So you've got a 7.5 months old
and your baby is sleeping beautifully, right?
Well, not necessarily.
Today's question from our customers
is why is my 7.5 month old
waking every night at nine o'clock
and they're still in bed at 7:00 PM?
Hi, I'm Amanda,
Found and Co-Creator of Little Ones Sleep Programs.
I'm mother to two darling little girls
and I'm a pediatric sleep specialist as well.
At Little Ones we have comprehensive online sleep programs,
basically a baby manual in your pocket.
In our app we have our comprehensive programs
as well as our fantastic online support village
where our Certified Sleep Consultants are there
24 hours a day seven days a week
as well as our wonderful customers inside our app
to help you through any bumps in the road.
Visit us at www.littleones.co if you need any further help.
So back to today's question.
Your 7.5 month old is waking every night at 9:00 PM
but they're in bed at seven, what is happening?
There are two major reasons for this.
The first reason is that your baby is actually overtired.
At around six to seven months
you may have dropped that third nap of the day.
That means that your baby is going from their second nap
right through till seven o'clock
where they're going to sleep.
If they're overtired at this point they will do one,
roughly one sleep cycle and then wake up
and be so overtired that they're wired
and really just unable to go back to sleep.
If this is the case, what you need to do
is actually put that third nap back in every now and again
when you're noticing
that your baby isn't going to be able to push right through
to a seven o'clock bedtime.
Around eight months old
they will need to drop the nap, however, no matter what.
Now, there is a little bit of a trick
to restructure your day
so that you are able to get right through
till a 6:30 to seven o'clock bedtime
if your baby has dropped that third nap of the day
and the first thing is you need to make sure
your larger nap of the day is in the middle.
So, this means that your baby is able to have a really long,
restorative sleep in the middle of the day
and they're able to make it right through
till 6:30 to seven o'clock bedtime
and not get overtired during that time.
If your baby is having their longer nap in the morning
and then only a short little nap in the middle of the day,
this will mean that your baby is going from say
11 o'clock in the morning right through till 6:30 seven
only on one tiny short nap,
and of course your baby will get overtired doing this.
So, the first thing is restructure your day a little bit
so that your baby's short nap is in the morning,
they wake up, they have a really long decent lunch nap.
This often coincides with a really big lull
in the middle of the day.
Our energy is much lower in the middle of the day.
Even as an adult, if you're tired
you will always have that energy reduction
at around 12, 12:30, and that's right the same thing
for toddlers and babies as well.
So if you restructure your day
so that your larger nap is in the middle,
shorter nap in the morning,
that will help with their overtiredness.
So if your baby is already doing that structure
and your baby is still waking up
at nine o'clock in the evening, you may need to,
as I said before, put that third nap back in
just to tied them through
until they get to about eight months old
and then they're able to drop the third nap altogether.
If your baby isn't overtired and they're still waking
and they're still doing three naps a day
and they're definitely not overtired,
it could be that your baby is undertired.
So, if they're doing three naps a day
and they're waking at 9:00 PM,
it's time to drop that third nap
and that will really help mean
that your baby isn't treating bedtime as a nap
and that they are treating it as I'm now asleep
for the rest of the night and sleep right through
that nine o'clock wake.
There are a few other things that might be causing this
nine o'clock wake other than the over and undertiredness.
Another thing might be a habit wake.
If you're still feeding your baby overnight
or feeding your child at nine o'clock,
they might be now habit waking for that feed.
They might be having a seven, eight-month-old regression
and they're standing up,
learning how to walk around their crib or their cot
but those things
are much less likely to be the cause of the wake
than over or undertired and just the day nap structure
causing that nine o'clock to 9:30 wake-up in the evening.
Now you may find once your maybe change that nap structure
or put in that extra third nap if you need to
just for a couple of days, you may find
that your baby starts waking early morning instead.
The early wake is often really, really, really tricky
around that eight months old,
seven to eight months old age bracket
and it is when early morning wake can happen
and start to form.
It's not usually due to hunger,
it's usually due to your baby learning to consolidate
that last part of the night in
with the rest of the night now
because they have slept all the way say from seven
right through till five o'clock.
They've had a really long sleep,
they've had 10 hours of sleep, they're energized
and if they wake up they think it's morning,
they think it's time to get going but unfortunately
there is that last little bit to consolidate
into the nighttime.
So if you've got a wake at 9 o'clock at night,
once you get rid of that you'll probably notice
that they might start waking in the early morning
and that's just getting used to consolidating
that rest of that nighttime sleep.
I hope that helps answer your question.
If anyone else has any other questions
make sure you pop them in the comments below
and we will try our best to answer all of those.
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