My nine month old daughter is having sleeping problems. She goes to sleep at 6:00 pm, which is great, but she wakes up at 4:30 am!! We tried putting her to bed later - we tried putting her to bed even earlier, and no matter what time we put her to bed she wakes at 4:30! She is always wide awake and in a good mood when she wakes up at 4:30. After about an hour she is ready for a nap and then the rest of the morning she is cranky and sleepy until her afternoon nap, which is always on schedule with no problems.
When I try to leave her in her crib in the mornings to go back to sleep on her own, she crawls around her crib until one of two things happens: either she gets her legs stuck out through the side of the crib and can’t get them back in by herself or she stands up holding onto the side of the crib and –it never fails – sneezes, hitting her forehead on the crib. Either way I end up having to get her out of her crib. I’ve even tried putting her back to sleep with me standing beside her crib comforting her or holding her in the rocking chair, but she just isn’t sleepy at all at 4:30!!!
Try putting her to bed later than 6:00pm for the night. 6 to 4:30 is 10 1/2 hours and obviously that is what she needs to feel good to go in the mornings so try putting her to bed at 7 and she should get up later.
What about pushing her afternoon nap a little later so she wakes from it at about 4 -4:30? (Not sure what her normal nap time is in the p.m.?)
Putting her to bed later (with all else the same) may result it less restful sleep as sleep begets sleep. An overtired kid just will not sleep as well.
I remember a time period of that extreme early waking though and basically just had to tough it out. It will adjust eventually...
My daughter is an early morning riser and always has been. There are a lot of theories around on how to get kids to sleep later, but none of them worked for me. After many discussions with friends, none of us with early risers had any success. We just learned to go to bed earlier ourselves so 4:30 didn't hurt so bad. As for her morning nap not going well, I'm guessing most of the energy is spent trying to get her back to sleep. Maybe if she had some good playtime she'd take her morning nap a little later (I think my dd was taking her morning nap around 7 at that age?) and will sleep longer and better.
It seems that (based on my experience and regular posts on here) around this age, children just go through some sort of growth spurt or "phase" where they adjust their sleeping habits. BOTH of my girls had crazy times sleeping at this age. With my first daughter, I specifically remember calling my husband, who worked nights at the time, at midnight saying, "I can't do this! She's still up screaming!" My advice is to keep up your regular routine as much as possible with her and watch for cues that she's adjusting it. And if you can - sleep when she does. Hang in there!
