
S 8/8.30am (usually 1hr 20-2 hrs max.)
E 10.30/11am (milk then solids after 1 hr)
S 12/12.35pm (never more than 1 hr 30)
E 2.30/3pm
S 4/4.30pm
E 5pm (solids)
bath
E 6.30pm/7pm and sleep by 7.30pm latest (usually 7pm-ish)

You can see that we don't make it to 9am for the first nap with such an early start. Tried it twice and he slept only 30 mins. as O/T..................

You think he has too much daytime sleep ? Or is it OK ?

Thx
Deb 

[Layla]

So he is doing 10hrs at night and about 3.5-4hrs during the day. I would say thats about right. I think the key here is to push that morning nap to 9am (the latest) and not let him have a super long one either. Start with cutting it to 1.5hrs but if he's still waking early then it might be time to ditch the catnap (extend the A times between 1st and 2nd nap) and bring bedtime to 6.30pm. This way he can have 2 long naps and an earlier bedtime which will hopefully allow him to add those hours onto nightsleep. I understand what you are saying about keeping him up till 9am. Its a very long stretch and although some take the plunge and do it at once (like me - since I have no patience sometimes) others do it in increments. So maybe adding 10-15mins to his morning A time would be better than keeping him awake. I would at least try and aim for 8.30 and no earlier for the morning nap to start with and go from there.

His corrected age is 5 months.... so by memory you go by their corrected age until they are 1.... when did you stop the nightfeeds. Could he be going through a growth spurt?

hth
Layla

[October]

Mmmmmmmmmm, thanks Layla. I hear what you say about the 9am start, nervous to try again but we'll do it in 15 min. incremments. I have the patience of a gnat (like you ?) but I shall do this one thing the slower way........

Most odd tody, we've just woken Bubba up at 7am !! He woke moaning at 3.45am so I went in picked him up (he was mashed face against the crib bumper) and put him back down after 10 seconds or so....it wasn't long). He went back to sleep till 7am !!!

Isn't it always the way ?

Thx. for the steer. We'll see how we go ....his cheeks are getting pretty red and we have ear-rubbing these days too.........Yes, we go by corrected age till at least age 1. He's ahead in sleep but probably at corrected for most other things....

BTW, night feeds stoppped sometimes in early April.can't recall quite when. He still takes 32-35oz even with 2 solids meals/day..........greedy boy.

Deb   

[Layla]

Deb, I think its wonderful that he's woken today at 7am.... you won't have to do much in regards to stretching him in the morning. Put him for a nap at 9am and let him snooze 1.5hrs the most. "Hopefully" it will be "fixed" from here onwards....