WHY IS SHE WAKING AT 5AM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Schmauskin]

Help needed - my 7 month daughter goes to bed like a angel at 7.00pm, I give her a dream feed at 10-10.30pm (around 4oz) and she sleeps through (occasionally stirring and groaning at 3 or 4) and then wakes at 5.00-5.30 EVERY morning. She never cries, just moans/talks. She DOES fall back to sleepafter about 40 mins until around 6-6.20. then moans again until I go in at 7.00am and get her up. Consequently I am knackered, having been awake since 5.00am listening to the bloody monitor. She is eating 3 meals a day, getting enough milk and having a 45 min nap in the morning, an hour and a half after lunch then another 30 min nap in the afternoon. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG??!!!! I know it's not hunger, because she's very casual about taking her milk at 7.00am. It's not poo, because she doesn't always wake with a dirty nappy. Please help as my tiredness is making me so miserable. Can't go to bed earlier as husband not in from work at night, early enough to do last feed....HELP!

[jessicasmummy]

have you tried to keep her up a bit later? what we have found with dd (6 months) is that she cant stay awake past 5.30pm/6pm so we put her to bed, but actually get her up for an hour at about 9.30pm. She has a bottle then, and palys for a little while. She then sleeps til approx 1am - has her dummy, goes back to sleep. She then stirs at 6am when we give a bottle and she is usually back asleep until 7.30am. She then goes back for a nap at about 9am (hence my appearance here so early!) for an hour....

[Schmauskin]

My evenings are precious, and when I close that bedroom door at 7.00pm it's MY time - whether that means lying on the sofa watching crap telly or ACTUALLY going out to dinner (ok only twice in 7 months) so I am loathed to give that up by having to wake her at 9.00pm for an hour. Sounds like it works for you but I don't think its the answer for me.

[suzywong]

you know what, they just do. End of story

My 17mo old wakes at 4am every night of his life, roars and then goes back to sleep til 5.45. No matter what we do or what variables go on during the day or night

sorry I can't offer you any practical advice. I think all kids have sleep cycles and some just get to a certain point near the surface of that cycle and then wake. Hopefully she will grow out of it

sympathies. There is a MN club for the chronically early birds so you are not alone

[Schmauskin]

BUGGER.

[marthamoo]

Sorry, but I'm with suzy too. My eldest woke between 4.30 and 5 for years (he's nearly 8 now - I just let him get on with it). Ds2 woke up at 5.15 this morning. Some kids are just early risers - and keeping them up late, adjusting their naps, tiring them out, not tiring them out...doesn't change a thing.

Sorry...

[suzywong]

sorry, but once you actually give in to it it does become slightly easier, in a perverse kind of way doesn't it Moo?

[marthamoo]

It does - I used to waste a lot of energy getting mad at ds1. Once I accepted that he really wasn't doing it to make my life hell it became easier. And with ds2 I even manage to be vaguely nice at 5am. Unless I have a hangover.....

[suzywong]

I had a damn good rant this morning on here and it got it out of my system and helped me accept it. It really did

[Schmauskin]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH MY GOD! That means I'm going to be this tired for YEARS! But why has the little minx slept til 7.30 in the past? She obviously capable of doing it....

[suzywong]

yep you are
I've been tired for nearly four years

well if she can do it she may well just decide, literally over night, to do it again

[Schmauskin]

I truly hope so otherwise I will NEVER EVER have another baby. Thank you everyone for talking to me.. it really does help, so many of my freinds have "GOOD' babies who wake at 7.30 every morning...

[suzywong]

well no doubt we will be ranting on here again together one early morning

[lilsmum]

my dd goes through phases, sometime 5am sometimes 8 am, thats just babies and kids for ya i guess!!

i know what you mean about "your" time though

[Schmauskin]

Yep, evenings are sacred, if only so I can do my f*ing tax return! I devote myself to mummy duties all day, so 7.00pm is clocking off time. Lets hope she has a later waking phase soon....Off to wake her now she's had her 45 mins...x

[TracyK]

ds is exactly the same. Goes through days of waking at 4am, then 5am, then 7.15, then 2am. Nothing seems to make any diff. all I try and do is keep him in his cot till at least 5am - then if he wakes after that then he can come through to my bed. The norm. for the past few weeks has been between 5 and 6 am which i can handle - but then he goes to nursery till 1 and never sleeps - so he is absolutley knackered when I pick him up.
Just try and have a nap when they nap.

[mummylonglegs]

Hmmm ... I know that some kids are naturally very early risers, my friend's little boy for instance has only now started waking at 6am and he's just turned 4, before that it was 5am at the latest for all those years! BUT in your case Schmauskin seeing as your dd falls bck to sleep for an hour or so after does lead me to think she may not be one of the 'naturally' early risers. It sounds, from your nap times etc. that you're following GF? I followed her fairly loosely which I think is the only way as you may have a child who needs more or less sleep than she recommends. I would suggest that maybe you ditch that last nap in the afternoon, I cut that one around 6 months old as I'd found she started to wake earlier. I got her to take her after lunch nap slightly later so she wasn't too tired for bedtime. It helped a lot actually. My dd's 2.3 now and has generally been a good sleeper, her earliest mornings ever have been 6.30amish unless she's ill, she's usually up around 7.30am. BUT I do think that her naps affect her night sleep. If she's overtired at bedtime she sleeps badly but also if she's had her afternoon nap too late or too long that also changes her night sleep.

I'm constantly tinkering with her schedule whenever there seems to be a glitch in her sleep so I wouldn't give up hope just yet. As you said, she CAN sleep later in the morning.

[Schmauskin]

thanks for that tiny ray of hope!! Yep kinda following Gina Ford, but Blossom is clearly knackered in the afternoon (she only seems to manage an hour/ hour and a half after lunch) and needs her nap ( she normally does no more than 45 mins at around 3.30pm) so it would be very difficult to drop it. I think I'd end up with a baby too tired to eat her tea.... She has slept around 2 hours at 9.30am once so maybe a longer morning is the answer?

[crazy]

I agree with mummylonglegs, I'm a maternity nurse and I think its also time to cut out late pm sleep. Also try reducing her morning nap to 30 mins max, this should encourage her to sleep longer at lunch, and therefore be able to go all afternoon without a sleep.

Atleast she's not crying at 5:00am and aslong as your not getting her up, once you have tweaked her daily routine abit, she will start sleeping through.

GOOD LUCK

[majorstress]

get her closer onto GF, that afternoon nap has to go gradually but soon. It worked for my 2-but you do have to put up with the odd early morning - might be a bit poorly, and the get in the habit very quickly. Are you doing all the other stuff-blackout, sleeping bag, no noises like central heating coming on then?if so change the time clock a bit. my dd2 is still v easy to disturb around then and she's 2 and knackered!

[bobbybob]

Turn off the monitor! You will hear her if she really needs you.

[sasa15]

My baby does exactly the same things, on and off
in the morning from 5am to 7am until I get up to make him breakfast and he's 6 months old.
the late afternoon nap around 4pm probably affect him...but he only sleep half an hour in the morning and half an hour after lunch...

if he's too tired he won't have his dinner(tea)...

But I want to try today....

we'll see...he usually cries if he is really tired...

How can he sleep more in the afternoon after lunch???

[elliott]

I kind of agree with sw et al in that 5-6am is a very common time for babies to rouse. But if yours is going back to sleep then I definitely wouldn't start getting her up at that time - keep encouraging her to stay in bed and I think eventually her sleep will join up more. Its early days yet! I also agree that things are likely to improve once you can cut out the late nap. I foudn that ds1 did well on two longish (1 hour plus) naps a day at that age - I never woke him from the morning nap and so the pm one was rather later and shorter than in the GF routine - GF is all well and good but not set in stone and you may find a pattern that suits better. hth

[elliott]

btw ds2 is 14 months and has been going through phases of early waking since he started 'sleeping through' around 7 months - I find that his wake up times are definitely associated with his day time sleep - too long a nap and he is awake earlier!

[mummylonglegs]

At this age my dd did a 1.5 hour nap at about 10am, then another 1.5 hour nap around 1.30pm

[Schmauskin]

Blimey, I wish to hell I knew what I was doing. I get quite panicked when I try and juggle all the nap/ feeding times. How the hell do you fit in other stuff like visiting friends or play groups??? Personally I'd rather get her sleep needs sorted....