Early-riser hell, any good sleep clinics?

[mamadoula]

Hi all,

First post, that's how desperate I am!!

My second child (9 months), who has been a total angel up until this point, has started waking REALLY early. It began when the clocks went back in September and he started waking at about 5.30, then he got teeth, a cold, a cough, woken by DS1, etc., always something around 5.30am. For the last month he has woken at 5.30 consistently - not crying, just ready to start the day. I've tried everything - feeding him, water, controlled crying, uncontrolled crying (just leaving him whilst I put ear plugs in and cry myself). I had resigned myself the just having an early start to everyday, but it's now moved to 4.30am!! Every day since Christmas Eve he has woken at 4.30. As I say, not crying, just chirruping and "dadadada"ing. He does that for about 40 minutes and then starts crying, at which point I do controlled crying until about 6.30 when it's pretty much time to get up anyway. Sometimes he goes back to sleep about 6.20, by which point my other son is up and I'm at breaking point. I start every day in tears and I'm dead on my feet.

Phew! Sorry for the ramble! The upshot is, does anyone have any good advice or know of a sleep clinic I can contact? BTW, he is in a Gina Ford routine and pretty much does everything he is 'supposed' to do during the day (eats, sleeps, crawls, etc.).

Help very gratefully received!

I have a 13 month old who went through a period of early waking although seems to be out of it now. He defo does not need as much sleep during the day as the gina ford routine would recommend so when i cut back his daytime sleep things started to improve. How much sleep is he getting during the day? I also find he sleeps much better when he has been really active all day rather than being in a pushchair or being held a lot. A friend of mine recommened changing his bedroom round using feng sheu techniques after he was waking up up to 10 times a night and sometimes being awake for up to 2 hours and i was exhausted. I googled feng sheu and followed some of their techniques about cot and other furniture placement and it seems to have worked although I was very doubtful and felt stupid doing it!! Good Luck x

hi,there is a sleep clinic called Millpond that you can contact.They do over the phone consultations.They also have a book published which helped me with my DD sleep problems.I don't think it's cheap for the consultations but I know from experience you will pay anything for a good night's sleep!I think you can be referred to a local sleep clinic via your health visitor.Good luck.

What happens if you put him to bed a bit later?

What time do you go to bed, and could you go to bed a bit earlier to help deal with this (hopefully temporary) 'phase'?

Hi thereFirstly I feel your pain - I've been through this with my DS at 2years 4 months (when pregnant with DD) and he would wake on the dot of 5am each day and when it got to 4.30am I really was at the end of my tether. With him (I also do GF) he really needed to drop his nap at lunch so we went though this horrible 2 month period when he was grumpy through lack of sleep and so was I.My DD is now almost one and I think I remember her doing this a few months ago now. She would wake in the middle of tne night and literally be babbling away for a couple of hours sometimes and then might eventually fall asleep and meanwhile I was wide awake and absolutely knackered. All I can think of is that waking like this is often an indication that something needs to be cut back - I'm finding with my DD that she's almost cut back on her morning sleep and in fact when she has it she seems to wake earlier. Today for eg I put her down for it and she was still awake 15 mins later so I just got her up, gave her lunch earlier and put her to bed earlier at lunch time. We'll see what happens tomorrow but several times this week she's woken at 4.50am and I've gone in and fed her and luckily she's gone back (other than NYE when we were at friends and I was awake with her for 2 hours only an hour and a half after getting to bed myself !!)

Just another thought but is the room warm enough? I've also found with both my two that making the room a bit warmer at this time of year will keep them more settled.

You may well find though that this "phase" passes - of its own accord. I would recommend though that as soon as you hear the waking whatever time it is you go in and feed and carry that on for a couple of weeks. Don't chop and change what you're doing consistency is the key thing - I did this with DD when she went through the 5/5.30ers and she eventually just stopped it - I partly fed her back as well to stop DS from waking early too from her crying.
Hope that helps !

May we join your thread, mamadoula?

We are in exactly the same situation as you and have been tinkering for the last few weeks, so far without much success.

Currently, we are trying to cut back on the morning sleep but she does still seem to need at least 30 minutes - but not between 9-10 but closer to 11 which then messes up the post-lunch nap.

Yeah, definitely going to bed earlier tonight!

Yeah, that's typical: She woke up at 6:30am this morning..

Doesn't mean much, though, as we had that a few days ago and then it was back to 5:30am again.

The key does seem to be reducing day time sleep.
It took us a while to accept that dd2 needs a lot less sleep than dd1 because we were following the 'sleep breeds sleep' motto.
Doesn't work with number 2, that much we know.

Let's see how today goes. Hope you had a better night, mamad.

DaddyJ -
I have found that when lo's need to drop their morning nap they are often exhausted by 11. My advice would be to give a large snack at ~10am, then put her down for her main lunch sleep at 11 - let her go up to 3 hours if needs, then give her lunch. You'll find she then needs an earlier bedtime in the evening too - but that's ok. Every 3days or so move the nap/bed times back by 5-10 mins (and adjust lunch to fit ob). In a month or less you should be at a 12:30/1pm lunch nap without the exhausted baby lark.

Have you tried a dummy?

GF advises that if a baby is waking early in the morning that they should be fed back to sleep the minute they wake, even if they are not hungry. Once the baby is going back to sleep the daytime sleep should be reduced, babies under nine momths should have their morning nap reduced to 10/15 minutes, and babies over nine months may have to have their morning nap cut out alogether.
It did take a couple of weeks to work, but this advice worked really well for me. They is key is being consistant about feeding back to sleep.

You could try the wake to sleep method, where you gently rouse them from sleep before their natural wake time to try and break the cycle. So you set your alarm for say 3, try to get them to stir but not wake fully. I think it is a baby whisperer method.

My DD (22 months) has always gone through phases of this....every now and then for no apparent reason she will wake at 4.30 every day for sometimes a month, sometimes 2 months, then randomly starts sleeping til 6.30 again. It's very strange and I've tried everything to change it (later bed time, no daytime nap etc etc) and nothing works. Sorry not to be of more help, just wanted to make the point that hopefully it's just a phase for you too! The best way I've found of dealing with it is just to make sure I have a rediculously early night myself!

We used Millpond with our ds when he was about 11 months and waking regularly at 5am. They were amazing but we did do controlled crying which I know some people aren't keen on. It worked well and he now sleeps from 7 -7. He naps well too in the day now which is a big improvement and loves going to bed - waves and blows kisses from his cot when we put him down. It was quite tough to change things to start with but I would recommend them highly.

my mumm used to use a lot of cot toys with my brother, so he could amuse himself, when he had enough playing he used to just drop back off. this was really effective for getting a few hours more sleep !

Hi All,

Thank you so much for responding. I really do feel like I've tried everything (warm room, cold room, starving him of sleep, putting him to bed two hours later, dummy, feeding, tinkering with naps, etc). Admittedly I haven't tried wake to sleep, but did it with DS1 and when it didn't work I kind of flipped out big time. I'm a bit on the edge already and so the thought of getting up at 3, only to be woken again at 4.30 worries the hell out of me, would I snap and end up a gibbering wreck never to return and locked up in a padded cell by my husband? (actually, you know what, that option looks pretty good right now!!!). I think the big mistake is that I haven't tried any of these things for very long, so have done one thing one day and another the next.

I'm interested in GF saying to feed them back to sleep. I hadn't found that in the book, but am a chronic speed-reader so might have missed it. I think I will carry on with the controlled crying thing for another few days, seeing as we are on that track at the moment, then I will try the feeding to sleep thing. It does make sense as I feel that he just needs to get back to sleep quickly a few times to break the habit. However I haven't fed him in the night since he was 9 weeks old so does feel like a bit of step back, but if it works I really wouldn't care.

Oh, I'm also going to give Millipond a call, can't hurt to ask.

Thank you so much again for all your replies. Keep 'em coming if you think of anything else!!! DaddyJ, let us know if anything works for you.

my advise would be to cut down on daytime sleep - some children need less sleep than others. But the key is to do it for at least a couple of weeks before you see a difference.

my son at that age used to sleep for 2 hours in the day, go to bed at 7.30 and get up at 5. After a while of this and having tried many things I eventually I cut his sleep in the day down to 45 minutes (and by the time he was 15 months old he stopped sleeping in the day) and put him to bed at 8/8.30. He then started sleeping from 8 to 8 and has done ever since. He is now 6 and still needs 12 hours a night!

So far the main thing that has worked is me going to bed early!
(which I have messed up tonight seeing as I am posting this around midnight..sigh)

mamadoula, yes my wife can confirm that GF advice. More important to get the sleep cycle sorted, worry about the sleep associations afterwards .
In that context be aware that controlled crying is most successful at removing the associations
but less good at fixing the cycle.
That's really why we had to go back to the drawing board: CC wasn't working for dd2 anymore
and we realised that there must be a problem with the amount of sleep.

drinkyourmilk, many thanks, that's really very interesting and could come in handy.
A very innovative Plan B there!

We are muddling through at the moment, trying to go a little more with dd2's flow,
trying to work out how her rhythm has changed.
Today she woke up at 5:40am (bugger), conked out at 9:20am for a 20 minute power nap in the morning and then had a whopping hour and a half from 1:15pm.
The morning nap was a surprise but it probably was to do with her waking up at 1am last night
for the first time in months.

We are clearly still in the transitional phase..

mamadoula, I shall keep you posted! I am sure something will work eventually. Don't give up!

Loads of success threads on the GF website, and what seems to be the cause of EMW for many parents is too much daytime sleep. Problem is that if the baby is waking early it is hard to cut back the daytime sleep. Hence the reason GF advises feeding back to sleep, so that the baby sleeps soundly until 7am and the daytime sleep can be cut back.

A lot of the mums have to cut out the morning nap at around nine months, and as drinkyourmilk says, they then have to have an earlier lucntime nap so they do not get overtired. Eventually, as they sleep better and longer at night, the lunchtime nap can be pushed on.

The key to most of the success stories seems to be sticking to the same approach for two to three weeks.

I've found that if DS wakes early for a few days it is usually because he is cold so adding extra layers of clothing/bedding has helped, although I see you have tried a warmer room. Also DD went through a phase of needing more milk at night around the 9/10 month age which I later read somewhere could have been due to the extra nutrients required for brain development that occurs before walking. Don't know if that is true but it sounded logical.

Our DD went through a phase of this (although it was never as early as 4:30 poor you!!). I'm glad to say she DID grow out of it. She's now 2 and sleeps 7-7 pretty reliably.
Sleep deprivation is awful and it's rotten starting the day feeling so bad that you wonder how you're going to get through it.
At the time it feels like it will go on forever, but I promise it won't. Everything with small children is a phase. I know that is little comfort when you are really going through it right now, but keep telling yourself it won't last forever and you will have a proper night's sleep again sooner or later!

Oh I had this - Ds2 has been doing this recently, not as early as half 4 but still too early for me - what we did was set a lamp on a timer switch to come on at around the time he was waking up, and then gradually made it 15 minutes later over time until it was coming on at a more respectable hour. I think waking up in a light room with toys and things to look at and play with is a nicer experience than waking up in the dark wondering where the hell everyone is! He's got one of these which slowly spins around and has a lovely soft light - he will gaze at it for a good half hour before making a sound. Incidentally, he is 10 months old so a similar age - I'm not saying it will definitely work but it's worth a try!

This has been a really useful thread, shall revisit it from time to time
until we are back on the straight and narrow.

Unfortunately, we have something else to worry about now: massively painful teething episodes.
We are back to 1-2 times cuddling and feeding to sleep in the night which is frustrating given that
she was sleeping through so nicely but it is what it is.

But hey! she now sleeps until 6am or even 6:30 which is not surprising when she's up from 11 - 12:30 during the night! Sigh.

Hi,

we really suffered with this as well, tried everything nothing worked. Feeding back to sleep sounds good, but it didn't work for us, he'd feed, but not go back to sleep. In the end HV suggested we just accept it and work around it. Early to bed for us too and DH and I did shifts, I'd feed him from 5 till when he wouldn't sit still to feed any longer then DH would wake at 7 and I'd go back to bed for an hour or so (luckily I had flexible work) In the end we shifted his bedtime back with the spring clock change and he sleeps 9 till 7 now very easily. it will get better, you will make it through