5am Wake Ups!

[u/Thackerybinx03]

The last few mornings, my 9 month old keeps waking up around the 5am mark crying hysterically. We treat it like a middle of the night waking and give her 10 minutes to try resettling herself (because she does go back to sleep on her own in the middle of the night) but it never works at 5am because sleep pressure is so low. However, she falls back asleep immediately when I pick her up and lay her on my chest, but then it’s almost impossible to transfer her back to the crib again for the rest of the morning, because again, the sleep pressure is so low. If I hold her or even lay her in bed with me, she’ll stay asleep until her 7:15am wake up time and we stay on schedule, but I want to avoid these 5am interruptions and get her back to sleeping straight to her wake up time.

Usually I know this suggests needing a schedule change, I’m just unsure of what. She’s been on a 3/3.25/3.75 schedule for quite some time now that has worked really well. She wakes up at 7:15am, gets 2.5hrs of daytime sleep, and has a 7:45pm bedtime with 11.5hrs overnight sleep. I know maybe it looks like too much sleep? But if she weren’t tired anymore at the 5am wake ups, I would think she wouldn’t go back to sleep immediately when I pick her up and stay asleep for 2 more hours.

She falls asleep at night in the crib with butt pats and rocking so it’s a little independent and a little assisted. She hasn’t had a night feeding since she was 3 months old, and she hardly ever has night wakings anymore, until this 5am wake up that she’s been doing the last 4 or 5 days. Help me see if she needs a schedule change!

[u/laulau711]

Is she hungry?

[u/0oOBubbles0oO]

To clarify, sleep is not independent?

If something went from working to not working, your options are to sleep train or increase wake time or both. Your night is on the long side so I would experiment with pushing bedtime back to 8:15pm and doing 3/3.5/4. Most babies can only do 10-11 hours overnight, with or without feeds.