Waking early but not hungry - how do you deal with it?

[gretagrape]

Not sure if I am doing something wrong or if this is a phase that will pass...

6mo son has been very good sleeper at night since around 15/16 weeks - usually 7.30pm-6/6.30am. Daytime naps were rubbish though so I've tried to get into a routine of good daytime naps and he will now usually have 1x 45mins at around 8/8.30am; 45mins before lunch (either out or in the cot); then if I'm lucky up to 1.5hrs in the afternoon.

This has improved his mood and he's more able to get to bath/bedtime without a meltdown but at the same time he has started waking up earlier in the morning. Used to be anywhere from 6-7am (waking up happy, babbling and excited when he saw me), now it's anywhere from 4-5am (accompanied by crying at full pelt). This also means his first nap is getting earlier because he's tired by 7.30am.

What should I be doing? He's not hungry - if I get him up he's quite happy to then just sit in his highchair while I mooch around in the kitchen until being fed at the normal time of 6.30/7ish, but I don't really want to be doing the washing up at 4am every day! I've also upped his quantities a bit but that hasn't made any difference either.

During the night he'll quite happily settle himself if he wakes up without me doing anything, but it seems that once it hits 4am then there's no way he will let himself or me put him back to sleep.

Is it too much sleep in the day now? It doesn't seem like a lot and he's still a bit grumpy towards the evening, so I'm not sure cutting naps down would be beneficial for him.

Any help gratefully received.
x

My 5mo DD is very similar to your son - except that she doesn't wake up crying, she just plays noisily (which we try to ignore as best as we can). She does drift off back to sleep after her 4am awakening though (although how long this takes varies from night to night).

Could you put some toys in his cot for him to play with when he wakes up? You can buy those toys which you attach to the side of the cot which play music and show lights on the ceiling (sorry, can't for the life of me remember what they're called - we have a winnie the pooh one). I don't know if it would help occupy him for the last couple of hours or not?

We've always found that the more sleep DD gets in the day, the better she goes down to sleep and actually sleeps through the night. Unfortunately DD only does three 30 min naps at about the same times as your son does. But on the occasional day when she does longer ones, she's much better. So I would say your daytime naps are probably ok.

I'm hoping that this is just a phase where at this age they just can't knacker themselves out enough to sleep the 11-12 hours that they used to. But once they start crawling about they'll soon get tired enough to sleep through again (maybe this is a pipe dream, but hopefully it's true...). Sorry if this isn't much help - I hope it gets better for you soon :)

I've tried putting his favourite toy in the cot (which makes him ecstatic during the day) but he's too busy crying - it's like he goes from sleep to cry in an instant, so there isn't that happy awake time that he used to have. I could try something that is attached to the cot with lights/music though as that might catch his attention more than a fluffy toy.

I do try to knacker him out during the day - there is tons of time spent sitting up on the floor/rolling around and when we go out I always get him out the pram and sit him on my lap so he has to work at sitting up and not just lay back in a seat.

I have heard, like you, that more daytime sleep leads to better nighttime sleep, so my gut instinct is that it isn't the daytime napping that's causing this. I just don't want to go down any roads that will create bad habits in an effort to try and extend his sleep until a slightly more civilised time!

Thanks
x

Could he just be cold? Does this coincide with the introduction of solids? Is he teething?

At 6 months there is often a growth spurt and a developmental leap. If you haven't got the wonder weeks book or haven't signed up for the emails have a look at this.

We had an early waker but we never took him downstairs until 6am just because we wanted to reinforce the night is for sleeping thing.

Think the no cry sleep solution has a section on early waking, if you haven't got the book, your library will probably have copies.

I thought it might be that but I put him into his 2.5tog bag and that doesn't seem to have worked either!

He's starting on solids at the weekend but he has had a big growth spurt (4cm in 3 weeks), has started babbling with much more 'wordy' sounds instead of just "eeerrrrrrrrrr" and has suddenly gone from wobbling to sitting up this week so I guess it could be all these changes affecting him.

I'm the same in that I don't want to actually get him up before breakfast time - I've only done it a couple of times but as he isn't hungry I want to find a (happy) way of getting him to extend his night sleep. I'll check out that book, though who knows when I'll find time to read it!

Oh, think he is teething (nothing showing yet though) as well as anything not nailed down finds its way into his mouth!

We had this issue with DD recently, she's about the same age - we put her bedtime back half an hour. It doesn't work for all babies, but it has with her so now she goes up at 6.30pm instead of 6am and is asleep by 7. She does sometimes still wake up and babble around 5am, but we just ignore her and she goes back off. One thing I will never do is get up at that time though - she needs to learn that I tell her when it's getting up time, not the other way round!
We were all set to try the 'wake to sleep' method but luckily we didn't need to.

I agree - otherwise if I give in he might decide in a week that actually 3am is a good time to get up!

Maybe I'll try keeping him up an extra half hour and see if that works - hopefully now he's having a bit more sleep in the day he won't object too much to a later bedtime.

Got a copy of no-cry sleep solution from the library and have already ploughed through the first chapter so I'll be looking forward to seeing if that can help as well.

Thanks all.

If you think he is teething and he wakes up actually crying as if in pain, have you tried a dose of baby calpol or nurofen?

My DS woul wake uup crying at 5am for a week or so before we saw a tooth appear. A dose of painkillers and a little cuddle to stop th crying, then back in bed and he would usually fall asleep for another hour or so. Worth a try one night to see if it makes a difference?

I tried it yesterday afternoon just in case he was in pain and he went down for a 1.5hr nap, so could be that. Just seems weird that he'll be crying like mad but if I get him up he'll be fine - makes me question whether it's teething pain or he's just playing me!

Bizarrely, he's come down with a stinking cold and he slept better last night than he has for a month even though he sounded like a tractor all night, woke up at 6.30. Whenever I read on here about people's babies having colds they talk about how sleep goes up the creek!