Early to bed, early to rise or...?

Ava usually goes to bed at 7pm but wakes between 4-5am every morning without fail. She isn't hungry, she just lies there talking to herself and moving about (eventually she'll cry) and it takes me a good 30 mins to an hour to settle her again, and she'll sleep till her 7am feed.

My question is, do you ladies find that if you put bubs to bed early, then they wake up early?

I've read heaps of books that say putting baby to bed between 6-7pm at night ensures they actually sleep longer than if they went to bed later.

Im too scared to test the theory by putting her to bed at say 8 or 9pm!

Kylah has always gone to bed at 6.30pm and she wakes at 7am give or take half an hour. Somedays she wakes at 6.30am some days 7.30am. Works well for me as we have to be at daycare at 8am so i can get to work at 9am :)

Jack is usually asleep by 7pm (or 7.30pm on a 'bad' night) and is waking about 6.30am, sometimes about 7am. I thought that because he had started waking earlier (before xmas he woke at 7-7.30am) he was getting tired so we bought bedtime forward by 1/2 hour but he still wouldn't go to sleep until about 7pm so we put bedtime back to what it was.

I suppose the going to bed between 6-7pm at night ensures they actually sleep longer theory relates to 'sleep begets sleep'

How old is Ava? When Clara first started sleeping through the night she was still waking between 5 and 6am, but her sleeps gradually got longer and now I usually have to wake her up at 7am (we put her to bed about 7.30-ish these days). Over Christmas, when we were away and she was sleeping in the same room as us, I heard her stirring at 6am so I think she does wake up earlier but just goes back to sleep. So I'm not sure of your circumstances but if she is just a young baby, and is new to sleeping through, I'd give her a bit more time.

Although my friend was told by the Plunket nurse to put her baby to bed at 8pm to see if it helped him to sleep through (she couldn't keep him up till 8pm though, so I can't tell you if it worked) - I guess it wouldn't hurt to try?

Personally I'd stick with a bedtime of no later than 7pm and wait (and hope!) for a few more weeks to see whether she'll stretch out her sleeps in her own time. Our wee chap only managed to sleep for 12 hours once he was having three feeds of solids per day.

4-5am is supposedly a time of day when babies are sleeping quite lightly, and if they're still learning how to resettle themselves back to sleep they may wake for the day prematurely, as you're finding with Ava.

There are a few tricks you can try to make them sleep longer - one that Tracy Hogg promoted is setting your alarm for one hour before the time they usually wake and then going in and gently jiggling them for a while so they kind of half wake up, but not properly and then (apparently) they are more likely to resettle themselves back to sleep an hour later when they would usually wake. This is supposed to break the pattern of early wakings if you repeat this for three nights in a row. Think I tried it out once with DS in desparation and TBH can't even recall whether it made a difference or not! Funny how those early months seem such a blur due to sleep deprivation . 

I can't remember what age Ava is, but it's very common for babies to have a time (individual to the child usually) that they wake for. She just needs to learn how to resettle, and usually that just takes time. For Jack it was between 10-11pm as we used to get him up for a dreamfeed so his subconsciouly stirred once we had stopped.

Just from reading the above post, I will comment on this:
a) starting your day when she wakes up (and says some sort of roster system should be worked out so that both parents get a chance to sleep in!)

I highly recommend you DON'T do what that book says above suggestion a) !! I know a family whose youngest is up 5am-5pm and TBH what sort of example are you setting your kids if they get into a habit of waking up that early? When they start daycare and school they need to be doing the 7-7 thing roughly otherwise they'll be dynamite and useless for anything other than being gigantic PITA's!

Anyway, I know that's not much help, but I would just let it run it's course (if it hasn't been going on that long?) and see how it goes. Also, depending on what her cry is like, I would be tempted to leave her if she is a bit older. I used to go into Jack at 2.30/3am when he started waking at that time for a while and I soon realised that the 'cry' he was making was just a sleepy attention seeking cry, not one I needed to attend to him for. First night I let him 'cry' (as in call out) he went back to sleep after about 1/2 hour and the next night he slept right through.

Yeah, ditto here too. 7pm-7am Jackson usually sleeps, any later bedtime and hes still up at the same time.

Im not sure how old Ava is, but when Jackson was around 5-6 months he started sleeping through till 5am, and I'd just give him a bottle, then put him straight back to bed. Over the past 8 weeks or so Ive weaned him off the early morning bottle and have just left him to self settle. He sleeps 12 hours now (well, most of the time)

Joel sleeps 7 - 7 at least. He is on 3 big solid meals a day and also cruskits with marmite as a snack. Sometime fruit in a mesh bag as well.

My sisters boys no matter what time they go to bed will wake at 5.30am

Megan goes to bed around 6:30pm and wakes around 8am...she likes her sleep like her mummy :)

a couple of mornings ago I didn't wake 10:30am ..freaked out..went to go and see Megan and she was happily playing in her cot..figure if she wasn't happy she would have started crying out.