13 week old waking up at 4/5 am each night

Sleep

My 13 almost 14 week old boy has been walking up at 4/5 am for the past week religiously. He has, over the past few days, also started a 9/9:30pm wake up. He sleeps from 7:15pm- 7am.

He does go back to sleep after all wake ups with a gentle pat and some shushing, but sometimes this can take up to 45 minutes. We don’t get him out of his next to me so he doesn’t get a sleep association. He isn’t hungry, he doesn’t have an overly wet nappy, and he is definitely still tired as he does fall back asleep.

He has slept through the night without the need for a nappy change or feed since he’s been 8 weeks.

In the evening we feed him at 7/7:15pm with a larger bottle and he nods off after this quickly. We place him in his next2me after this and he transfers easily.

He has 5/6 naps in the day which are only ever 30-40 minutes. We loosely go off huckleberry sweet spot recommendations for when he will be due a nap, but we more so rely on sleepy cues. He needs to be heavily helped to sleep for his naps, but he always transfers into his cot (or pram if out and about). I have tried to arouse him gently by moving his blanket and placing it back on him after 30 minutes, just before he usually wakes up. It works every now and again.

We have tried a later bedtime, but he is just really upset and screams until he has his bottle and sleeps. We are unsure if we should move his bedtime earlier as we are worried he would wake up even earlier.

I ‘train’ him to self settle and he is really good at this. We are working towards putting him down awake and him settling himself, but this is definitely a work in progress.

Any recommendations on how to prevent him waking at 4/5am and how we can help him nap longer would be amazing.

Posted Dec 9, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

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