Early riser !!

[twittyx]

Hello I posted last week about my 10mo son waking through the night, luckily he has started sleeping through the last 3 nights from 6/7pm without a bottle which is amazing !! Fingers crossed it sticks! The only thing is he is waking up at 5am every day, I don't mind as I'm just happy he's sleeping through but does anyone know why he could be waking so early? He used to sleep until at least 6am. I've ordered some black out blinds in case the sun rising is waking him but he's still doing it. Any advice appreciated x

[MellowBird85]

The first thing I was going to suggest was blackout blinds as it does get light really early at this time of year. Could you possibly treat it as a night wake? He might be hungry / thirsty and settle for another hour or two after a bottle? The only other thing I can suggest is “wake to sleep” which is where you gently rouse your baby half an hour or so before they usually wake up. The thinking behind it is that it resets their sleep cycle. It’s quite extreme though because you’d obviously have to set your alarm for like 4am

[FATEdestiny]

He might have had enough sleep by 5am. Normal overnight sleep at this stage would be in the region of 10h-12h. If your DS is going to sleep at 6am then he's had 11h by 5am. If he's asleep by 7am then he's still within the relmes of normal at 10h overnight sleep.

Blackout blinds will certainly help though. And watch for 'bleeding' light around the edges of the blinds. To reduce thus I use both blackout blinds and blackout curtains so that no light bleeds in.

Also worth noting we've just had the hottest May on record (in UK). So consider if he could be getting too hot.

[midnightstar66]

If he's going to bed at 6 then 5am is a full 11 hours sleep. Not many dc sleep more than that in one shift.

[twittyx]

Hi thank you for your advice. I totally get he is having enough sleep the only thing is, we tried putting him to bed later for a few nights so 8/9pm and he was still up at 5? I was wondering if it could be a spurt or regression x

[midnightstar66]

Putting him to bed later a couple of times won't change his body clock immediately, it's a marathon rather than a sprint unfortunately- blackout blinds should help though.

[Melamine]

Sorry to jump on but @FATEdestiny have you found 10h is normal for a 12MO as well? I can get a very rare 11 hours sometimes but it's normally somewhere between 9h45 and 10h15. I have a blackout blind but it's pretty useless as bleeds out all sides and top so I think that adding curtains on top is the next thing to try.

The heat thing is so tricky. What is cool enough for when the room is roasting after heating up all day is going to be far too cool at 5am. Perhaps keeping the aforementioned blackout curtains drawn all day to keep the heat out is the way to go?!

[FATEdestiny]

Melamine - it's more about the stage baby is at (in terms of sleep) rather than age.

When a younger baby is having multiple daytime naps then they're more likely to be at the lower end of 10-11h. On one nap a day 11h would be an average but by the time baby is not having daytime sleep it is reasonable to expect close to 12h overnight.

If course there will always be exceptions, these are approximations. But can be useful because some parents of babies tolerate their baby not having enough sleep, thinking that their child 'just doesn't sleep much'. But more often than not, the child not sleeping much is more to do with poor sleep hygiene and habits, rather than natural instincts.

[Melamine]

Thanks @FATEdestiny, we are getting a solid 2.5ish hours over 2 day naps so perhaps that is indeed that and to avoid 5.30am I need to gradually push bedtime back (rather than trying two nights of later bedtimes and assuming it doesn’t work like @midnightstar66 says!). Sorry again @twittyx for hijacking but hopefully that is helpful for you too!?