How stop baby waking at 5am

[jellybelly22]

We are on our knees. It's actually getting earlier, today it was 4:30am! She goes to bed relatively early at about 6pm but she no longer has an afternoon nap and is absolutely exhausted by this time. I push it as long as I can in the hope that the later she goes to bed the longer she'll sleep in in the morning but it's been 5am or before religiously for weeks now.

She is 14 months and co sleeps with us. Any ideas?

<Dons hard hat> Could it be the co-sleeping adding to the issue? <Runs away>

DD was in her own room from 4 months. We treated any wake up before 6am as a night time wake up and reacted the same way - shushing, patting, repeating the sleep cue words etc.

Blackout blinds are your friend.

I would put them in their own room, even if you leave their and your bedroom door open. As to the crying, it's what babies do, how they communicate. As long ad they aren't too hot, too cold, too wet or smelly, or too hungry then all their basic needs are met.

Once you have a 17 year old you won't be able to get them out of bed!

Good point! Even now DD won't go to sleep if we are in the same room as her, she sees us and just wants to play.

Think of it as jet lag, you need to push the whole cycle back by an hour at least.

So aim for 6.30 wake up
11am early lunch
11.30 nap
7pm bedtime

Try to push the nap time and bed time back in 10 or 15 minute increments every day. Once you’re at your target nap/bed times it will need about a week to settle and then hopefully she’ll start waking later.

I assume you have black out curtains etc already?

@TulipofAmsterdam finally someone on my level!

Despite keeping her super active and busy she just won't have an afternoon nap. She always has a morning nap and is usually ready for it by 10am at the latest. She does the same at nursery. Then no matter how busy and active she is she refuses to sleep again until bedtime, unless it's a sneaky nap in the car. But that's rare. I agree she should still be napping in the afternoon, I wish she would! But I can't physically make her sleep if she doesn't want to. By 6pm she is understandably climbing the walls as she's been awake since about 11am. She goes straight to sleep and tends to stay asleep until the middle of the night when she gets in bed with us. I don't think this makes much difference to the 5am wake up time - I think her body clock is just tuned into that time now. So if I could get bedtime back til 7 then maybe she'd sleep in that extra hour. Whether she'd last til 7 with no afternoon nap im unsure.

I'm not a baby (obviously), but I've just put up our summer defences in the bedroom - a heat reflective camping blanket propped between the blinds and the open window.

Noticeable temp drop of about 5 degrees, lets in a very small amount of light (useful for regulating your own sleep, better than total blackout). Windows open to allow ventilation and prevent overheating between the blanket and window, but the blanket also blocks sound.

I think the bedtime is too early to expect baby to sleep later in the morning. That’s 11 hours so pretty good going really.

will she nap earlier? Mine is 14 months and for some reason is so tired in the morning, he could literally nap 2 hours after he wakes. So I’ve often started giving him a 30 min nap from about 8:45-9:15ish, then he’s ready for another nap around 1:30. I’ll cap that one at 2 hrs so he goes to bed around 7:30pm.

We don’t co sleep. Sometimes I hear him awake about 5 but he’ll often go back to sleep. If he doesn’t I’ll give him a quick feed without really engaging (still bf) and then put him back in his bed. He’ll often go back off to sleep for another hour or two, or at least just chat to himself happily in bed for a while.

Push the nap back. Yes you'll have a couple of painful days while she adjusts, but then bedtime will be later and she'll wake up later. Plus blackout blinds.

Pmsl

At 14 months she definitely needs a nap , your not going to get her to stay up any later of course she's wrecked by time 6pm comes around . Nap at around 10/11 am and she would go down a treat come 7pm

She does nap at that time. But then that's it for the rest of the day. She doesn't have an afternoon nap and is exhausted by 6pm because she's been up since 5am with only an hour nap between 10-11.

How about moving the cot to her bedroom now.

Just here to say I had this with my son, he was up at 0430 until 2.5ish, despite trying everything. I was waking at 0430 and then going to work and doing 13hr shifts, it wasn’t fun. It actually started us co-sleeping in case that helped. Nothing helped, he just grew out of it

When mine were small the trick was the first nap. So rather than taking cues from them being tired, I'd switch to a routine by the clock.

So lunch at 11.30 then down for a nap. Having an early nap facilitates the early waking.

The later nap allows the whole routine to shift and then naturally they should be able to stay up a bit later and then wake up a bit later.

If the early waking returns, then the nap should be pushed back again and again, then trimmed until it's gone.

This and black out blinds and not engaging. Not accepting it's morning time until it is actually an acceptable time to get up!

I agree with pp that said pushing the nap later is a good idea. Many sleeping issues are caused by overtiredness, including early waking. Aiming for a roughly 12-2 nap should help to correct things but you might have several miserable days/ weeks with an overtired girl. And some kids will just wake early but I’m with you, before 5 (for me it was anything before 6) just does something horrible to your soul…

I’d be working towards pushing the morning nap back to 11/12 aiming for a 7.30pm bedtime and over the course of a couple of weeks things might improve.

Could be the summer though, we have every single tiny crack of light eradicated in his room 😂

So do I! Up at 5am with two night wakes, any later and I get so little sleep!

Thanks all. Some great tips. I will work on pushing the morning nap back gradually or trying to encourage a car nap in the afternoon if she really won't stay awake longer in the day.

We had some success with eldest DD1 with black out blinds and light alarm clock slowly put back to 6 am over months but she was in her own room by 14 months which helped.

The others - we ended up doing similar - pick them up and bring them into bed - but again having them in a separate room - in our case with older toddler sibling did mean they slept a bit later - and then everyone ended up in our bed.

14 moths is young to drop the afternoon nap compared to my children but then they only had a very short morning one by then and soon dropped that and kept later one - driving or moving pushchair nap if your around could help get that routine back - but if she in childcare well that's not going to work.

I don’t eat breakfast/lunch till 5pm!

House of owls. DD slept midnight till noon. Suited us.

I could no sooner go to bed at 7pm than I could fly to the moon.

@GCWorkNightmare ok be tired then?

OP, I have a 13 months old. He wakes up at 6am, bedtime at 6pm.

We cut morning nap (at 9.30am) short. 30-45 mins. Otherwise he'd sleep an hour and refuse other naps and be cranky all day.

So one nap at 9.30am, second nap around 1.30pm.

We all have dinner around 5.-5.30pm. I like it as it means I don't eat after 6pm (helps not to put weight on). We're all asleep by 8-9pm

DH and I wake up at 5 naturally. We chill in bed/have a coffee (sometimes watch the sunrise)
then our DS wakes up at 6am.

I know people say 'they're night owls' but try explaining that to a 13 months old. It was easier to just to adapt to his schedule and everyone is happy and rested. Good luck x

I’m not tired. 🤷🏻‍♀️ We don’t all follow a 7-7 routine. Maybe open that mind a teensy bit.