need a parenting technique or advice on this...

[PipIsOutNow]

hi...me again!! (seem to spend my life asking for advice)

my 6 mo ds is in bed with me, my partner works nights so for most of the night its just me and him. he is not a great sleeper, quite restless and was waking every 2 hours last week which seems to have passed thank god!! BUT at 4 o clock on the dot every night he is wide awake chatting and squealing blowing raspberries etc etc for an hour when he settles down at 5. whilst i know i cant stop him doing this what is the best for me to do? if im facing him he laughs all the more but i feel mean turning my back on him too...do i just ignore him? i dont want him thinking that its ok to do this every night but at 6 months old i know he's still too young to know right from wrong!!

what would you do?

Wake to sleep often works really well for habitual waking, which the 4am thing sounds like. I'm not sure that he's old enough, but I think so.

Have a search in the archive, there's a lot on it there.

Ignore him. As much as you can. If I turned my back though ds2 would grab my hair to turn me to face him, little sod!

I don't suppose putting him to bed later would help?

dont think so COCKadoodledooo he's usually hanging tired so i really struggle to keep him awake...and he does the same, pulls my hair or grabs me if i turn my back on him!! so naughty!!

thanks hetty il have a look for that...

Thought not - didn't work with mine either! If it helps, he now sleeps fine, and it was just a phase. A pita that seemed to last forever, but phase. Can't remember when it stopped though, sorry

he's just got over a 'im gonna wake up every 2 hours for no reason' phase so this phase is a million times better in comparison!! just something else for me to ride out!! thing is, it is actually quite funny and iv found myself secretly laughing at him :) funny things arent they!!

just looked up the wake to sleep think he may be too young to understand that, everything i found was for babies around 10 months and older. if i woke him up at 3:30 before he woke up at 4 he'd prob still lie there for an hour and chat!!

The thing with WTS is that it disturbs the sleep cycles (and thus the habitual waking). He doesn't have to understand anything!

It's true, you may well end up with a few nights that are worse while you implement it but he should come out of the habit on the (IIRC) 4th night. IME it's well worth the hassle, and anyway, not all DC wake fully when you disturb their sleep - DD didn't, but DS did. It worked for both of them.

If I were you I'd start a thread asking if anyone has tried it with a 6mo.