15 months and still wakes at 5am.

[PavlovtheCat]

I had another thread, can't find it.

He naps between 45 mins and two hours in the day.

He goes to bed at 7pm. he sleeps til 5am ish, sometimes 4:30am.

he is still tired. he is NOT ready to start the day. he rubs his eyes a lot and fusses asking to go to dds room, or the kitchen or somewhere. He does not want cuddles, or to be put down, or to go back to bed. Then at 6am he is awake and happy and starts playing with his toys, being all cute .

I have tried:
Putting to bed later
Offering water
Offering him milk from a bottle/cup (used to be bf in the morning)and still asks for this, but does not put him back to sleep anyway).
CC
Feeding him as soon as he gets up
Refusing to feed him before 6am to let him know he has nothing to wake for
Ignoring him for 20 mins (not distressed just complaining that he wants to get up)
Having DH getting up with him
Soft music

Yesterday he drank 150ml of milk and a sandwich at 530am but not in one go, sips of milk and bits of sarnie, while also crumbling sanie and tipping milk.

This morning he has mostly been pointing out of the front room door going 'there? or periodically trying to my boobs (half heartedly).

A few weeks ago, can't even remember when, he slept 3 days in a row til 6-6:30am. And then started waking at 4:30am, now back to normal. and the odd night waking.

am i doomed to no life for the foreseeable future? all i do is work kids sleep.

[swanriver]

more food at teatime?
a snack before bed (calorific rather than just milky)
keep the nap, and keep it long
more exercise in day, more fresh air?
toy and book in cot so he stays there for longer without needing to get up?
very structured calm day with not too much stimulation of the wrong sort...ie: every day same as day before, not too many suprises

I think the fresh air and exercise and calm pattern are key, speaking as an occasional insomniac. I know what makes me wake early, and also ds2 when he used to wake early.

I think I/dh did get up early, but we insisted on 6.30-6.45 as the absolute earliest, however early baby awoke at that age. Although we did give milk, change and put him back to bed if necessary.

[swanriver]

I think some babies are "live wires" and their brains work overtime, causing early waking. Having had twins with different sleep patterns I know it wasn't just what I did but what they needed.

[BlackSwan]

Pavlov - have a 13mo here who has never ever slept until 7am!!

Wakes up once for a bottle at about 3am at present. Then back to sleep. Today he was awake and ready to start the day at 6am.

It's not fantastic but it's manageable. Feel for you, I really do. Agree with swanriver, it's just the way he is.

[PavlovtheCat]

oh two swans! swanriver he eats like an absolute horse! I shall add to my list of what I have tried...

feeding him more - on advice of HV, gave him an additional supper, made no difference.
feeding him less at bedtime - another with baby same age suggested this, and then DS refused his food once. Slept beautifully, so did it again, fed more in the day, less at night before bed/earlier. Not a bit of difference.
lots of exercise and fresh air - once, he had lots of fresh air all day at the beach and slept terribly. Another time, badly. He actually gets fresh air most days as we live in devon. We go the beach/long walks twice a week perhaps, park twice a week, wait for DD to go to school/from school (10-15mins each time in lovely gardens).

The late sleeping is so random. I have tried to monitor what has gone on that day to see how our day has impacted on his sleep and there is NO routine. Day before yesterday, for example, he slept almost 3 hours. Never done that before. yesterday, same nap time, same routine - 45mins, then 20 mins in car in afternoon.

He has recently started walking. This has helped his sleep. He used to wake at 11pm/2am/3-4am, then 5am ! So guess I should not complain

[PavlovtheCat]

oh yes, and livewires. Indeed. I have two of them DD has been early riser from about 2yo, before then she woke at around 7am I guess. I remember once apon a time, this was early

[swanriver]

Sounds like you are doing brilliantly, and it may be just a "phase". I think when the phase has ended people tend to conveniently forget they ever went through it.
I am just an insomniac posting, I'm sure others will be along soon to give much better and more uptothe minute advice

All my children and husband are still asleep. Tis most unusual. I feel as if I'm on the Marie Celeste.

[PavlovtheCat]

swan oh that must be heaven! I long for 15 mins to myself before the kids get up, to get ready for work on peace. But not prepared to get up at 4:45am for that , although i might as well as I am always awake before DS wakes now. Typical, as DD now gets up 6:30am-6:45am most mornings you get one sorted...!

And it is a very long phase. He has never been an long sleeper, he only started sleeping 'through' a few months ago!

[Teleaddict]

Hi, just read this thread and can understand how frustrating it is when they wake up at 5 am still tired. My DD woke before 5 am for months before starting to sleep later at about 19 months.
I noticed from your list of things your list you have tried a later bedtime but what about an earlier one? I know it sounds daft but quite often an earlier bedtime can make them sleep later. Or if they are simply programmed to wake up at 5am then at least they aren't tired and grumpy. Our DD would go to bed at 6pm and would wake up happy. I know it doesn't solve the issue of early wakings but maybe worth a try?! Good luck

[Rugbylovingmum]

I was reading this hoping for a magic solution. DD (16 months) has always woken at 5.30 am and nothing we have tried makes her sleep any later. Luckily she wakes up in a good mood - well we are usually woken up by her yelling and complaining that she wants to get up but once I go through she is very happy - but I dream of being able to lie in until 7 am. She sleeps for 1-1.5 hrs at lunchtime but cutting down on this nap just makes her wake earlier. I am always very jealous when friends tell me about their toddlers sleeping later than 7 am then waking up and sitting babbling contentedly in their cot. As soon as DD is awake she starts yelling for someone to come and play with her and if we ignore her it quickly escalates to full on screaming. I've tried bringing her into our bed in the morning hoping for 20 min quiet time but she just jumps around climbing on us until we give up and take her down to her playroom.

I feel bad complaining, she is a happy easy-going little girl who eats well, goes to bed without a fuss and sleeps through. I guess I just have to accept she is an early bird - do any of you have a baby like this and did they eventually learn to lie in? If not how old do they have to be before they can go down and play by themselves then wake you up at a decent hour with a cup of tea .

[PavlovtheCat]

tele you think i need to do even earlier? i brought it forward from 8pm as it is, with a fight! I might try it though, as he does not put up any fight whatsoever with bedtime, i say to him 'night night?' and he goes 'yey!' and snuggles his head into my shoulder. I will perhaps try 6:45pm to start, it is only 15 mins, but if he sleeps later than 5am it means it has worked a little and we can bring it forward a bit more. And if it does not work I only have him up 15 mins earlier not half hour or a whole hour!

rubgbylovingmum I know how you feel, DS is a wonderful happy gorgeous pleasant little boy, he is strong willed, knows what he wants but the most affectionate little boy. If he was wide awake reay to start the day I might be more accepting of the early morning, and also if I got up at 5am and able to get on with the day I would feel better, but because he cries and fusses I have a headache but not able to get moving til gone 6am. Typically I am still sometimes late for work!

It may be with DS that he cries and fusses because he does not want to be held and cuddled (have also tried coming into our room with him, he moans like mad) he might just want to be up and carried around the house looking at things

[Teleaddict]

It may be worth trying earlier bedtimes for a week to see if it makes any difference. But to give you hope I never thought our DD would sleep later than 5am and she now regularly wakes after 7am. It's just that you said he wakes early still needing more sleep and if he goes to bed earlier then at least he may wake up less grumpy. We ended up changing our routine and going to bed at 9 pm to cope with early mornings when it became obvious that dd wasn't going to change hers!
The only other thought is have you tried wake to sleep? Threads on here about it butbasically you rouse them approximate 1 hour before they wake I.e 4 am and this disrupts sleep cycle and makes them sleep later. I think it takes about 3 mornings before it works. I never dared to do it but have read success stories on here!

[Rugbylovingmum]

Tele - I have seen some threads on wake-to-sleep but haven't ever been brave enough to try it. Maybe we should give it a go - I'm just never sure how much you need to disturb them. DD sleeps like the dead - if she is napping I can go in, open the curtains and clatter about putting her clothes away without her stirring. Even rolling her over, stroking her face or gently shaking her doesn't usually waken her, I have to lift her out of the cot to get any reaction but if I do manage to wake her she is miserable. I'm worried I either won't get her to stir (so the 4am alarm is a waste) or she'll come fully awake (and I'll have a miserable, crying baby at 4am as she probably won't go back to sleep).

[Weegle]

We had this with DS (now 4). And I do hate to say it but I think a lot of it is innate. Even now he is still an early riser (admittedly normally 6am). The only thing which helped slightly at the age your DS is weetabix literally just before bed instead of milk. This seemed to give an extra 45 min or so.

But as I say I do think so much is innate. I now have 14 mo twins and they have completely different sleep patterns to their brother. Fortunately they are identical and both love sleep. For them 7.30am is an early wake up. I count my lucky stars daily (but am still woken at 6am by my self-declared "sleep is boring" live wire 4 year old )

[Weegle]

oh the other thing we did was made his bedtime a little later - and stuck with it for a few months. THis helped push it to the right side of 6am... it took a while though

[TheGoddessBlossom]

Hi Pavlov. Sorry to be the bearer and all that but my 4.3 year old still often wakes at this time.....I am so tired on these days I can barely MN....but manage....

[TheGoddessBlossom]

sorry he is 4.7....der.....zzzzz.....

[mrsravelstein]

ds1 was an early riser (5am ish) til he was about 6... agree it's innate...

ds2 is a bit better, but at age 3 is generally up well before 6am.

dd is 13 months, wakes around 5am, but sometimes will go back to sleep if i get in there quick enough to soothe her when she wakes.

[Teaandcakeplease]

I haven't read the whole thread but I just wanted to say that my 25 month old boy is waking early and he is bright eyed and bushy tailed, so I'm going with it as he's an early riser. I'm looking forward to the clock change as it'll adjust him into a more reasonable wake up time

I found the less sleep he was getting, the worse he slept and more upset he was in the day, so I've now moved to stricter naps and a consistent bed time and he's sleeping much better but still waking early So I feel your pain. Both mine at 15 months were still on 2 naps a day I think at 10.30am and 3pm Developmental milestones did scupper things as did teething or a cold.

A sleep diary to see how they sleep each day and what you did differently that day is always a good idea? With DD if I left a drink in her cot and some toys she'd often go back to sleep again for a while in the early mornings. Those were the days

[BlackSwan]

OMG the clocks are going forward, we'll fix them yet!! The kids that is.

[PavlovtheCat]

I will read all the posts after tele but yes we have discussed wake to sleep. The only thing putting me off is having to wake up at 4:30am to wake him!!! But yes, I will try that if the early nights do not work.

Tonight we put him to bed 20 mins early. Meant to be 30 mins but did not quite work. He took a bit of settling, but still slept 15 mins earlier in total. Only a little, but something. However he woke in pain at 9am, so I think he teething, not likely to see an improvement any time soon!

[PavlovtheCat]

DS refuses milk. He was bf at night time until not long ago, but say about 6 weeks ago we stopped, he stopped in fact. But he won't take milk so he does normally have weetabix or ready brek instead. But not always, sometimes he doesn't want it.

I am trying to consider this might be It. This hs the time, but I cannot really accept this. Not yet. He is just not happy enough a that time at 5am, he needs more sleep.

[PavlovtheCat]

4:20am.

[swanriver]

Pavlov, if it was that early, I would have just pretended it was night. And said shush, go back to sleep, nighttime. It is night at 4.20am. Even if he cried for a while, I think he would have resettled at such an early waking if you impressed upon him that it was not time to get up. After all, if he woke at 3am you wouldn't get up and give him breakfast would you? Perhaps a drink, a cuddle and then back in his cot.

Don't let yourself think you have to get up then. He will learn that it is not morning if you don't get up. But a habit will form that it is morning when he wakes (whenever he wakes), if you do get up properly with him.

Anyway, it was probably just a blip.
A thought, was he cold, could you see whether a toddler sleeping bag might make him warm and cosy?
IT was very cold last night.

[PavlovtheCat]

we did not get up. We let him cry for a while, after telling him to go back to sleep, shh then night night.

Eventually DH got up at 5am after he became so hysterical he was throwing himself back into his cot from standing! He started off just grumbling. DH tried to resettle him at 5am too but this did not work.

[PavlovtheCat]

oh and yes he has a sleeping bag! sometimes, if he manages to wiggle out of it, he wakes up and when we go in he points to his legs going 'uh uh' for us to put back on him! He wears full sleepsuits and an undersuit. I suspect it is teeth related, as you say a blip for some reason.