5am starts - success story!

[easytiger12]

I bet I am not the only one who, for months, has accepted ridiculously early mornings, thinking 'oh well, at least he's sleeping through'.

A month ago we decided to tackle it. When DS (16 mo) started crying at 5am we went in with his beaker of milk, gave it to him and laid him back down saying 'it's still night time; night night' and walk away. Cue an hour of crying and going back in every ten mins repeating the words and walking away again. By 6am he'd given up and went back to sleep until 7am. We had one more morning like that and then by day 3 he just took the milk, cuddled up to teddy and went back to sleep until 7am with no complaints.

Now, he is generally sleeping until 6.30-7am. If he does wake up earlier, we give him his milk and walk away and he goes straight back down - he understands that it means he should go to sleep again.

The best thing about this isn't the extra sleep we are getting, but the fact that he is SO MUCH happier. The early mornings weren't good for him ... within an hour he was grizzly and whingey. Now he wakes up in a much better mood and is pretty much OK until going down for a nap around midday.

Thought I'd share it as it really has made a difference to us all.

Thanks for sharing! Useful

Well done! So nice to hear a success story.

Thanks for sharing, I just wish my DS would accept a beaker of milk. He is still breastfed and that's all he will accept in the mornings!! :)

I could have written this! This morning it was 3.50 that he woke but this is rare but it fot him back asleep til 6. It's usually between 5-6 he wakes. As he is now sharing the room I/DH have to take him to the kitchen with us for fear of waking DC2. I always say something along the lines of "it's night night, you can have boba but it's night night time" again and again so he cant mutter a sound and then straight back to his cot. Luckily it works 90% of the time.