Wake to sleep

[TTTrouble]

Sorry if this has been asked before.

How exactly to you go about implementing wake to sleep and does it really work?

My DS is 17mths old and has always been a good sleeper, until a few months ago, he's had his back teeth coming through which disturbed his sleep pattern and now they've come through he seems to have settled into certain habits. Namely waking at 4.30 am. I've always been able to settle him back to sleep easily but now the only way we can get him back to sleep is by putting him into bed with us (he goes out like a light!) I want to break this cycle as I don't want him to become more dependant than he is on getting into bed with us as when we have to get up it disturbs him.. he always used to sleep until 7 - 7.30am.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

[EllieG]

My DD went through a stage of this. I set my alarm for an hour earlier than she woke and just roused her very lightly, not so she was fully awake, and so she went straight back to sleep. After about 3 nights it had broken the cycle and she slept properly again.
Good luck!

[pippel]

I hope this is what you mean!
with my 3 month old (started at about 7 weeks) I started putting her in her cot a little bit more awake each night.

So to start with I just gave her a bit of a jiggle so she was only a tiny bit awake, then a bit more awake and a bit more awake. I also left her if she was just complaining (definitely not real crying) and if it went on for more than about 5 minutes I went in to make sure she had her dummy. If it was real crying I cuddled her until she stopped crying then put her back awake. Hope that makes sense!

Now she goes in her cot compleatly awake looks at her hands for a bit then goes to sleep, she settles herself if she wakes up, and sleeps for over 12 hours. I just hope it lasts.

[TTTrouble]

EllieG thanks I might give it a whirl, how old was your DD when you did it?

[ssjj]

i'd be really interested to know if it works tttrouble. My (almost) 17 month has just started waking in night and 430/5am wake for the day. She too has just been through teething (6 at once) plus a horrible illness which led us to adopt the - we'll do anything for sleep approach (mainly my hubbie holding her in the chair). Before that she'd been sleeping through to 6/7 since about 6 months old. Its a bit of a shocker to have to deal with again...

[TTTrouble]

ssjj it sounds exactly like what I've gone through with our DS, anything for sleep but I'm gutted we've resorted to putting him to bed with us, I didn't want to do it at all, at first we wrestled with whether to or not, and now we do it without a second though.

I know it's not the end of the world to have a morning cuddle, but it's what it might lead to if he stops being able to settle himself.

[Ceebee74]

I did it with DS2 a couple of months ago (he was a bit younger than yours though - he was 8 months old).

He was constantly waking up at 5.30 and being wide awake so I got up at 4.30 for 3 nights and roused him a little (turned him round in his cot, put his dummy back in). He slept till nearly 7 on all 3 of those nights and has slept until at least 6.30 ever since so I would definitely advocate it (it is a bit grim though when the alarm goes off at 4.30 )