4 - 5am waking. I'll do anything!

[AAL]

Hi

Familiar tale...my family is being pushed to the limit by dds early waking. She is now 18 months.

She has a great bedtime routine and goes down awake, and settles fine. However, her waking has always been early - I used to think 6 was a nightmare ha,how wrong.
She got 'stuck' on 5 am, and now more like 4. This has been going on for months.
She seems frightened to stay in her cot, but is still so tired. I won't do cc as she gets hysterical, and is a very clingy child all day anyway. Have tried sleeping in room with her, cuddling her, music and am totally stuck. Any ideas? Please!

We've also got 5ish waking with our 20 month boy and it's so tiring. Agree about cc, seems a bad idea when they prepared to get up and stay up. Our son gets truly hysterical if left alone once awake.

What about trying wake to sleep? I wonder about this sometimes as it is gentle on them.

What time does yours go to bed? Does she need a nap etc.

I have wondered about wake to sleep too. Is it that you rouse them an hour before wake up?

Set my alarm last weekend for 330 am and she beat me to it! Scared she won't go back to sleep!!

She goes to bed 6 30 - 7pm and has a decent nap during the day thank god!

Yes that's my fear with wake to sleep too!

What about a later bed time? 6,30 seems early to me - ours goes to bed at the late hour of 8pm since he never sleeps more than ten hours. Often he has 9 and is fine all day. He has one and a half hours in the day and I wake him from the nap. I know they say early bed means they sleep longer but that doesn't work with our son.

Lots of sympathy because early rising really affects parents. So jealous of those who get a decent waking hour!

Watching as well. DS is stuck on 4.25 am at the moment

Lots of sympathy from me but no solutions unfortunately. Sorry

Are there sleep specialists out there?

Is your DS Clingy and needy during the day?

With wake to sleep, you are supposed to disturb them slightly. Not enough to wake them up, but enough to pull them out of the deep sleep that they should be in. The idea is that they are waking from habit and you can stop this by disturbing the sleep pattern. You need to be sure that they are waking from habit though, not hunger, or cold or anything else.

I have been contemplating it. DD is waking at 4:50 every day and refusing to go back off. She is 1.11 and it is HARD. We have started just sitting in her room until 6am and not letting her out, in the hope that she will get fed up of being in a dark room for an hour and not get up. o_0

It's hard, she is in a bed, can open her door and would get VERY angry if there was a stairgate.

When she has had later nights, it has been the same if not worse. But these have been one offs - should I persist do you think?
Only thing is, I wonder if I could keep her awake, she so tired by 6!

Oh PfftTheMildlySpookyDragon, I'm feeling your pain! This morning I lay on her floor refusing to get her out, but so she knew I was there. She still screamed at me in anger to get her out and after an hour (at 5 30), I caved. She had woken DS up who now has school - aaaggghhhh

Yes that's my fear with wake to sleep too!

What about a later bed time? 6,30 seems early to me - ours goes to bed at the late hour of 8pm since he never sleeps more than ten hours. Often he has 9 and is fine all day. He has one and a half hours in the day and I wake him from the nap. I know they say early bed means they sleep longer but that doesn't work with our son.

Lots of sympathy because early rising really affects parents. So jealous of those who get a decent waking hour!

I found if I persevered with 3 to 4 nights of later bed then he adjusted. But am not a sleep specialist! And he still wakes early often.

I have tried a later bed time. I find it makes no difference, only that she is over tired when she goes to bed and takes ages to settle.

I think it has coincided with her dropping her nap - she won't sleep in the bed in the day, but I think if she slept in the day, she would sleep better at night.

AAL - It's awful, isn't it? I don't want to reward her for waking early - she wants to get up and go into DS's room, but if I keep her in her room she screams and wakes him.

I never had this trouble with him.

Later bedtimes are fine, if they are fine all day. But - she goes to bed at 7 and is waking at 5, and is exhausted in the day. She's a nightmare at about 3-5 because she is so tired but refuses to have a nap.

I am going to work on getting a nap back again. - DO all of yours have naps?

Tried everything with DS who is now 2.4. The clock change makes it worse too: 4.50am today. It was the same last Autumn.

The last two nights I have just ignored him until 6am. In a bid to boring him into reset his waking up time. He just howls/yells/says a variant of Mummy/Mummy cuddle/Mummy hello.

I don't think there is a solution. 39 weeks pregnant and feeling sorry for myself.

Hi I am new to mumsnet. I too have the problem of a 20 month old who is waking up at 4.30am. It was 6am but now with the clocks going back he has got earlier. I have tried no nap in the day and a later bed time but neither has worked. I am going to try wake to sleep tonight and I really hope it works. CC doesnt really work cos he will just keep chatting all morning which is fine but we can still hear him so cant sleep. Any other ideas? Thanks :)

Hello. My son is 6 months old and has been waking at 5am. He used to sleep till 6.30. I have tried giving him more solids at tea time and keeping the heating on so he's not cold but it's not working. I'm knackered and so is he by the time he gets to nursery. This morning I went in to him at 5, gave him his dummy and went back to bed. He talked to himself until 5.30 and then went back to sleep until 6. Going to keep this up in the hope that he gets in to the habit of going back to sleep.

4:20 this morning o_0

I kept her up later last night. Gave dinner later, was 8pm before they went to bed. DS also woke at 6am.

I am trying to reinstate the nap today and see what happens.

AAL - how are things going?

I absolutely feel your pain. My Ds who is now 4yo went through a stage of 5am waking everyday when he was around 1yo. We tried everything. I don't really have the solution except to sat that one morning he slept later, then later again and he suddenly just stopped with the early mornings. The 'phase' lasted about 3-4 months.

Hope your days get easier. Good luck!

6am!!!

sweet sleep!

How long have you been up for, AAL?

Can i join you?

I have a 2.6 dd who wakes between 4.30 and 6 every morning, and ds3 nine months, who's still feeding three hourly at night. He woke for the day at 4.45am this morning - dd woke at 5.30.

I am so tired i can barely see straight. I've tried heeping dd awake later - she usually goes to bed at seven, i've tried keeping her up til eightish, but all that happens is she still wakes at her usual time but is a grump the next day. And even if she does sleep, i'm still getting up with DS3.

Manshape and i are taking it in turns to get up or sleep - though i'm still getting up for DS3. It breaks my heart to even say this, but i'm even considering putting him on formula so i might actually get some sleep I absolutely love breastfeeding and don't want to stop, but i'm so so tired.

It's no help, i know, but it's good to know that there are people going through this too. It's lonely at 5am when you think you;re the only awake person in the world.

Ok I am going to go against the grain and suggest you work on the daytime naps. We have consistently had better night sleeps when the daytime nap is good!
If they won't go down in cot you can rock them in buggy or go for ling walk. It seems like waste of time now but it is worth trying for at least a week!

And meantime definitely try wake to sleep... It is working for us right now! I go in around an hour before I expect him to wake and just turn him over in his bed. It seems to delay him from 5.30 to 6 ish but today was 6.45!!

As always, plenty of fresh air and exercise each day and a protein-rich meal in the evening seems to help too!

Well this is what our experience tells us too. We gave up in the end as she was so difficult to get down for a nap but I think it is worth perservering. I have tried later bedtimes but what has always worked in the past is better day sleep.

She napped for an hour and a half yesterday (though it took an hour to get her down before the sleep) and she slept until 6am this morning.

Just wanted to offer an update on the Wake To Sleep that we've been doing.

I was going in at 4.30 to start with (he was getting up between 5 and half past). I creeped it forward so that it was around an hour before whatever time he got up the previous day.

He seems to be coming to the surface around 5-5.30...talking in his sleep, but I go in before he wakes and turn him over/tuck him in.

He has been getting up around 6.45-7.15 for the last 4-5 days

that's brilliant!

This am my ds woke at 4.30 and I managed to rock back to sleep and so slept til 6am (not 5 or 5.30 as often).

So I am going to try Wake to Sleep too!

Can anyone help me with my getting toddler to sleep question? I posted a thread about it - 'post illness' one. Need to crack this before the early wakings!

IT ALL CHANGES SO QUICKLY - I contradict myself on mumsnet!

No time to read all of the above, but my tips:

18 month sleep regression: here and here and here.

Alternative strategies:

Earlier bedtime
Later first nap (shuffle it later by 10-15 mins every few days)
Try for more daytime naps - may need to reintroduce a 'dropped' nap.
Treat waking as night time - LO will probably be wide awake but may go back off after 1.5 hours of being awake.

Wake to sleep is intended if they wake at exactly the same time every day.

I would also add that are you sure your LO's are not cold? 4-5am is the coldest part of the night and if cold, they are unlikely to return to sleep. My DS used to wake around 5am. I bought him a long-sleeved travel sleeping bag from Jojo Maman and he now wakes between 630-730pm. However, I do also make him do a lot of physical activity in the day!!!