If your little one is on a good EASY routine (good naps and good night sleep) but wake up and bedtime have become a little early, then the following technique used for adjusting to Daylight Savings Time can be used in the same way to adjust wake up and bedtime. This can typically happen when your baby has had several early bedtimes due to dropping a catnap or other nap.
Week 1 - Move his entire routine forward 15 minutes (regardless of wake up time), so milk feeds, breaky/lunch/dinner, wind down, naps, bathtime, bedtime, EVERYTHING, move forward 15 mins. After a few days you should notice he starts to wake a little later too, my son usually took closer to a week to start waking later.
Week 2 - Move entire routine forward another 15 minutes.
Week 3 – Move entire routine forward another 15 minutes.
Week 4 – Move entire routine forward another 15 minutes.
By the end of 4 weeks the whole routine (and wake up) should have moved forward an hour.
Please note that if other areas of the routine need fixing (such as nap length, length of activity time, length of night sleep, etc) then these need to be worked on first before this will work effectively.
The technique can also be used to adjust wake up and bedtime earlier, for example when mum is returning to work.
