My son just turned 8 months (although closer to 32 weeks by the Wonder Weeks chart) and we're running into a number of new sleep behaviors that we don't want to encourage. I don't know which angle to attack first -- I'm sure naps are affecting nighttime sleep and vice versa. Any tips out there??

Background: DS started STTN around 8 weeks. We did some sleep training with him around 6.5 months and he's been a champ at going down at night ever since -- I can only think of two difficult evenings since then. Still STTN from 6:30/7ish until I woke him up around 6am.

Two weeks ago we moved in with my ILs. DS has been waking up EARLY every day (usually in the 4am hour, today was 3:30!) despite going down with no issue (same bedtime and evening routine). He's not exactly upset, but does chatter louder and louder until one of us gets him. I don't like to leave him being noisy forever since there are other adults in the house trying to sleep :\ At that point I'll feed him. If I put him back down in his crib full and awake he'll go back to sleep, but if I keep him in our room he just crawls all over us and jabbers away in the dark. That tactic works for now, but I don't want to create a new nursing/sleep association.

I'm also frustrated with his unreliable nap schedule at day care. I found out this morning that he barely napped at all over the past few days! We haven't nap trained at home but do have moderate success getting him to nap twice a day on weekends. I know we need to come up with a better solution with our provider, but I need to approach her with an exact plan before she'll get on board. She tends to go off her past experience (30+ years) and instincts, which can differ from my perception of a situation -- see not getting an 8 month old to nap at least once!

So which angle would you approach first? Do you think we should nap train first and see if nighttime sleep improves? Any tips for handling this with day care? Could he be going through the 9 month sleep regression early? Should I stop feeding him at night and let him chatter until he cries or wears himself out? I'm at a loss as to where to start and would appreciate any advice!