What to do with baby at 5am

[weepingwillow22]

My 14 month old wakes at about 5am each day. Putting him to bed later does not make any difference to his wake up time.

Ideally I don't want to be getting up and out of bed until 6.30 ish so I am wondering what I can do with him to occupy him whilst I lay in bed without him waking my older son.

I tend to give him a breastfeed in the dark in the hope he will fall asleep on me for a bit longer but it rarely works but gives me another 15 minutes in bed.

His play skills are limited. He mainly enjoys pulling things out of cupboards, rolling balls around and knocking things down. I sometimes read with him but really would rather not be doing this at 5am.

If I put him back in his cot he cries and is upset if he is not in the same room as me.

Any ideas?

We used to go downstairs, I mainlined coffee and Dts played until Bloody CBBC started at 6am.

They're 10 now, still mostly up by six. It they obviously look after themselves now.

Do you have a partner?

5-6am I feed baby and get up with them if needs be.

At 6am it’s time to wake up daddy and have him take over! Maybe in your household that time could be 5.30am...

Mine have done this and still do it and it is a killer. Especially when it is too early for cbeebies! I stick on something like peppa pig then have a huge coffee and do the housework. We turn the TV off after about an hour and do some puzzles but I will not do anything first thing.

I put a mattress on the floor of DD's room, so instead of bringing her to our bed I just went to her room. BF on the mattress and I'd pull a blanket over myself and then snooze for a bit longer. Her room is basically entirely baby-proof so she could entertain herself by looking at books, digging through a toy basket etc.

This worked very well when DD was 16-20 months (14 might be a tiny bit young to be unsupervised in case baby tends to fall over when walking/cruising). After 20 months she became smarter and started to pull my blanket off whenever she saw it because she knew I was going to try sleeping on her floor

Just remembered, I did the same thing when she was 6-12 months, except I put her in a cot (not the one she slept in) that had lots of toys tied to the bars. Stuff like spirally soft toys that go across the top bars and have things dangling down, musical toys, rattly toys etc. Then I'd lie on her floor and snooze until she got bored and started whining. This usually gave me almost an hour longer.

Probably not the ideal MN answer but I put on little baby bum and she lies in her cot and watches that until a more respectable 6am and I doze for another hour. Then we get up. Anything pre 6am is LBB...no way she'll go back to sleep waking at that sort of time so I don't even try to resettle

Hi OP, I've been there and it sucks.

What worked for us was treating it a bit like a night waking (as others have said) the technique involves getting him up for a bit, giving some food and a bit of quiet play and then putting back to sleep an hour later for the first nap. The theory is that he would then see it as one continuous sleep and would start to join them together eventually.

I should have added that this was suggested to us by a sleep consultant and worked for us, but not for our friends DD.

Try dropping one of the naps. Maybe the later one.

@Mistlewoeandwhine

Try dropping one of the naps. Maybe the later one.

Oh gosh no! That lunchtime nap should always be the longest And last the longest. If anything drop the morning one then pull the lunchtime one forward 30-60mins.

Embrace it? Pre 5.30, baby plays on rug while I drink tea, toddler either plays or I put postman pat on YouTube for a short while. We then get up, dressed and ready for the day, toddler has breakfast while I do the dishwasher/clean/put the washing machine on/cook my own porridge.

Yeah at 14 months he is old enough to drop to one nap. It would probably need to be at about 11am and it might be tricky to push him that late but then he will probably sleep more at night. You are aiming for 11-12 hours at night and then maybe 1-2 during the day rather than 10 at night and 3 during the day.

The thing enabling him to wake at 5 is that his body knows he gets to sleep again at 9. Whereas if that is later then he will naturally wake later too.

This was me. 5am and DD was fully awake, every single day. She'd sleep through from 7pm so swings and roundabouts. I can't remember what I did really. A weekly highlight was waving to the binmen through the lounge window, they loved her

She's now 2 and still wakes at 5am but she'll often go back to sleep for an hour or so now. A slow improvement!

My daughter is now 4 and has been like this since she was a tiny baby. Doesn't matter if she goes to bed at 7pm or 10pm she's up at 5am. I've just gotten used to being massively sleep deprived now I think

Brings back memories! It drove me to desperation too as DS wasn't a great sleeper anyway so I would almost always have been up in the night too. I kept a rotating selection of "morning toys" in my bedside cupboard and would make a cuppa and laze while he pottered.

I would definitely drop his 9am nap, try and keep him going til 11 as PP have said.

I also dropped all but bedtime BF for DS around 14 months which helped a bit although he continued to be an early riser until he hit his teens.

My DS did this. Dropping the morning nap definitely helped! 14m is about the right age to go to one decent nap around lunch time.

We just kept him busy first thing and then gradually moved the morning nap later by 30 mins . So started with like 10/10.30am and then eventually got it to 12/1 and after lunch. You have to be creative with meal times, and some days they might really need the second nap if they take a crap first one, but just keep it to a short spin in the car or something. And move bedtime forward a bit to make up for it.

My DD is almost 2.5 and still a 5am riser. Anything before 5 and I try to get her back to sleep. After 5 is fair game (I get up for work at 5 so easier to let her day just start). I usually put little baby bum on the TV while I chill on the sofa (on days I’m not working). People judge and criticise but DD knows all her letters, numbers and colours. I’d love to say I’d planned loads of enriching activities to teach her this, but it’s all from that bit of LBB in the morning - I no longer feel guilty about it!

I had one like this! He didn't nap though unless he was in his buggy. I think my DS would because of hunger because he would be in such a state until he had weetabix. I used to try and give him a weetabix to go to bed on that sometimes helped. I know you should keep everything quiet and dark but honestly once he was awake he was up! So we started the day so so early!

I remember these days. I used to be at the park by 6am. Not sure what time it gets light though

I saw in one of your posts you mentioned he still has two naps during the day. My daughter dropped down to one nap at 12 months, I used to give her an early lunch and she would nap for a couple of hours from about 12pm. Might be worth trying that? I also agree with those who suggest treating it as a night waking and don't offer any entertainment.

Sounds like he needs to drop the morning nap.

Keep him going through the morning, early lunch and nap at 12.

I always treated anything before 6.30am as a night waking so we stayed in bed, lying down, in the dark. Milk and something to watch quietly on my phone at a push.

Peppa pig on the phone.

It's much easier when they're older. DS, 5 gets in, has cuddles then asks for my phone. I manage to nap in between him making me look at sodding Sonic the god damn hedgehog.

I'd Def try and keep him in bed with you for cuddles, maybe tell him a story quietly, sing a song etc and try to teach him that it's not day yet