Baby wakes at 4am every day

[hailesh]

Babies sleep is really poor anyway but what I’m struggling with the most is the fact that every single day he absolutely refuses to go back to sleep after his 4/4:30 bottle. He just squirms around getting fussy, wide awake, might eventually fall asleep on me but soon as I transfer him he’s back ups. It’s really killing me having to start the day at this ungodly hour everyday. It’s making me totally miserable (I do think I have some PND this time round). I really don’t want him getting into the habit of thinking this is a reasonable time to get up for the day (although I think it might be too late for that) and I’m exhausted but what can I do?! Any advice or anyone going through similar? I never leave the bedroom with him before 6 and keep white noise on/room dark but I’m not sure what else I can do. He’s never once slept until 6.

Also I know co-sleeping with be recommended but just to say I have tried it many times and it really doesn’t make any difference whether he is in the bed with me or not, he still won’t go back to sleep.

How old is the baby?

9 weeks old so still very young but this isn’t a new thing.

While not every night now my daughter was awful for this. Such as this morning where I've been up since 4am as well. It gets much better though and I think the cycle will break soon. But it came in phases and never more than 3 or 4 weeks

How old is he?

I know it's hard, but this is just what some babies do. All 3 of mine loved a very early morning and 6am was a lay in.

I would say once they were toddlers it started to settle a bit, so were waking around 6am regularly.

Now they're teens, the eldest is still an early riser (6am usually), the middle will sleep all day if I let him.

I did find, lighter mornings meant my babies woke earlier, even with a black out blind stuck to the window (in sheer desperation). In the end, making my peace with the early morning and using it as a positive was my only survival method. I was frequently one of the first customers is tescos, and had my laundry on the line before 6am..

Hey OP

Sorry that is really hard!

What does he do the rest of the day? If he takes a huge nap at 9am for example I would trim this down otherwise it helps him continue the 4am starts.

9 weeks is still early ish for them to have a rhythm/routine as in doing stuff we prefer like 6/7am wake up but not far off.

I used to make things light from 7am. Nap 9-10am (I would wake her up) lunchtime nap from 12 and wake up by 3pm. When they are tiny they need a little cat nap between 4-5pm then bed around 7pm. That generally gave a 6-7am wake up with a few phases of 5am.

All these kids are different though! Good luck. Big thing will be is he catching up later in the am xx

Honestly it’s just the season you’re in. It will get better. But I agree with PP that 6am is a lie in in our household (although mine aren’t teens yet). 💪

9 weeks, gosh, still very "straight out of the box" so to speak..

Baby won't know the difference between night and day yet. He just knows awake, asleep, hungry, uncomfortable, comforted.

Take the pressure away, you can of course try to put in a routine (I always started a routine from around 10 weeks old) but know it doesn't always work. But, this won't be forever.....honestly. Right now you're tired, adjusting to a whole different life, and it can feel overwhelming. Go back to bed when baby naps, hand him to his dad of an evening and go to bed at 7pm to catch up on sleep (presuming dad isn't the one doing all the 4ams) or if dad is also up early share the wake ups between you.

I swear, it gets better! But 9 weeks is still teeny tiny baby territory..

If he’s only 9 weeks it is till quite a new things as it’s not been going any longer than 9 weeks! I think at that age you’ve just got to go with the flow as sometimes you do something and think you’ve cracked it and then it all changes for no apparent reason. It’s just a case of grabbing sleep when you can if you are tired which appreciate is difficult if you have older kids too. Is he night waking as well?

He will sleep lots during the day in the sling, this is the only place he will nap really. He can do hours. He starts getting really fussy and screaming after about 1-1.5hrs of being awake so it’s very difficult/impossible to keep him up longer than this. He will never be put down. He has no routine and I’m not sure how or implement's one because I feel like he is constantly glued to me or crying. He is on gaviscon for silent reflux but doesn’t really help. I’ve just tried to get him to sleep in his chair but he screamed the place down so he’s on me instead.

What kind of routine did you do? I’d love to try and get him in one but don’t really know where to start. I feel like I was a much better latent first time round and new what I was doing more, my first was always in a good routine but they’re totally different babies. His dad works away so there’s just me all week. I’m so touched out!

So hard to be solo!

I still think they should be fussy at this age - doesn't mean it is easy.

I would start with the regular start to the day and not letting him oversleep in the am but that should be at more like 12 weeks. You could do a gentle more extended version of that for now.

I remember my first being on us all day and night until around this time - a slight chance of a short day nap off us. It is still early (pregnant with no 2 so I'll probably definitely be losing my mind by 9 weeks but my current perspective is it is still meant to be hard)

Okay let's try and be practical

he's up at 4

let him sleep 6-7?

then again 8.30ish/9-10.30?

then nap 12ish

up by 3.30pm latest

short cat nap at 5ish (depending on when the above nap ends) so he's up at 5.30/6

bedtime 7.30/8

not sure what your feeding pattern looks like and I can't recall how much nightime sleep they have at 9 weeks but a later bedtime is good from memory!

The putting down will follow. Always practice. They change. The rhythm will help and sometimes wearing him will help you get the nap you want and other times like the last nap you don't want him asleep for too long so the buggy or car is good. V hard to have faith when tired!

My routine was usually

Up at whatever time (anywhere from 3am to 6am) and then I would try to get them to nap every 3 hours and naps were no longer than 2 hours.

My refluxy babies needed to be tightly swaddled to sleep so I invested in proper swaddle blankets.

But the 3 hourly routine worked quite well. Then after a few months we did a morning nap at 10am, an afternoon nap around 1pm-2pm then bedtime at 6pm.

Eventually the nap was just one nap at 12.30pm for 2 hours before they dropped the nap at around 2yo.

It’ll get better, personally I’d co sleep for an hour or two in the mornings if possible or at least stay in bed, in the dark not engaging much.

Normal

The light mornings will not help

9 weeks is very young. We didn’t get much sleep until 2yrs and dc still love early wake ups. Prioritise your sleep when you can

9 weeks old is so young but also such a difficult time because its all so new and they need you so much. I'm not sure a routine is realistic at this stage and it must be so difficult to be alone in this.
I would say that I found putting baby to bed really late helped with early morning wake ups, but I don't have much advice outside of that.
I don't think there's many specific things I did that actually changed my daughters sleep, I think it was mostly time and development that improved it.

He slept so much in the day yesterday, I really don’t know how I can keep him awake? He just gets upset and starts screaming if he gets tired which is usually after just an hour. Last night I tried waking him from his nap 8:30 so he could be awake for an hour or so before I gave him his bottle and tried to put him down. It was actually harder to get him down and as usual, up for the day at 4am. Really resenting my partner at the minute. I don’t think he has any idea how hard it is.