does 'wake to sleep' actually work??

[CrazyOVERbaby]

Hello

I have a four month old who is stuck in the habit of waking at a very specific time every night - almost to the minute! She usually whinges/chats/moans on and off for anything from 5 mins to an hour, although she never gets what I would call distressed. Then she'll go back to sleep.

This would be fine, were it not for the fact that hubby is an insomniac, so he manages to get to sleep, but is then woken and is unable to get back to sleep. He has tried ear plugs and all the rest of it to no avail.

Baby is in her own room, but hubby is shattered and I really feel for him.

Does this 'wake to sleep' thing, where you wake the baby an hour earlier than when she normally wakes actually work? I'll give anything a try to help hubby get a good night!

[NellyTheElephant]

I think it definitely does work. I did with my DD2 when she was about 16 months. From when she was 13 months, despite having slept through since 10 wks old, she suddenly started waking and crying at 4am, this went on for a couple of months before I read about wake to sleep and it worked brilliantly for her. I'm not sure that I would use it with such a small baby though, I'm not sure why exactly, I think it's just that they are only just getting into the rhythm of their sleeping patterns and I'm not sure I would distrupt her at this stage.

No harm in trying though I suppose - it's not going to hurt her in any way is it.

I was just like your DH when DD2 went through her waking phase, so I feel his pain. She'd wake for 5 - 10 mins and cry then go back to sleep (very occasionally I'd have to get up and give her a quick kiss but she always dropped off v quickly). I'd then lie awake tossing and turning until morning. I was SHATTERED. Luckily I did find soft foam ear plugs were fine for me and DH and so we'd alternate who could have them in and get some sleep and who was 'on call'.

[CrazyOVERbaby]

Oh I think I'll give it a whirl. Thanks for the advice. Like you say it won't do any harm. Can I just ask - how many nights do you do it for and how do you rouse them - I believe it's an hour before their normal waking time, and just a quick pat or something?

Thanks - here's hoping!!

[NellyTheElephant]

I did 2 nights of waking her an hour before her usual wake time. It was pretty hard to rouse her, she'd sort of stir and mumble and eyes might flick open, then back to sleep and she didn't wake again until morning. Then we were out for the evening and going to bed around 1am so I went in and woke her at that time (rather than 3am hr before her usual wake) and I found that she still didn't wake at 4am, so the following night I went in and woke her up at 11pm as I was going to bed and lo and behold she STILL didn't wake at 4am. So for the next few weeks we always woke her before we went to bed and she never reverted to the regular 4am waking (which was nothing short of miraculous as far as I was concerned!), although I think she always continued to come into a lighter sleep at that time as if we were ever staying away from home she'd always wake up crying at 4am (so for at least another year or so i always woke her up before I went to bed if were were away from home).

It was so hard to wake her. I'd sit her up in my lap and her eyes would sort of roll back and she'd flop everywhere , but eventually she would start sleepily protesting and moaning (poor baby!), at which point I'd class it as a 'wake' and pop her back into bed.