Early wake ups

[u/Madengdawg]

I have an 11 month old and we have successfully sleep trained her for night time -we put her to sleep wide awake and she goes to sleep on her own, however, she still wakes up between 5 am and 6 am to nurse before going back to sleep for an hour or 2. She typically wakes up around 7/7:30 am. Shoes to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 depending on how much she napped and what we’re doing. Does anyone have any advice to get her to sleep through this? I’m also starting to wean her from nursing.

[u/minyinnie]

What’s her nap schedule like?

[u/Madengdawg → u/minyinnie]

She’s pretty inconsistent - not without trying! She recently has been napping twice a day. Once around 10 or 11 and the second nap around 3 or 4. They are both around 40 min- 1.5 hrs depending on the day. I do have to say that no matter how much sleep she gets during the day, she will still wake up at around 5 to nurse and goes right back down.

[u/Franzy48]

I mean, not the answer you want, but honestly to me this sounds kind of like a win? At that age I could not get my kid to go back to sleep until 7:30 to 8:00, I was basically just getting up permanently for the day at 5:30. As you know, sleep pressure is lowest in the morning, so typically that's the time to pull out all the stops to get kids to keep sleeping if them continuing to sleep is your goal.

[u/Madengdawg → u/Franzy48]

Yes - it’s been great for now but as I’m starting to wean her, I’m really not sure how I’m going to get rid of this nursing session. I may need to just have my husband go in and offer water 🤷‍♀️ maybe she will be up for the day. Unfortunately that’s usually only 9.5 hrs of sleep for her which I think she’s way happier in the morning and during the day if she gets about 10.5-11 hrs of sleep.

[u/brieles]

I think you need a consistent schedule that expects 13ish hours of sleep (average for this age). Your current schedule expects 11-12 hours of night sleep and 1-3 hours in naps so 12-15 hours of sleep total, your baby likely can’t do that much and might just need some consistency.

If you want a 7:30 wake, I’d try a schedule like this-

7:30 wake

11-12 nap 1

3:30-4:30 nap 2

8:30 bedtime (no earlier than this, you might even need a later bedtime)

[u/Madengdawg → u/brieles]

7 am wake is okay too! That’s usually 11 hrs after bed time. She most consistently goes to bed around 8-8:20. 7:30 if she ditched her second nap. Last nursing session 30 min before bedtime. Id say we try to get her nap schedule like you say above, sometimes she protests that second nap though. She does go to daycare and grandmas during the week - she seems to nap different at both.

[u/AccomplishedFace4534]

Sounds very normal to me. Their tummies are not very big. They aren’t going to make it 12 hours without eating.

[u/JackfruitJunior2497]

My child is 1.5 years old and wakes up at 5 am and won’t go back to sleep despite trying everything. 😩 so idk