How do I stop waking up in the early hours?

[LivingDeadGirlUK]

I keep waking up at 4am, its really annoying, sometimes I get another hour or so, sometimes I just toss and turn. Its been weeks if not months. I'm not particularly stressed I don't think.

What do I do? :(

This is me! It's weird as I've recently started sleeping like the absolute dead until I have to get up for that 3am wee

Not helped by the fact that to combat water loss due to night sweats I've masssively upped my daytime water intake (my weekly headaches have stopped so I was definitely dehydrated from sweating I think). So of course there's no way I can get through the night with no wee stop.

I'm on HRT too. It totally sucks

I've sorted mine out (for me anyway).

I have a warm bed (heated blanket in Winter) and a COOL room - never any rads on in Winter. Cool fan in Summer where needed.

I take half a fizzy magnesium tablet before settling down. Listen to podcasts. Drift off - for a while.....

I always wake up to go to the loo and in the past couldn't get back to sleep for hours. The trick I found is to take the sleep aids when I WAKE UP! So I take the other half of the fizzy mag tab and a full tab of the Aldi version of the fizzy multivitamins (like Berocca only quarter the price!). They have magnesium in them and lots of other goodies. I drift off quite easily then after a while.

Lots of people I've said this to have tried it and it worked - not always mind, but a lot of the time.

I hope that might help some of you. I still get the odd night of bad sleep but I don't worry about it anymore, worrying will just make it worse I find.

@WellOwlBeDamned loved your post

This is the thing folks ... at 2am onwards tomorrow don't forget all the posters from this thread awake too!

This will sound mad but I was desperate too! Bought some herbal foot patches from Amazon that are supposed to draw toxins out overnight and promote good sleep. Yes I know, load of old cods.
But they do help! Probably psychosomatic but I don’t care.

@halava as in, you put the two different fizzy tabs in the same water glass?

I got a battery powered alarm clock and started charging my phone downstairs.

I know not looking at your phone before bed is always the advice. However I was shocked at the difference not looking at it made to my disturbed sleep.

Dont be a woman.

In all honesty once I hit peri I joined the 4am wide awake club! I’m mid 50s now and at the back end of menopause (hopefully) but it still persists…

Yes all in the same glass together, and I take a Ferroglobin fizzy aswell in the same glass! I have to keep iron levels up so taking it in the early hours like this means it's on an empty stomach and that's the best way for it to work apparently!

So that's half a fizzy mag, full multivit (with mag) and a Ferroglobin fizz. Better cocktail than a Mojito lol. You might think there are too many vitamins in there, but most are water soluble so what I don't need is peed out!

A 200ml glass is fine, no need to use a pint glass, despite what it says on the tin! All in together, knock it back and ZZzzzz!

Thanks for that list @wetpebbles , I usually take magnesium glycinate (bisglycinate?) but ran out and had to get magnesium oxide from crappy H&B. I did think it wasn't working as well as the other tablets.

I had the 3.30 wake up last night, followed almost immediately by my six year old coming into the bedroom and saying he needed to change his night nappy (it was pretty soaking) so we go through the palaver of that, then he came back 15 minutes later complaining about a fly in his room and by that point my sleep was totally fucked and I was awake until 5.30 😔. I also take the herbal valerian tablets - I think they have some benefit but you need to take them for a while to build up. Suspect it is also peri menopause although I have never been a great sleeper and nor is my mum, so possibly genetic?

About a year ago my sleep started to deteriorate.
Occasionally I’d wake up at 2am and unable to sleep again ( but felt I could fall asleep when it was time to get up for work !)

This got steadily worse, waking at 1 or 2 and staying awake.

I tried magnesium glycinate and it helped a bit but what made a world of difference was HRT.
No issues with sleep since day 1.

Its interesting to see how common this is!

How do you early bed times when you can't sleep because of neighbours 🤷🏻‍♀️

All day do you mean? I might have to stick to just tea. I admit i have got used to coffee picking me up so I need other things to give me that lift.

Where do you get those from? Thanks.

Yes they say not to nap but I had to and going to be trying to do that again. Because I looked and felt better for it.

Yes i am the same with noises, plus I feel wired a lot of the time.
When I was on one of the 3 anti depressants they tried me on, it helped but then weight gain wasn't good.

Same here mini pill since last year which helped with a few issues, but now wondering if it will make anything worse or cause other issues.

Mmmmm. Could be worth a try thanks

I also find that a snoring DH exacerbates things as annoyingly he has a 2nd/3rd wave of snoring just after hit back in bed after a wee. Not even his loudest performance but you know when it's just loud/vibraty enough?

I have never got in with earplug but have heard good things about the Loop Quiet ones which are a bit spendy but have a 100 day money back free returns service. So I'm ordering those today and shall give them a go and report back. Fingers crossed they will help with the fact that as I have to have an open window year round I heat Every. Single. Noise. Outside

Does doing a wee count? 🤣

Sleeping tablets. Try some Nytol for a couple of nights.

How do you get perscribed HRT?

Talk to your GP.

I was going to say magnesium but I see everyone has already recommended it!

Another that helps me is tryptophan. I take both an hour before bedtime.

I can also recommend putting on white noise throughout the night. There are many ten hour videos on YouTube of stuff like rain on a car window. I have a Bluetooth speaker next to my bed playing that all night. I know it works because on the odd occasion it cuts out because I've forgotten to charge something, I'll ping out of sleep.

Phone your surgery.
It will be GP or practice nurse.
For me it was the nurse, so easier to get an appointment

Is there any possibility that it's an outside event causing you to wake up?
Like a neighbour going to work early, banging the hall door, opening a gate, starting his car, or a milk or paper delivery or birds causing a racket near the bedroom window.

I used to wake at around 6 most mornings - as I had another hour of sleep left.
Turns out it must have been the doctor next door going in for his 7am work shift. He's retired now so I'm not wakened by him.
But I think the blo*dy magpies clattering on our roof now wake me up at around 7.

I find it hard to fall asleep so alternate between magnesium glycinate and Nytol One a Night ( the Nytol is great as I drift off really quickly but I don't use it all the time as there are links to some ingredient in it and dementia 🥲)