Early waking rant

[TreeTrunkThighs]

I have been reading this morning about early risers - I am at the same time reassured because I am sooo not alone but also mortified that these 4.30 starts could still be happening years from now .

I have noticed in a couple of messages that 13 months seems to be a 'magic' age when they begin to understand sequences and can follow instructions.

My daughter is coming up to 13 months and I am desperate to tackle her early waking but need a strategy to stick to. I am very indecisive at 4am and lie in bed dithering over what to do - need a plan I can refer to, even if just mentally!

Currently: if she wakes after 5am I leave her for as long as I can get away with - judge her loudness and whether she'll wake my elder daughter - as soon as she gets too loud (shouting, not crying) I get her and bring her into bed for her morning milk then we get up. If she woke after 5am every day I would be happy! If she wakes before 5, again I leave her for as long as I can. If we get to after 5am I do the above, if it's before 5am I feed her in her room then put her back down and leave. She doesn't feed to sleep. This maybe placates her for a while but she doesn't go back to sleep. Eg today, she woke at 3.30am and chatted, shouted, shuffled etc until it got too loud at 4.50am. Fed her in her room, put her down. Chatted, shouted, shuffled until 5.30am when she got too loud so we got up.

Qs

1. Would stopping or restricting breastfeeding help do you think?

1. Can you do wake to sleep when the wake time is not the same every night?

1. Going to bed later makes it worse - last night we were about 30 minutes behind usual hence the 3.30am start, in my mind! Could I reasonably put her to bed any earlier than 6pm?!

1. How much sleep in 24 hours do 13 month olds need?

1. At 13 months can I expect her to understand things like "it's night time, go back to sleep"?

This has turned into a rant, I do feel better for getting it written down tbh. Thanks for reading if you've got this far but I think it would have sent me to sleep...

TTT

[Becky77]

I just wanted to say you have my sympathies... it is such an awkward time... I hate that feeling when I hear my DD flapping her wings and I peak at the clock to see 5am staring back at me!!

[drjane]

My 13 mo DS has done exactly the same for the last 3 nights - it's bloody awful. I just had a look in my book 'Solve your child's sleep problems' by Richard Ferber and it says that a 13 mo needs an average of 11 3/4 hrs sleep in 24hrs. So it may be you need to push her bedtime back very slowly (so you avoid the overtiredness which can make things worse) over a couple of weeks and maybe she might sleep a bit longer?

No idea what we're going to do. He got up at 4.50am this morning and I eventually got him back down at 6.40am and he slept until 9am, which is a bit better I suppose. I just can't understand why it's suddenly started happening?