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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

Is it normal..... Baby wakes between 5-7am every night

74 replies

Confusedmum23 · 26/06/2012 06:46

Hi, this is freaking me out and worrying me hell of a lot. My DS who is now 6 months 2 weeks old seems to wake between 5-7am, sometimes even earlier, and he would be trying to sit up trying to roll over looking for something to chew/suck on (been already leaving a few muslin cloth around in the cot as comforters). Just awake. Letting out little cries from time to time which per sleeping training means I would try not to tend to him and to let him be. I stay awake watching the baby video monitor hoping he falls asleep and I lose sleep too. I am worried that as I have read babies his age needs 14 hours sleep a day - and as he does not nap too well during the day and as I am still giving him the dream feed at 11pm, he is sleeping much less than required? I out him down for bedtime at 7pm. Sometimes he would fall back to sleep finally but at close to 7am when we have got to wake him.... Help anyone out who experienced the same and know what to do???? Thanks xxxx

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

ScroobiousPip · 29/06/2012 09:10

I think your problem is with the book, not the baby.

candr · 29/06/2012 21:36

Would love my 9m to sleep as well as yours. Am up a few times every night and NEVER sleeps for more than half hour naps in day, am lucky if he has 3.
I really wouldn't stress as they are always changing their routines and it sounds like your LO is doing well.

Consort · 02/07/2012 01:49

I agree you are very lucky. If I told you what I have to go through to get DD to sleep, you wouldn't believe it..enjoy the fact that your DS sleeps through and naps. Not all DC do!

HearMyRoar · 02/07/2012 15:15

The problem with parenting books like GF is that babies rarely read them. have you tried reading the relevent chapters to your ds and explaining to him that he really isn't doing it right? :o

Seriously, relax. Babies are people not machines and therefore they don't all do the same things at the same time in the same way. Your DS sounds happy and you sound like you are doing great. Congratulate yourself on being super and eat some cake :)

brettgirl2 · 02/07/2012 19:25

My 3 year old I don't think has ever slept past 7.... I'd always thought she was a good sleeper. You need to go to bed earlier OP. Drop the dreamfeed I reckon and get some kip! I think its better if they wake themselves if and only if they're hungry.

GnocchiNineDoors · 02/07/2012 19:33

I dont get my dd out if the cot if she is happily chuntering away to herself.

I wait for her to shout for me.

teacherwith2kids · 02/07/2012 19:39

My 11 year old has never slept past 7. He's a morning person.

My 9 year old, on the other hand, would sleep till 10 if I let her, but finds it hard to go to sleep in the evning. She's a night owl.

They were EXACTLY like that as babies too - in fact, DD would sometimes drop off after 'partying all night' only an hour before DS would be up and about for the day... a recipe of sleep deprivation in the parent, definitely, but it did no harm to either of them as babies.

MrTumblesCrackWhore · 02/07/2012 19:50

my dd2 (9months) has just started sleeping a bit longer (currently around 6.30am) but since about 6 months she had been waking any time from 4.30am to 6am. This had come as a bit of a shock as ds1 always slept at least 7pm-7am from about 5 months. I, too, worried that she was not 'normal' but since talking to my friends with dcs the same age, she, apparently to them, is the sleeping wonder baby - two friends are still getting up several times a night, and then, still, really early.

The sleeping later now has coincided with her beginning to crawl - I suspect before she was growing, teething and generally restless. Now she beetles around all day, I think she is just more knackered and content that she has mastered a new skill.

Hope all improves soon.

Original poster

Confusedmum23 · 19/07/2012 22:23

Hi all,
It's me again. Need all the advices / suggestions / experience out there. To recap, my DS tends to be awake between 5-7am every night, in fact sometimes even earlier and when I started this thread I was concerned re the number of hours of sleep he'd get. The general consensus was that I should leave him to do his thing be it play or blabbering away until he might cry out for me. Since then we have started him in the nursery and I have returned to work. His early morning wakings have now become a problem. He is so tired and grumpy and cranky by the time we get to the nursery he will not have his breakfast. The nursery cannot accommodate an earlier morning nap for him as there are obviously other babies there and the routine is that the morning nap begins around 9.30am. Even if my DS is really sleepy it is too noisy for him to settle. This means that my poor DS would be awake for over 4 hours before he could get some restful sleep.
A friend suggested that we should feed him as soon as we become aware he's awake, even if he might not cry out for us, as it would help him fall asleep again. We tried that but after the feed he'd continue to stay awake... Argh.
Anyone out there in a similar situation now or before? How can we get him to sleep till 7-ish am so he is rested and wakeful enough to enjoy nursery?
PS: Another problem is that I would be awake with him from 5-ish, worse whenever he does wake earlier, and I too become really tired for work all day. Obviously I can't nap during the day, and as I still need to do the dream feed, I don't get into bed before 11.30pm at the earliest. I am shattered.
HELP AGAIN!!!!

OP posts:

ceeveebee · 19/07/2012 22:33

Can you delay his bedtime to 730 pm, does that make any difference?

How do you get him to nursery? Can he nap on the way in the pram?

Original poster

Confusedmum23 · 19/07/2012 22:41

Hi ceeveebee, good to hear from you again. We have not tried to delay his bedtime as he sleeps badly at the nursery i.e. lunchtime nap is max. 1hour and the afternoon nap ends up taking place too early like around 3-ish. So as you can imagine, we are already struggling to keep him awake for the bedtime milk at 6.30pm.
We take him to nursery in a babybjorn, which he seems to enjoy!

OP posts:

OhTheConfusion · 19/07/2012 22:47

You poor soul, returning to work is hard enough without a lack of sleep too.

What is your DS eating before bed and what time is he going down?

Could you also try and change your routine, ie. go to bed at 10.30pm and do what you would have done between then and 11.30 the following morning?

I really do feel for you.

ceeveebee · 19/07/2012 22:52

Would he sleep on the way if you used a pram instead?

1 hour at lunchtime doesn't sound enough - 1.5-2 hours would be better. Or alternatively can the nursery delay the 3pm nap to later - when my two haven't had enough sleep I try to force a catnap at 5pm ish to make sure refreshed for their bath and bedtime feed.

Original poster

Confusedmum23 · 19/07/2012 23:31

OhTheConfusion thanks for your empathy. The dream feed takes place at 11pm, and if I am lucky it would be over in 30mins. I have got so much to do and catch up on after I put him down for bedtime at 7pm and before the dream feed I could not afford a kip I'm afraid. The following morning is work work work and so I only have those hours in the evening to do laundry, prepare his food for next day, tidy up, shower, cook, eat, do research on babies etc. I don't know what I am doing wrong and why I am so inefficient.....

ceeveebee I too wish we could use the pram but (1) where we live there is no lift at the tube station and (2) it takes too long on the way home with a buggy during the rush hour and it makes bath time bedtime routine too much of a rush. You know what, I gave the "instructions" to the nursery to (a) lunchtime nap min. 1.5 hours and (b) afternoon nap between 4-5pm. But they can't get my DS to, or maybe he just wouldn't, sleep for long at the lunchtime nap, and he apparently tends to doze off during the daily afternoon walks which take place between 3-4pm. Frustrating isn't it. I pick him up at 5.30pm and then rush him home to do bathtime/bedtime.

OP posts:

Original poster

Confusedmum23 · 19/07/2012 23:38

Oh last night, he did an hour between 3- ish and 4-ish am of waking too!!!! Yes then woke at 5-ish and stay awake all the way!!!! As mentioned when he wakes I wake even if he is not crying!!!! I am a terrible sleeper as in I struggle to fall back to sleep once woken [confused

OP posts:

OhTheConfusion · 19/07/2012 23:47

I wonder if upping his solid food intake would help. Is your DS having his tea at nursery?

My DS (now almost 10 ) used to have his tea at nursery or his grandparents around 5pm and then by the time we collected him at 5.45pm, got him home, bathed and pj's on he would be getting sleepy have a short milk feed and into bed at 7ish and always woke for a dreamfeed and up early :(

A friend suggested we give him a supper before bed along with a shorter milk feed so we started gave him weetabix or porridge just after his bath and he began to drop the dream feed and sleep through until 7am after a few days. He was 8mths then.

DD2 (10mths) is a good night time sleeper but needs to have a good 2hr morning nap and 1hr afternoon nap or she is a grumpy so and so!

ceeveebee · 19/07/2012 23:50

Oh dear, you must be very frustrated if the nursery aren't doing as you ask. Can you speak to the manager, , it seems odd they expect all babies to follow the same routine (but then I have no experience of nurseries as I am not back at work yet, maybe this is the norm?)

It's also a shame you can't walk to and from nursery instead of tube as he may nap on the way there and back, then you could delay bedtime by 1/2 hour perhaps?

Also perhaps he is hungry? How is weaning going?

It sounds like you have a lot on your plate.

ceeveebee · 19/07/2012 23:51

Xpost about solid food, I am a slow typist!

Declutterbug · 19/07/2012 23:53

Very useful evidence-based website about normal sleep for babies.

I don't think your baby has read the book .

Original poster

Confusedmum23 · 20/07/2012 06:47

Hi, thanks for your concern. I am not sure if hunger is an issue - weaning seems to be going on fine as I tend to feed him till he rejects the food, though I am not sure if he rejects it cos he's full or he doesn't like it. I have had conflicting advices on amounts eaten - on a good day 3/4 of an Ella's Kitchen pouch portion, bad day 1/2, really good day the whole pouch size. Call me stupid but I can't understand the ice cube sizing as the sizes of ice cubes vary so much? Thing is, he doesn't wake (touch wood) due to hunger as he doesn't cry and when I feed him early (as mentioned we tried to feed him as soon as we are aware he's awake in the hope he would fall back to sleep afterwards), he drinks very little 3-4oz max.
He has what I call a dinner at 5pm - which is something as heavy as lunch e.g. chicken with sweet potato and rice with pudding sometimes if he'd have it. Then bath at 6pm followed by milk at 6.30pm. He doesn't drink much either thus the need to keep the dream feed as we struggle to get him to take at least 500ml of milk a day around the solids.
The nursery does try to do all they can to accommodate the naps to the best they can but with the sleeping area being within the play area, it'd mean if he were to sleep outside of the general routine, the other babies would be playing and screaming around him!!??? We chose that nursery cos it has an excellent reputation and came highly recommended to us by my DH's colleagues and yes it is next door to his office!

OP posts:

Original poster

Confusedmum23 · 20/07/2012 06:55

My DS has been up since 5.15am and I waited to 6am to feed him - even though he didn't cry out to me I went to him with a bottle. He drank little again and seemed sleepy when I put him back into his cot. Thought he would sleep, but he has been babbling away and tossing and turning since. Frustrating. It's time to "wake" him soon and I have not slept too. He had short 30 mins wake at about 4am too. Maybe I should be glad I hadn't needed to tend to him but staying awake though whilst lying in bed makes me feel very very tired still..... And j worry. I am desperate for solution. I don't want to feed him Amy earlier as I might end up "encouraging" him to expect a feed at 5-ish and his body clock would then continue to wake him at that time either as it already does for whatever reason or to drink milk!!!!

OP posts:

Original poster

Confusedmum23 · 20/07/2012 07:00

And I am taking his cot mobile off today. He tries to each for it when he wakes but really he doesn't do it for very long and spends most of his waking time just tossing and turning and blabbering. I feel bad that I seem to need to remove it as it is the one toy we can say he truly like since he was only a couple months old.

OP posts:

Original poster

Confusedmum23 · 20/07/2012 07:04

Maybe I should rock him to sleep after the morning feed????!!!!

OP posts:

jimswifein1964 · 20/07/2012 07:08

Well, I dont sleep beyond 6am & I'm nearly 40
Seriously, this is all about perspective. When you dont have kids, 5am seems like the early hours. Now, it just seems like a bit of an early start.

ceeveebee · 20/07/2012 07:55

I had a couple of thoughts about you getting more sleep even if baby is awake (and our two have been awake since 530 am today btw - I didn't go to them until 630 though)

can your DH do the dream feed?
if not can he do the morning feed instead? It's not really fair that you are doing both?

Also I remember reading Gina Ford when mine were first born and she said that where there are early wakings you might want to :

wake baby up fully as 10pm, ie lights on, eye contact etc rather than a dream feed, theory is that baby will then need to sleep later in morning
if baby wakes before 7am give a small feed and then give rest of feed at 7am

Also you mention pouches - is he eating pouches a lot - I have been told these are mainly water and hence don't fill baby up as much as home cooked food (might be a rumour though!). Might be worth increasing protein and fatty food intake (avocado etc) as most food has less calories than milk.

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