tried wake-to-sleep last night - report

[mrsbaldwin]

I know there was another thread about this recently but I couldn't find it, so thought I'd start a new one to report on trying out wake-to-sleep with DS aged 18 months.

He has been waking up at 4.50, 5.15 etc etc, which is killing me (and DH).

Last night I woke him at 0430 and changed his nappy - he looked very surprised then starting grinning and chuntering. I put him back in his cot with a bottle of milk and left him. He chuntered and babbled louder and louder for at least 30 minutes whilst I lay in the next room feeling more and more depressed (ie now we were having an 0430 start, even worse than before). Then suddenly about 0500 it all went quiet and he didn't wake up again till 0720 (in a happy mood). Praise be!

So we are trying it again tonight.

Congratulation! Hope you went back to sleep too.

Well done!

My understanding of wake-to-sleep is that you don't need to wake them fully, just enough that they stir a bit before resettling (in case you want to avoid the early morning nappy change...)

Good luck for tonight....

Debka - I did go back to sleep - although not immediately. But 0720 is a pretty good improvement on the last 18 months (I'd been expecting 0620 max)

Inmaculada - thanks, I will try the 'stir a bit' approach tonight and let's see!

More news tomorrow.

Stick with it ... I'd di it with my DS and after the fourth night he went back to 5 am pwake ups

I did it for 6 more nights and the 5 am wake ups were banished forever!

Good luck .... It does work IME

So, last night I tried the 'stir a bit' (ie not a nappy change) at 0415. There wasn't the half-hour of awake and chirping as the previous night but ...

... DS woke up at 0600 on the dot. This is a lot better than 0500, although not as good as 0720 yesterday.

[Goes away to persevere some more]

Heh, swings and roundabouts

Keep at it, I'm enjoying watching out for your progress!

Hi there, great to hear your success at getting your DS to sleep later in the morning. I just wondered what time he goes to bed? ( I have a 19 month old who is a 5am riser too!)

Teleaddict - not sure I am having much success yet.

He starts bedtime routine at about 1815 and is generally in bed by 7pm, asleep by 7.30pm. I've tried putting him to bed later eg 8pm, but we just got a lot of scratchiness between 7pm and 8pm so we pulled it back again.

The other factor is daytime nap - he has just dropped from two naps to one and generally does about 2 hours in that one nap, about 12 to 2pm.

This morning's report. DH went in to rouse him at 4. He reports that he poked him until DS did the baby equivalent of 'get off me you b***, can't you see I'm trying to sleep here' and rolled away with his teddy.

However, he woke up at 6am on the dot again this morning.

Other wake-to-sleepers - is 6am the best I can ever hope for out of this (obviously it's better than 5am but I was kind of hoping for 7am!)?

7am is kind of ambitious, ime....my DS wakes at about 6h15

What is giving me the cold shivers is the thought of the clocks going back...6am will be 5am, and we're back at square one.

Sorry!

Well... DH 'forgot' to do the 4am rousing last night - ha!

But anyway we had 0630 wake-up - not bad at all...

06.30 sounds like success to me!

I am hoping that things are going to improve as my DD woke up at 06.15 today which is fantastic (typically it was on a day I work so I needed to get up earlier and didn't really benefit but nevermind!).

We need to try and push her bedtime back as some nights she is in bed and asleep before 6pm and therefore, I know that I cannot moan about a 5am wake up! It's just she keeps teasing us with post 6am wake ups and they make the 5am ones even more difficult!!

Further reporting:

A couple of hopeless nights where DH failed to get out of bed at 4am and do his bit

A couple of nights where I have got out of bed at 4am, roused DS, subsequent wake-ups about 0630/0645.

Last night, when I totally woke him up by mistake and we had a scenario like the first night I tried it where he was awake for about 30 minutes ... but this morning he didn't wake up until 0745!!!

This week we are going to try not waking him up to see what happens next, more news from the frontline of wake-to-sleep soon

Ooh I just found this post, having done a similar post myself. I would love to try this on my DD. She is only 4.5 months though, but she has been waking up at exactly the same time for WEEKS then chunters, chats and whines on and off for anything from 10 mins to an hour. For all she goes back off and sleeps until a reasonable hour, after listening to her for a hour, we are unable to get back to sleep, especially my hubby.

Do you think this could work for us? Before anyone says anything - it's not food she's waking for - try feeding her and then she really thinks it's up and time to party. Plus she hardly has anything anyway. It seems like she's just got into the habit of waking and wants some company. God love her.

Tips and advice please!!