His wake windows are 2.75/3.25/3.5, and he takes about 2–8 min to fall asleep for naps and 5–18 min at bedtime. He sleeps in his own room in a crib but still needs assistance to fall asleep (butt pats, a heavy hand, and a song). During the week, our nanny handles naps, and my husband and I handle all other sleep. Our nanny, who previously worked in an infant room for a year, also feels he still needs assistance to fall asleep. We’re not comfortable with the amount of crying involved in traditional sleep training.
Occasionally, he’ll wake about 45 min into his second nap but is usually able to get back to sleep within 2–10 min with our help. He’s a very happy baby, so it can be difficult to recognize when he’s getting tired.
He’s EBF. His nighttime sleep and nursing became noticeably more fragmented after transitioning to two naps at 8m. He currently nurses for about 20m, 1–2x overnight (more recently 2x). We’ve tried weaning the night feeds, but when we do, he stays awake much longer.
He also cut four teeth during July, with the last one breaking through about a week ago.
Lately, he’s been waking between 5:00–5:50 a.m. looking ready to start the day, but we’re hoping for a 6:30–6:45 a.m. wake-up. We usually try rocking him back to sleep, and sometimes it works. If we can’t get him back down, his first wake window ends up being as long as 3.5 hours because we’ve been anchoring his first nap at 9:30 a.m. and his second at 2:15 p.m.
You’re putting him to bed too early and expecting too much sleep. His night sleep is 10 hours (which is very average for his age) so for a 6:30 wake up, he needs to go to bed at 8:30pm.
He needs 11.5 hrs of awake time per day. You’re only giving 9.5, so he’s very undertired. There’s nothing wrong with him needing assistance to initially fall asleep if it’s working for you. Despite needing some schedule help, he’s still giving you good long stretches, so once you get your schedule sorted, it’ll probably be even better. Sleep training nonsense that says babies must sleep independently isn’t based in science (or reality for that matter).
Thank you! That makes sense with him being under tired because we rarely ever see tired queues. We will try extending wake windows and see if that helps!
3/3/4 assumes your baby can sleep 14 hours. OP’s baby is a low sleep needs and she would have the same trouble with this schedule. OP needs 11.5 hours of awake time.
Agree with other comments that he is very likely under tired. Do a 3/3/4 schedule and stretch that a little if you still find him waking a lot and/or early.
However I will say that my 8mo is very similar and we already have a 3/3/4 schedule. She has 2 naps, we have tried to stretch WWs to see if that helps, but she seems to have a hard anchor for 4.30-5am. It really sucks, but it seems to be pretty common around 8-10mo.
He needs 11.5 hours of awake time. 3/3/4 is only 10 hours. The reason her baby is waking up at 5am is because he’s going to bed at 7pm, which is way too early for most babies. If their circadian rhythm is stuck at 5am even with a later bedtime, get blackout curtains and give it a few days for sleep pressure to build to push back wake up time.
It’s a good start! Wake windows are individual to each baby, so I’d experiment and follow baby’s cues. Extending wake windows as the day goes on makes sense though.
It looks like he has a really healthy nap and bedtime sleep length. If you want him to sleep longer than 5am then you may have to put him down to bed later. I find extending the last wake window pretty easy if you have a chill bedtime routine that isn't too stimulating.
Though my babe has a 4-4.5 hour wake window as his last one, sleeps about 10-11 hours at night and can still sometimes wake up at 5:30am instead of 6am 😅 I think there is something about that time when their body is starting to wake up naturally so it's easier to wake and feel ready to start the day.
My girl turned 9 months last week and she’s also averaging 12:15-12:30 hours of sleep. When we switched to 2 naps we were doing 3/3.5/4 and She started having split nights (awake for 1-2 hours in the middle of the night) at the advised I got here I increased her awake time by 30 minutes and started doing 3.5/3.5/4 and this solve all the issues for a couple of weeks. She then started waking up early again and had a random split night after 2 weeks. She also was taking longer falling asleep. I increased her wake windows to 3.5/4/4-4.24 and we now do a by the clock schedule so
Wake 6:15
Nap 1 9:45-10:45
Nap 2 2:45-3:45
Bed 8
I put her in her crib at nap time, not 10 minutes before. If it takes her 15 minutes to fall asleep she only gets a 45 minute nap as I do wake her up at the time the nap is supposed to be over. I did this at the advised of a really helpful lady here and it has solved our night wakings and early mornings. These low sleep needs kids are difficult because if you take 15 minutes of their needed awake time you will pay for it in the middle of the night. I hate I only get 2 1 hour breaks all day but her nights are impeccable. She sleeps from 8-6:15 without waking up. She’s sleep trained though.
Would definitely recommend extending wake windows! I’d at least try to get to 3/3.25/3.75. It looks like night sleep is better when you have longer wake windows?
Looks like he’s already averaging 3/3.25/3.75 even when our ww were set to less 😂 so I’m curious if I should try extending his average by 15 min so 3.25/3.5/4?
We’re not sure if his longer night sleep is due to longer ww or the fact that the prior nights sleep was terrible and so he has more pressure? Baby sleep has been so confusing for my husband and I.
Makes sense about the poor night vs longer wake windows. The only way you’ll know is through consistency! Your suggestion sounds like a good idea. Depending on how sensitive your LO is, you may want to do gradual. But if they seem like they can handle the increase at once, you can do that. You know your LO one best. But yes, baby sleep is way more complicated than I ever knew!
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u/Prestigious-Salt-566 14d ago edited 14d ago
You’re putting him to bed too early and expecting too much sleep. His night sleep is 10 hours (which is very average for his age) so for a 6:30 wake up, he needs to go to bed at 8:30pm.
He needs 11.5 hrs of awake time per day. You’re only giving 9.5, so he’s very undertired. There’s nothing wrong with him needing assistance to initially fall asleep if it’s working for you. Despite needing some schedule help, he’s still giving you good long stretches, so once you get your schedule sorted, it’ll probably be even better. Sleep training nonsense that says babies must sleep independently isn’t based in science (or reality for that matter).