Or is 4am a ridiculous time to get up?

My 8 month old woke for the day at 4am this morning. I just kept trying to feed her back to sleep (I don't think I could have physically got up, i was so knackered) and she finally feel back to sleep at 5am :/

My son went through several phases of waking up at 4-5am. And that’s the time he started screaming so we got him up. He’d often have woken us half a hour earlier, lying there chatting to himself for ages before we got him up! He also wasn't a daytime napper at all unless I was pushing the pram for hours (although we were lucky that he went down easy at night).

It will pass! And then come back again. But then it will pass again! He's now nearly 3 and has been sleeping through the night to at least 7am for about a year.

I feel your pain. DS was either a 4.45/5 wake up or he’d be awake for ages in the night. A lot of his was teething, if I thought that was it I’d give ibuprofen and often that helped. Tbh we just prioritised sleep for us so early nights and napping in shifts at the weekend. Same as yours he was no problem to get down at night so I took that as a small win.

The best bit of advice I got is if they are happy leave them to it in their cot.
so cooing etc doesn’t want a visit just crying.

our Dd is 2 and still wakes up god knows when.
she will merrily sing old McDonald’s, frere jacques etc and chunter away to herself about the birdies and the bin men until 6.30/7

DS4 was like this, only slept for eight hours at night. I ended up moving his bed time until 10pm so he'd at least sleep until 6am.

Oh I can’t help them. Mine usually did about 10 hours and it was mostly a moveable feast. One was a bit more affected by the birds and also, I think, the cold as the temperature actually drops just before the dawn. If I got up for the loo etc in the small hours I would pop an extra blanket on ahead of that.

This reminds me of a friend who had children like this, she'd turn up on my doorstep at 9am on a Saturday with a cake she'd baked and decorated that morning and look very perplexed at us still in our pyjamas. Nine was the afternoon for her, she spent years going to bed immediately after dinner at 5pm.

If she's just coping then i would try leaving her for a bit and see if she goes off again. You could give her some milk if not and then see if she will settle back down. I think 6 am is reasonable to start the day.

Yes. I’d definitely put her down an hour later in this case.

Dts were like this it was torture. They're 13 now and still up at the crack of dawn. I'm waiting for the switch to teenagers that won't get up!

They do. But I found mine slept about 10 hours at a stretch so it’s when you want it. The longer sleep comes a bit later. It’s easy to pull bedtime back when they are bigger: just start it in the winter when it’s dark and take them somewhere that afternoon to wear them out for a few days. It’s easier to manipulate thd battery of sn older child as they can do things like run about.

It starts to get light at 4 am and the birds start tweeting. Is there a bedroom window open? Do you have the the blackest of blackout blinds and curtains? They can still let light in at the outside edges so if you’re desperate double sided tape or sticky Velcro and tape them to them to the walls either side.

If you are putting dc down at 6 that’s 10 hours which is a long time at that age without a drink. The best advice my mum ever gave me is that you”ll get them sleeping at one end of the night but not both: put them down early and they will wake early, keep them up later snd they will sleep in. I found it much easier to slow the bedtime routine for a baby and have them up after other dc have gone to bed ( quiet feed etc) and down about 8 or 9pm. Seems to me 9pm would push the window 9 to 7 which is about what ours did and it worked for us. Even 8 to 6 is better than 6 to 4.

Then definitely try putting her down earlier especially if she's had shit naps during the day.

I know it sounds counterintuitive but all the sleep consultants I'm following (I know, I know) say to put them down earlier, at this age that helps rather than hinders early wake-ups.

Mine did this, I found him getting two naps to add up to 2 or 2.5 hours during the day actually helped him sleep at night, though he's still not perfect at nearly a year! He still gets up half 6ish but much more civilised than the early mornings!

I wake up at 4am everyday - it's not because I am "bright"...

You have to sometimes, OP!
It's a ridiculous time, but you get through it when absolutely necessary!
☕💛💤

She might need a bigger gap between her last nap and bed time to build sleep pressure

How is she in the mornings after waking so early? When it is her first nap?

How soon after waking does she go down for a nap? Often if they’re not tired enough they’ll only do 30/40 minutes, but stretching it a little longer can get a longer nap out of them. One of the most common reasons for early wakes is overtiredness, would she do contact naps or naps in a carrier to get a bit more daytime sleep?

I have a nearly 10 month old and we’ve had real ups and downs with her sleep, just managed 4 day’s in a row of after 6am wakes, which feels momentous, but now I sleep so poorly after about 3 as she had a fair while of night wakes around then.

My LO is also SO sensitive to light in her room - the light on the monitor has a bit of blu-tac on it, and there’s fitted blackout blinds behind blackout curtains! I even found recently that (very little) light round the door was contributing to earlier wakes, so I’ve made the whole landing as dark as I can, which (ridiculously) has made a difference.

I’m sure it’ll all soon be a rose-tinted memory!

ooh I felt this one OP, my second was a 4am riser for ages. Good news, he’s now a 6am riser!

Honestly I think you cause more stress for yourself trying to change it than just coping with it. Have you got a partner at home to alternate early morning wakes with? That’s how I coped!