Sleeping FAQ: 12-18 Months – Early Morning Waking

My 1-year-old has started early morning waking.

Hello. I have a 1 year old who for ages was a 30/45 minute napper. Mostly now in the last month we’ve overcome this and probably 4-5 days a week he has at least 1 nap that is an hour long. He’s not strictly CLB, but he’s happy and smiley most of the time!!

He was 8lb 10 when born and is now 26lb something! and is my first. He has 2 milk feeds a day – morning and night of 6 oz each and 3 good sized meals a day. He wakes at 5.30/6am and at 7am has milk (6 oz) – regardless of when he wakes, I always make him wait. At 8am he has breakfast – Weetabix etc. At 9/9.30 he naps for up to 1 1/4 hours, then at 10.30am he has a snack of fruit or breadstick etc. Lunch is at midday (fish pie / spaghetti bolognese / chicken casserole / mild curry) followed at 1.30pm by a nap of about 45 minutes on average. At 3.30pm he has a snack (fruit/rice cake etc) and tea at 5.15pm (jacket potato / pasta / risotto etc). Bathtime is at 6pm followed by a 6oz bottle of milk and then bed at 7pm. He doesn’t often wake at night – if he does it’s usually teething, a cold etc and we give him Medised and put him back in the cot after a cuddle and he goes to sleep after 15 / 20 minutes. For all his naps and bedtime he settles himself within 15 minutes of chattering, sometimes whingeing.

In the last 10 days or so he has been waking at 5.30am, occasionally 6am, which is much too early!! A couple of days ago, he slept for 1 hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon, but he woke at night (I think his Grandma was coughing) and was awake for an hour – and he still woke at 6.30am. Yesterday he had 1 hour in the morning and 40 minutes in the afternoon and was awake this morning at 5.30am again. I’m sure he didn’t do this when he was having 30 min naps and all the advice I’ve had is to limit his morning nap, but I don’t understand why he’ll sleep for 3 hours one day. 1.5 the next and still wake at the same time?

When he does wake, he starts crying (not screaming) and carries on even when I go in there, until I turn the light on and get him up. He does yawn occasionally during the morning before his nap, but he is happy playing on his own while I lay on the sofa! Is it time to limit the naps? If it is, can you please explain how it works?

Wendy

From looking at your little boy’s day it would seem he is going to bed exhausted as his longest sleep is in the morning, rather than at lunchtime. A baby who falls into a very deep sleep at 7pm may well wake early in the morning. If his main sleep is at lunchtime he will not be so tired in the evening and will drift off to sleep, after a spell of chattering and could well sleep longer in the morning. Gina places a great deal of importance on the lunchtime nap as it fits in with a baby’s natural sleep cycles. The quality of lunchtime sleep is also much better than that taken at other times in the day as, again, it fits with the natural sleep cycles.

I suggest you begin to structure his naps so this can happen. It is best to limit his morning nap, but do so slowly. Put him down when he shows signs of tiredness, yawning is one of them but begin to shorten it by 10 minutes every 3-4 days until he is sleeping for 30-45 minutes. As his early waking stops and the lunchtime nap gets properly established you can reduce this to 20-25 minutes.

This should have the knock-on effect of your baby sleeping longer at lunchtime. The sleep in the middle of the day should be the longest as it is at this time the baby has his natural dip in alertness. As your baby begins to sleep longer at lunch he will not be so tired at the end of the day and so will hopefully sleep nearer to 7am.

If he still continues to wake at lunchtime after 45 minutes, check he is not thirsty before going down by offering him a drink of water, milk or well diluted juice.

How active is your little boy? If he is not yet walking make sure he has plenty of free time crawling on the floor and some fresh air every day . Once babies begin to walk their sleeping often improves as they use up so much energy.

Gina has received so many questions relating to the lunchtime nap that she has prepared a long article for the website all about it. I suggest you have a look at this as it explains why it’s so important, explains why it can go wrong, gives you a checklist of things to run through and then offers the alternatives open to you if it’s still not working.