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Original poster

Early Riser - is there anything i can do to break this pattern?

27 replies

Buddhababe · 23/03/2008 08:18

Hi everyone

I am looking for some hope. My DS used to be a great sleeper until he started to walk which was 5/6 months ago now. Anyway, he gets up most mornings around 5.30 ish. He used to wake regulary through the night but this thankfully has stopped for whatever reason.

My DH and I are both shattered and are finding parenthood really hard. Dh also a pretty stressful job so this does not help either and I feel I have to do most of the getting up with him to keep the peace. Don't get me wrong, Dh is also great with him but this is taking its toll.

Anyway, We put our DS to bed at 7.30 ish and he has one nap throughout the day at 1 pm (if I can make him stay up til that time). I don't think it is hunger as I have tried making sure he has his fill.

I am expecting again in a few months also and am just dreading it now in a way. Does it ever get better? Is there anything I can change or that I am doing wrong?
Thanks

OP posts:
RubySlippers · 23/03/2008 08:21

wake to sleep - it is a baby whisperer technique

one hour before their usual wake up, you wake them up and then leave to re-settle. Don't wake them fully - just until they are almost IYSWIM

the theory is that this disrupts the old sleep pattern, so they sleep through their old wake up time

you do it for 3 nights on the run, and see what happens on the fourth. If they wake at the old time, you do it again for 6 nights

i did it with my DS when he had a run of 5.00 am wake ups

mankymummy · 23/03/2008 08:22

how old is he?

how long does he nap for in the afternoon?

mrsruffallo · 23/03/2008 08:23

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow- it'll change soon enough

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shabster · 23/03/2008 08:27

Oh Budd - you story is so familiar! My awful early rise problems started 26 years ago when DTS's arrived. Then 24 years ago my DS3 arrived.......and finally when DS4 arrived 10 years ago

My last son was a nightmare. He would sleep for, maybe 3 hours a night. This when he was about 13 months onwards. He dropped his daytime naps as well. I could barely function and did everything I could to make him sleep. My own HV said 'If he was mine I would throw him through the bloody window.'

The only consolation I can offer is my 10 year old is so bright it is frightening!! Reading age of an adult, ENJOYS tests at school, etc etc.

Think I realised that in the sleep department I couldn't be the supermum I tried so hard to be. Once I relaxed and thought 'what the hell' DS4 calmed right down.

Good luck love, Im sure that someone will post on here that actually has some good advice!!! Thinking of you

Original poster
Buddhababe · 23/03/2008 08:32

he is 16 months,
his nap yesterday in the afternoon was 40 mins but then most days it would be for an hour/ an hour and a half.

I feel i just have to go with the flow now at this stage but I guess I am looking for a time limit. I read another thread when the mum said he kid was 10 when he grew out of it!!!

I am a full time mum too and he has energy to burn. I bring him to classes, walks, swimming (you name it) that I am just wrecked and run down myself now.

I might try waking him Ruby to see. I will do anything at this stage. Sleep deprivation really is a form of torture.

OP posts:
chelsygirl · 23/03/2008 08:33

my 7 year old wakes about 6.20am

guess that not what you want to hear.....

chelsygirl · 23/03/2008 08:35

if anyone has suggestions I love to hear

(you're right about sleep deprivation, although in this house its becoming a way of life...)

Yorky · 23/03/2008 08:37

Its not just our house then
DS still has a bfeed at around 530 because I can't face getting up and heating a bottle for him at that time! But he doesn't settle back after the feed so I'm just putting off the actual admitting that I have to get up.
I don't function before Terry starts broadcasting! (can't focus on clock either, maybe a good thing!)
I was hoping it was because he has a snotty cold atm but not sure how to stop it becoming a habit.

Original poster
Buddhababe · 23/03/2008 08:56

shabster, that must have been tough going for you.

Chelsygirl, 7 years old. Ok, so 10 years of age is looking to be right then when they grow out of it.

I am doomed.

OP posts:
chelsygirl · 23/03/2008 09:23

ds1 slowly growing out of it and is almost 10 (he gets up at 7.40am religiously)

TheGoddessBlossom · 23/03/2008 20:16

For some reason on Saturdays my two DSs (3.5 and 19 months) sleep until about 6.30am. In this house that is a lie in of immense proportions. As I am so tuned in to being awake from circa 5.15am I still wake at that time on Saturday mornings, and can't get back to sleep, but it's still bliss to be able to stay in bed and doze. Till about 6.30am.

Every other morning we are up and at 'em by 5.30am. I am SO SICK OF:

Being downstairs before Tikkabilla is on.
Seeing closed curtains and no lights on in other people's houses.
My children having 2 hours of TV before they go to nursery at 8am.
Being on my 4th cup of tea by 7.30am.
Having to feed them breakfast even though they get served it at nursery and we pay for it there, because by 7 they are hungry becuase they have been up so long.
Going to bed at earlier than most 12 years olds to compensate.
Sneaking sex into the odd 2 minutes you can find when you are both awake, because I have to go to bed so much earlier than DH

They take it in turns to be the first one up, but each one wakes whichever one is still asleep.

We go through phases of it sometimes being 6, 6.15, but in general we have had this for 3 years now. Dare I say I am actually used to it? When I am up, showered, it's fully light and I know the rest of the world are up too, I feel ok. But I could maim/kill/savage before 6am and it's difficult not to take it out on the kids although I pride myself that I don't (on the whole). It's not their fault after all....

TheGoddessBlossom · 23/03/2008 20:17

I should add that it helps if I take the 3 year old for a wee when I go to bed, to stop him waking up for one around 4am, and then thinking it's "morning time". Nothing seems to help the 19 month old sleep in.

TheGoddessBlossom · 23/03/2008 20:19

and they do sleep through from 6.30pm - they have to go to bed that early as they are shattered....and it makes ZERO difference if we put them to bed later. Have tried it for 2 week phases a couple of time, all it meant was we get less time to ourselves in the evenings as well as early starts....

Heated · 23/03/2008 20:22

Thanks RubySlippers for the waking to sleep idea, will certainly give it a go.

Will be booting dh out at 3am !

PuppyMonkey · 23/03/2008 20:26

I wouldn't be too worried what they do at this age, they haven't found their real pattern yet. And also, remember that next week (March 30th) we put the clocks forward, so whatever routine you've got now will probably all go to pot anyway.

Get a blackout blind!!!

Seona1973 · 23/03/2008 20:28

I used 'wake to sleep' on dd at around the age of 2 (now 4) when she started waking at 5.30am - it only took a couple of nights and she went back to waking up a little later again(6.30am - that hour makes a difference though!).

DS (17 months) has a nap of 1 1/2 -3 hours from around 12:15pm although I sometimes have to wake him up early due to going to some of dd's activities. He is in bed for 7:15pm and sleeps until around 6/6.30am. I dont go to him immediately unless he is crying and sometimes it can be going on 7am when I get him out of his cot. If he cries in the night/too early for me then I leave him as long as I can before going to him and more often than not he will resettle himself.

If it makes you feel better dd is now an excellent sleeper and I have to sometimes wake her for nursery (she often lies in till going on 8am which was unheard of a year or so ago)

lisasimpson · 23/03/2008 20:43

sorry to say our five year old still wakes at 06.00-06.30 every day - but this is an improvement on the 05.00 we used to get. Some people say it gets better when they start school..

chelsygirl · 23/03/2008 20:55

lisa, they told me that too!

we get ds1 up till 8.45pm then ds2 awake not long after 6am, not much adult time going on in this house

Original poster
Buddhababe · 25/03/2008 07:39

this is really depressing me guys. Is there no one at all out there to show me some light at the end of the tunnel?

What I have tried to do the last few days is go into him and say that it is too early and to try to go back to sleep. I put on some music then which he likes but it would last for a 15 mins maybe. Should you let them cry a little then? I just think it is so unreasonable to be up before 7. Or am i just doing damage and fighting a losing battle anyway.

OP posts:
RubySlippers · 25/03/2008 09:18

have you tried the wake to sleep? It really does work - my DS stopped his 5 am wake ups

i did have to do the 6 nights of it, but it was worth it

scootermum · 25/03/2008 09:22

Sorry..both mine (2 and 10 months)wake between 5.30 and 6.30 every morning and always have..I dont mind so much when am working (4 days a week)as have to get up anyway but its shatteringg long term-my sympathies..hope the wake to sleep works for you..you never know

tania111 · 25/03/2008 12:24

the answer I found was to stop the day time nap - it may not be easy to do that but it will work. After a few days he should sleep 12 hours per night...!

cockles · 25/03/2008 12:33

The problem is, you can't really tell them to go back to sleep at 5, just because it's inconvenient for us! I couldn't go off again at that h our anyway if I'd woken up fully. So I don't think leaving him and telling him to go back to sleep is reasonable. You have to fiddle it from the other end and hope his whole pattern changes. I did manage to get later wakeups with later bedtimes (but it took more than a week of exhausted days for him), but it keeps flipping back again. And we have f&&&&ing blackouts, it's the f&(&(ing birds that do it. Idiots.

Original poster
Buddhababe · 25/03/2008 12:47

Rubyslippers, I will give it a go. I guess I am nervous about waking him up earlier and then him not going back to sleep.

Naps....well he is so wrecked during the day, he needs to go for a nap so I am not sure that will work. We are just back from swimming now for example and his eyes were closing as soon as i put the key in the door.

As for a later bed time, he gets real cranky after 6 and wants to go to bed by 7. He is down by 8 at the latest and by then I am dying for him to go to get some me time.

It could be worse I know. He is a great sleeper overall and rarely wakes up throughout the night. I am just being a moan and need to cop on i suppose.

Thanks for all your tips anyhow.

OP posts:
RubySlippers · 25/03/2008 13:43

buddha - if your DS can settle to sleep generally then he should be ok

it seems weird to wake a sleeping baby but it isn't as bad as you think, and a lot better than waiting for an inevitable wake up

it is a Baby Whisperer technique so if you can get hold of the book it will tell you in more detail (rather than my very abridged version!)