When your baby is waking early in the morning
between five and six A.M.
It can make their day really really long,
and it can make your day very long.
And everybody is tired, and cranky,
and it can often then actually affect
your nighttime sleep for your baby as well.
It's really hard.
My second child started waking at five o'clock
in the morning for weeks on end,
and it seemed of course like months.
And this most commonly happens
around eight to 10 months old.
So today's question is how can I stop
my eight and a half month old waking
at 5:30 in the morning?
For those who are new to this channel, I'm Amanda.
I am a Pediatric Sleep Consultant,
and creator and founder of Little Ones.
And I have two lovely little girls.
Little Ones is a comprehensive online Sleep Program
for babies and toddlers through our online program
and we house our support village
where thousands of mothers and our sleep consultants
who are there to help you
through your sleep and nutrition questions.
Visit us at www.littleones.co to see our Programs.
At any time, comment below
and we will answer your questions.
So back to our question,
how can I stop my eight month old
waking at 5:30 in the morning?
There are three major factors that can cause early waking,
in that eight to 10 month old age bracket.
The first thing is the amount of day sleep
that they are having.
So if your baby is having three naps still during the day,
then they are just genuinely not actually
tired enough to have a decent long sleep.
Any sleep after three o'clock can negatively
affect the night time and therefore
mean that your baby is just not tired enough
to sleep all the way through
til' six or seven o'clock in the morning.
Now to drop that third nap of the day,
you need to also make sure that your baby
is having a large chunk of sleep in the middle of the day.
Because otherwise if they're having their larger sleep
in the morning, then they're only having a short nap
to get them right through 'til the end of the day
and dropping that third nap.
Try and restructure those naps around,
have the shorter nap in the morning,
larger nap in the middle of the day,
and that means that they are nice and alert
and awake to get right through
'til a bed time of 6:30 to seven o'clock.
So check how much sleep they're having
in their day time period, because that might be
the key to why your baby is waking at 5:30 in the morning.
So the second thing we're going to talk about
is the 8 to 10 month old sleep regression.
Now it doesn't last for two months thankfully,
it just can happen any time between 8 and 10 months old.
This is where your baby is physically developing
their ability to move and crawl around,
pull themselves up, hold on to things.
But unfortunately, they are learning still
so they might not be able to sit back down
in their cot, or their crib,
or they might be crawling around but get stuck in a corner.
So they're still actually learning
how to get themselves out and move around.
This physical development can cause
a bit of a problem with sleep because
your baby also likes practicing.
So they could wake up in their light period of sleep
around 5:30 in the morning and unfortunately
you might find them standing there
on the cot unable to sit back down,
or they might be crawling around
and they're just practicing.
If it does go on for more than a couple of days though,
it's likely something else.
So make sure you check out our sleep regression blog,
I'll link it up here.
And that's got loads more information
on that 8 to 10 month old sleep regression.
The third and final thing we're going to talk about
is consolidation of night sleep.
Over eight months old, your baby is generally
taking a couple of decent solid meals a day now,
and they are physically able to sleep
all the way through the night without a feed.
So if they've never done this before,
and they've never slept that full night time sleep
without waking at some period in the night for a feed,
they might be trying to do that now.
But unfortunately if babies see you
at any time after about five o'clock in the morning,
they will think it's time to wake up.
But this is the time that their last
part of the night will consolidate
into the one decent long sleep.
It's really hard to get that last bit of sleep
consolidated to the rest of the night.
But once it happens it is a dream.
So I hope that answers your question
as to why your baby might be waking
early in the morning between five and six A.M
if they are around 8 to 10 months old.
The main factors are day sleep
and then needing to either trim down on their day sleep
or drop that third nap.
It's sleep regression which is they're physically
learning how to stand, crawl, move around the cot.
Or, they're consolidating their nighttime
sleep and really getting that last little bit
of the morning into the night time sleep.
If you need any further information,
make sure you head to our website, www.littleones.co.
We've got loads of free information on our blog right there,
and also we've got our Sleep Programs
if you need a little bit of extra help
with your babies sleep, settling, or nutrition.
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