4am is not time to get up Please help

[JKDcot]

Hi

My 9 month old son has decided in the last week that 4-4.30am is time to get up. He is fully awake and cries and thrashes around till we get him up. He has a nappy change, bottle and play and then by 6-6.30am is exhausted and goes back to sleep for 1-2 hours.

I don’t know what to do? He used to sleep until 6am. My husband says we have to force him to stay awake longer and keep him up till 8-9am and he will learn to sleep in longer? We can’t just let him be in the cot alone and not get him up as he will just wail.

Any advice is much appreciated
Thanks

I’d do what your husband is suggesting and try putting him to bed later. He should wake up later.
Is he waking up due to hunger and if you give him more calorie dense food will he sleep longer?
is he cold as if your heating isn’t on all night that’s the coldest time? If the heating is coming on he could be getting too hot and waking up?

I feel your pain.
My 11 month old gets up between 4:30-5 every single day. She goes to bed at 18:30. We have tried putting her to bed later and she still wakes up at the same time. Hopefully this will be different for you though.

It's a killer isn't it 😩.

I feel your pain. Both of mine did this at about that age. Putting them to bed later didn't help, just meant they had less sleep as they still woke up at 4.15 like an alarm clock!

It's brutal. It stopped after about 5 weeks.

Hope the later bed time works for you!

@hulloall almost identical post!!

I should add the 23 month old now gets up at 5.30 because he needs a wee and starts shouting for the toilet 🙄

I’d get him up at 7 every day and also check his naps - how long is his morning nap? Reduce that as they can use the morning nap to top up their night time sleep.

I’m not sure I’d put him to bed too much later as it’s nice to have evenings. If you aim for 7pm - 7am, then reduce day time naps til he’s sleeping til 7 ( or 6.30 at least). Waking him at the same time each day gives that anchor time that’s helpful for establishing good sleep patterns

Thank you for all the advice. It’s so nice to know other people are also awake! It’s miserable this time of day when you feel everyone else is tucked up in bed.

I’m hoping then maybe from what people have said that it’s just a phase? He’s definitely using his morning nap to top up from what he’s missed in the night so I might try and reduce that if I can. But I don’t want him to get over tired as we tried that on Thursday (lengthening wake windows) and he missed a nap, was awake for 7 hours and overtired and out of his mind.

It’s such an art and fine balance ?!?!

When I say morning nap I mean if he has a nap later on like at 10am or so. But also I think when he goes back to sleep after his early wake up don’t let him sleep past 7. He may not like this and fight waking up but I speak from bitter experience.., my son started his day at 4.30 or 5 every day for months. Only thing that changed it was stopping him topping up his early morning wake ups with a nap. I had to do all sorts to him awake but sure enough he started sleeping later.
Now I have pregnancy insomnia waking me early!!!

Oh yeah there’s the over tired issue too!
Yes it is very tricky!!
Good luck

@swaziscot thank you for your advice that makes sense as he’s definitely topping up when he goes back for nap at 6-7am. Congrats on your pregnancy!

I feel your pain OP. My DD has always been up by 4.30 and she’s now 2 😩 I’ve had to accept she just doesn’t need as much sleep and I go to bed very early myself to cope with it! I must say I’m looking forward to it getting lighter in the mornings, at least if it’s daylight I feel a little bit better about it 🥴

It drives me insane when friends talk about getting up ‘early’ with their kids and they’re talking about 6/7am 🤨 that sounds like bliss!!

I really hope for your sake it’s just a short phase for you! xx

My daughter did this for a while. I used to get up with her until 6, then pass her to her dad who would take her for breakfast and look after until he had to go to work at 8 by which time i felt a little more human, having had a bit of a nap.

My son is 9 months and has been waking at 5am for the past few months. We are trying a new approach I read about where we don't get him up until a designated wake up time (6am in our case) so if he wakes earlier we just sit in his room in the dark and shhh pat him until 6am when we take him downstairs. The idea is apparently that they will eventually stop waking so early. Tried it this morning and he fell back to sleep after about 45mins as is still asleep. Hoping it will work!
You have my sympathies though anything before 5am is the middle of the night 😬

I used to stick mine in bed with me until an appropriate hour and he'd usually go back to sleep. When that stopped working as well and I was fed up of how much he wriggled, I'd sit on the floor next to the cot and shh/pat him, hold his hand through the bar and tell him it was still night. Anything before 6am gets treated like a nighttime wake up.