7 month old waking at 4.30 am daily!

[laney1]

I wonder if any of you wise forumites can help me out? My 7 month old has gone from sleeping through the night til 7 to now deciding that 4.30 is wake up and play time. I have tried all the obvious methods - earlier to bed, later to bed, dark room, less naps in the day, feeding her and nothing works. She is genuinely wide awake and ready to start the day. Does anyone have any advice as I can't believe I now call 6am a lie in?!

[eco79]

We had this and somebody advised us to specifically shorten the morning nap without changing any other naps. Problem sorted in 2 days.

[laney1]

Great, thanks! Fingers crossed that works....

[eco79]

It was pretty horrible, as you're obviously tired from waking at 5am [in our case] and then you keep your little one up until normal morning nap time [hideous] and instead of letting them sleep/catching an hour or more yourself, you wake them up 30 mins later.

But it did fix things.

[RenF]

What about the wake to sleep thing I keep hearing about? Something about waking them an hour earlier and the resettling? Maybe worth a google as I don't know much about it but have heard it works for others?

[SebsC]

I had the same thing with my son when he was about 14 months. He had previously been a good sleeper but following an illness he began repeatedly waking up at 4 am. Not particularly wanting anything other than calling for Mummy. I tried the 'wake to sleep' method and have to say that it worked wonderfully for my LO. I think it's the method recommended by the Baby Whisperer. Basically, you set your alarm for about an hour before the time they usually wake, so in my case it was a 3am alarm and then you go into their room and gently 'wake' them. I just used to gently rub his back and talk softly to him - enough to rouse him but not fully wake him up. Then you settle them back down and they go back to sleep. The idea is that their waking at 3/4 am has become a habit so you need to interrupt it. So you break the cycle by half waking them before their natural body clock does. Anyway, for whatever reason it worked really well for my son and after three days of doing this he went back to his previous sleep pattern. I'm sure If you google it you can find more info. Hope this helps - I do still remember how exhausting it was.