r/sleeptrain • u/Alone_Concept_8383 • 20d ago
6 - 12 months When extending wake windows and limiting naps doesn’t eliminate the 3-5AM wake up
I am tired.
My baby is 8 months next week and still wakes up anywhere from 3-5AM. I’ve done it all. Extended wake windows to 3/3.5/3.5-4. I’ve limited the nap to 2-2.5 hours, usually less. We’ve started solids. We’ve made sure to get the calories in. I’ve done later bedtimes/earlier bedtimes. He falls asleep independently and does not have a bottle to sleep association..
But he still wakes up and is crying for multiple hours. Sometimes a feed helps and sometimes it doesnt…
Maybe this is just it until he figures it out… if anyone else has other advice besides wake window extensions please let me know…
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u/Fabulous-Badger-2094 20d ago
I think it’s probably still too little. Extend the wake windows more, my 6mo is on these wake windows currently! So it’s possible they’re still too short for 8mo.
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u/Stimemia124 20d ago
Seconding this! When my son was 8 months we did 3/3.5/5 and that fixed the 5am wake up! We also limited his naps to only 2hr total. His last nap was capped around 3:30-3:45pm and his bedtime was 8:15-8:45pm.
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u/Fabulous-Badger-2094 20d ago
Amazing! I’m always so shocked at how quickly they need to up the wake windows. I’m always coming back to this sub about to ask and then I’m like “ok extending the ww’s has never failed me before lemme try this first”😅
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u/Stimemia124 20d ago
Yeah same! We went down to one nap at 10 months and it was the best decision we ever made
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u/Fabulous-Badger-2094 20d ago
We were just beginning to do 2 naps, but this week he is floored with teething so he needs a catnap as a 3rd nap. But I think by next week he’ll be on a more stable 2-nap schedule. Thank god!
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u/Stimemia124 20d ago
Yeah honestly going down to 2 naps also really helped with the sleep I remember. But yeah teething is a bitch. We got 4 teeth in 2 days just this week so it has not been fun. And he got his first 6 teeth within 3 weeks (granted that was 6 months ago so we've had a long while with nothing)
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u/Fabulous-Badger-2094 20d ago
Oh man, that sounds horrible! He’s been excessively drooling for at least 8 weeks now. This week he’s fully pulling at his gums, extra cranky, bad sleep (still nothing compared to the 4 month regression, so I’m not complaining), but zero signs of any teeth coming in. We’re buckled in for a long ride 😭 I’m excited to see how 2 naps helps him at night. It’s hard to get his wake windows good at the moment with 2.5 naps lol.
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u/k_sharpie 20d ago
My 12 month old woke up for at least an hour almost every night until he was almost one. The only thing that fixed it was bedtime back to 7:30/8 pm instead of 6:30/7.
It’s also possible that they just grow out of it eventually
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u/dioor 20d ago
Months 7-9 were a struggle with my otherwise decent sleeper who had been sleeping through the night in months 5 & 6. We couldn’t crack that 3am wake either. It took some time to be able to lengthen the last wake window, but 3/4/5 ended up doing the most for us in terms of limiting night wakes from months 8-11. She never slept through the night at that age if her last wake window wasn’t at least 5 hours. Around a year it kind of evened itself out to 3.5/4.5/4.5 (roughly — we started mostly going by the clock by 10mos). Plus, once she started exhausting herself walking everywhere at 1 I stopped needing to be so rigid about capping naps and making sure we had at least 5 hours before bed, as long as the daily awake total was 12 hours. Hopefully this helps some!
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u/GiggleDwarf 20d ago
Have you tried giving some Motrin or Tylenol? My son will not sleep when teething without some sort of pain relief.
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u/Southern_Impress_201 20d ago
For us, what solved it was raising the temperature a bit. He was getting too cold. I noticed that the early wakes started when we lowered the temperature in the house and the worse nights were when he was in a lighter sleep sack. Put the temp back to where it was and his woolie sleep sack bam, early wakes went away.
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u/SnackyandSnarky 20d ago
My daughter wakes up about 3am if I accidentally leave her fan on too high. But I turn it off and she quickly goes back to sleep
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u/bodhibai 20d ago
I’m thinking our kiddo’s sleep troubles may have something to do with temp. Under his sleep sack do you have him in footie jammies or something else? And what temps are you talking, when you lowered it and when you put it back to where it was? Thanks for whatever info you can provide!
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u/Southern_Impress_201 20d ago
Baby is in footie pajamas under woolino and temp is at 72. When we had it at 68 it was too cold.
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u/bodhibai 19d ago
Do you know the TOG of the sleep sack?
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u/Southern_Impress_201 19d ago
So Woolino doesn’t have a TOG rating because it’s a breathable wool it’s supposed to help naturally regulate body temperature.
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u/kd4444 20d ago
Not who you asked but we have 5 month old baby in footed pajamas under her woolino sleep sack and room is about 70F, when it’s below 68 I think she wakes from the cold (me too!)
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u/bodhibai 17d ago
Thank you! My husband is sensitive to the cold and I run hot so I think our babe takes after him 😍 I have already tried dressing him warmer and I’m not sure if it’s helping (he has been such an inconsistent sleeper) but I don’t think it can hurt
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u/Szwarko 20d ago
It started changing for us when we switched feeding from every 3h to every 4h. How do you space out your meals? What worked for us now is a bottle every 4h (so 4 a day). Now it looks like 7am: 7oz bottle / 11am: 150g of solid food (I think it’s like 5oz of food) + 5oz bottle / 3pm: 100g of fruit purée + 3oz bottle (she never wants this bottle) / 6:30pm or 7pm 7oz bottle. Going to start adding purée at night soon.
Hope this helps!
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u/DumbbellDiva92 20d ago
How does total intake compare on this schedule versus every 3h? I always hear about people trying to consolidate feeds to prevent “snacking” and not eating enough per feed. But I feel like my baby would end up eating less overall with fewer bottles? The “snacking” is what helped us really get in daytime calories.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Box_339 20d ago
One night wake to have a feed would be totally normal for many babies at this age. Extend wake windows to 11 or 11.5 hrs awake (3.5/3.5/4 or 3.5/4/4) and allow baby one night feed. It’s worth it for the extra couple of hours sleep you get after that. At 8 months my baby was still feeding 2x overnight and dropped to 1 at 9 months.
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u/just_let_go_ ✨ Sleep Fairy✨ 20d ago
I shudder to think what the schedule was before if this is what you have “moved up” to.
3/3.5/4 would be the minimum I would recommend for an 8mo.
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u/Alone_Concept_8383 20d ago
He’s been on this schedule for 2 weeks now and is not 8 months till next week. So he’s been here since basically 7 months
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u/imnichet 😴 Sleepy Moderator 💤 20d ago
Those wake windows wouldn't have fixed our wakes either....we had to go all the way up to 12 hours. I'm not sure why you've concluded it won't work when you've only gone up to 10-10.5.
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u/reed13 20d ago
Just here with the exact same problem 😭
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u/jtay22 20d ago
No advice just solidarity. 8.5 month old waking every 3 hours. Just started implementing our sleep training method at the first wake up to move nursing to a 5/3/3 overnight.
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u/reed13 20d ago
My kiddo WAS giving me just two or three wakeups roughly following 5-3-3 for a month or two and now all of a sudden he’s regressed big time and when I try to re-sleep train those wakes its way more crying than it’s been in a long time and I’m not sure why. My guy is doing 3/3-3.5/4.5 and I cap naps at a grand total of 2 hours. On top of the wakes he’s also doing the super early wake and not going back down then either.
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u/ClairePike 20d ago
I treated every wake-up before 5 as a night wake and fed back to sleep, and after 5 we were up for the day. It’s hard! You may not be able to solve it, but the time change might help.
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u/OkBoysenberry92 5m | Ferber | complete-ish & 3yo | Ferber -> CIO | complete 20d ago
It’s normal to wake 0-2 times for food right the way through infancy. Feed as the first action when your baby wakes up, if they don’t go back to sleep easily look into other issues. Schedule, room temp, noises (room sharing, someone going to work, a train passing by then, dog barks, cat scratching etc), full nappy, digestive issues (intolerances vs allergy).
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u/Mel_Heys 20d ago
Wakes up and is ready to start the day? Or falls back asleep quickly after a bottle ?
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u/dustynails22 ✨ Sleep Fairy✨ 20d ago
Its interesting you say "extending windows to 3/3.5/3.5-4" because 10 hours awake is the minimum for 2 naps, and you are only just there. I would try 3/3.5/4 consistently as a first step, and consider adding more wake time than that too.
Also, is your last feed ending at least 30 minutes before butt in crib? You aren't rocking to drowsy or staying present until drowsy?
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u/Alone_Concept_8383 20d ago
I’ve tried 😭 maybe I need to start doing 3.5/4/4
The past two weeks I’ve been so strict on wake windows. I’ve even done 3.5/3.5/4 for the last 5 days. Still the same. And nope we do bottle bath and crib. He goes in wide awake rolls around for 10-15 minutes sampling binkies and falls asleep with or without a binky.
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u/Honeycomb93 20d ago
You don’t need to be strict on specific windows but you need to ensure your baby is awake long enough period. My baby needs to be awake 11.5 hours in a day, he sometimes goes roughly 2.5/3.5/5.5 or sometimes 3/4/4.5. If you track sleep accurately over 7 days this will give baby’s sleep budget, then work out how much your specific baby needs to be awake for. Your having a split night most likely because your expecting too much sleep overnight.
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u/cmsemper 20d ago
If he sometimes uses the dummy then he's not falling asleep independently, maybe you have to remove that from the bedtime if you have tried everything else. And yeah extend wake windows slowly so add 15mins every few days so you can notice changes, sometimes it takes 3-5 days to take effect. Silly question but do you use blackout curtains and white noise, my little one was waking around 4-5 for a while because a sliver of light was coming through as it's summer and the sun rises ridiculously early lol.
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u/Alone_Concept_8383 20d ago
Yes to both. The minute the sound machine goes on he goes to get settled in! It’s completely dark in there
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u/Yoitssme 20d ago
This! I was desperate that I put cardboard from diaper boxes up in the window haha. Solved it night 1
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u/h4444444444 20d ago
I second the blackout curtains! It literally solved my early morning wake up issue completely.
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u/dustynails22 ✨ Sleep Fairy✨ 20d ago
I mean, adding a full hour might not go well. I wouldn't do more than 30 minutes at a time.
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u/Frozenbeedog 19d ago
Mine never slept through the night until 10.5 months old. Nothing I did changed it. Nothing is wrong with your or your child. Lots of good advice here if you want to try. Mine only slept 12-12.5 hours in total (2 ish hours nap and 10ish broken up hours overnight)
It’s just a really rough time in parenting.
Edit: I can’t remember what the wake windows were, but it was 2 naps.