Hi moms! I have to admit right off the bat, that after reading some sleep issues other moms have, I feel rather sheepish sending in this question.
I have a beautiful 10 month old daughter that goes to bed at 7pm with no problems and sleeps through the night. She sleeps through the night, but she's also up at either 5am or 5:30am. I read the Dr. Weissbluth book and I'm pretty sure he had said something like "there is no reason for a child to be up before 6am", but when she's up...she's up. She's an angel in the morning, not fussy like she hadn't had enough sleep, but is ready to go back down again for a morning nap at 8am.
My question is, has any other mom gone through this? I guess I'm concerned that she should be getting more sleep. (Plus my husband and I would like to sleep past 5am some mornings :-)
I 100% agree with Mom L K...I had to do the same thing with our son, because you honestly don't want to know me at 5am :). It took a little while, but he figured it out. He now goes to bed at 8 and sleeps through until 6:30 - 7:00. I'd still like later, but it's better than 5!
Ugh! Those periods of time when the babies woke before 6am were tough! With both my kids, it came and went a couple times. Like the previous poster, we simply did not go to the child prior to 6am. There might be a bit of crying some mornings, but it wasn't terrible for too long.
Since we are not early risers, I also worked to get the wake time later than 6am. After the child settled down and got used to the 6am wake time, I would wait a few weeks and then stop going in until 6:15am. Once the child settled again, wait another couple weeks and push the time to 6:30am.
I'm a Weissbluth fan too, and we also went through this as well. We would stay in bed and just listen to see what was going on. Most of the time he was just awake and playing a little bit. On rare occasions, he'd be crying. We never went to get him before 6:00 and most of the time he'd fall back asleep. If not, he would typically just play in his crib until we came to get him. When he did wake up early and not fall back asleep, we just moved the first nap up to (no earlier than) 8:30.
Try not going to her - chances are she doesn't need anything. It's not like she's an infant and oh my goodness you have to feed her NOW! You say she's content so why not try just letting her have some alone time in her crib. She may stay awake, she may fall asleep, but chances are she might start pushing her wake time later and later (that's exactly what happened with our son).
It sounds like you have a happy and healthy baby, so kudos to you for being a great parent and assisting her with the sleep schedule - I bet she's just a peach!
My daughter is 11 months old and also goes to bed around 7pm. She used to wake up around 6:30 am, but has been waking up around 5:30am for the past month which has been brutal for me and her dad.
I tried putting her to bed a little later (around 7:30pm), but that just made her wake up even earlier for some reason. I apologize because I don't have any answers for you, but I just wanted to let you know that i'm going through the same thing.
My husband and I will be getting some room darkening shades this week to see if that makes a difference b/c we think (hope) that it's the light from the sunrise that's getting her off track and once we can keep the room darker, perhaps she'll sleep longer...
I have been having exactly the same problem with my 10 month old. My sister swears by blackout shades, so I had my husband pick some up yesterday. He installed them in about five minutes, and my son slept until 7:15 this morning! (Hopefully this continues!) I think it is definitely worth a try. Good luck!
My little one is 10 months old and does the same thing. This weekend he took two 3 hr naps in the morning about 8:30. I know putting him to bed later does not work. I think it is just a phase.
