Sleeping FAQ: 4-6 months – Early Morning Waking

Morning waking is getting earlier for my 5 month old

My daughter is 5 months old, was 6lb 12oz at birth and is now 6.5 kg. In the last month she only gained 300g, but grew 2.5cm and is certainly chubby enough!
I started weaning her 10 days ago (just before she reached 5 months) and I have just started weaning her onto formula at the 11am feed. She has 4 breast feeds per day (she dropped the 10pm at 4 months) and is following your weaning plan (1 cube of apple today for lunch, and will have 3 tsp of baby rice for tea).
I am currently feeding from one side plus 5 minutes on the second breast at 5:40pm, then her solids, then giving her the rest of her breast feed at 6:45pm, plus a top-up of expressed milk (normally around 50ml). She seems to sleep until about 6-6:15am, wake chatting, then cries. I finally go in at around 6:45am, try to settle her by rocking (which doesn’t work as she is flailing her arms about) and then give her one side. She falls asleep on me after about 10 minutes of feeding, which I am happy about as it means her morning sleep is still at 9am. I stir her around 7:10am then give her the second side at 7:30am. Some mornings she only has about 5 minutes, hence I end up expressing the rest for her bedtime bottle.
She sleeps 40-45min in the morning, no more than 2 1/4 hours at lunch (often waking after 1 1/2 hours as she has done today) and has 15 minutes in the afternoon (or up to 25 minutes if lunchtime is less). She still needs the afternoon nap.
I really want her to sleep until 7am but am running out of ideas. Should I go in and try to settle her when she first stirs (sometimes I think going in there makes it worse as she often re-settles herself at other sleeps), or should I continue to let her cry (I go in before 7am as I know I need her to get back to sleep briefly so the rest of the routine doesn’t change for the day)? Or is it likely this won’t change? I have never let her up before 7am and always feed quietly in her room.
Any suggestions would be appreciated as for a few nights a few weeks ago it was 5:30am when she was waking and it took a fair bit of rocking to get her back to sleep (I couldn’t let her cry as we weren’t at home). She sleeps half swaddled, and generally isn’t getting out of her covers.

Although your daughter seemed ready to drop her 10pm feed and sleep through at four months, the reality is that she really needed to continue with it, even if she only took 2-3ozs. As she has only just begun to take solids she still needs 5 milk feeds a day. The average weight gain for a baby of her age is 150g (5oz) per week. Until her solids increase, most of her nutrients come from her milk. Try to put the 10pm feed back. Make sure that she is well awake before offering her a formula feed. This feed should be continued for about another couple of weeks until your daughter is taking a larger amount of solids.

Keep following the weaning plan, introducing new tastes every few days and gradually increasing the amounts.

I also would begin to put your daughter into a lightweight sleeping bag, rather than half swaddling her. If you leave it much longer she may be less willing to sleep in it. Use a sheet or lightweight blanket lengthways to tuck her in with and continue to use rolled up towels down the cot sides to keep the sheet or blanket well secured.

If the lunchtime sleep still is causing problems then begin to cut back on the morning nap to 30 minutes. I realise she may be tired in the mornings from her early waking so cut the nap by a few minutes every few days. Once she sleeps longer at lunch your daughter will cut back on her afternoon nap.

If your daughter continues to wake early, settle her with a drink of water after leaving her 10 minutes to see if she can settle alone.