What would you do in my situation?

[WolverineInMarigolds]

DD3 is 16 months old and never been the best of sleepers. Although looking at some of the horror stories on here, she 's not that bad at all.

Anyway, we've just done CC as she'd got used to waking in the night and us charging in there, giving her milk to calm her down so she wouldn't wake DD1 and 2 (9 and 5). She'd therefore got used to getting back to sleep with the help of milk rather than self settling.

CC only took a week and she's now going through the night (mostly) but....... she will now wake up anywhere from 4.50am to 5.30am. This is just too early to start the day. Anything from 5.45/6am would be fair game. So, here's my dilemma:

Do I give her milk at this ungodly hour and put her back to sleep (she's happy with this and will sleep til 7am). But will I shot myself in the foot and go back a stage with the milk/sleep association?

Do I just accept that this is her wake up time and suck it up and get on with it?

Should I try water and put her back down in the hope that she'll go back to sleep and stop waking so early as water more boring than milk?

Should I go back to CC for the early wakings?

She'll scarff 8oz of milk when she wakes so I think she's hungry. She also eating really well during the day and is happy, healthy and active. She has a 2 hour lunch time nap that she needs so can't cut that down.

All suggestions gratefully received.

Wake-to-sleep is one way of dealing with early mornings - there are threads on here with details about how to do it.

Chances are though, the milk re-settle at that time won't result in multiple wakings again. I decided to let my DD have 2x feeds per night after some sleep training to reduce the wakings down from 5 minimum and thus far (several weeks down the line) the number of times she's woken for milk hasn't increased, if anything, the gaps are getting longer between the wake-ups.

So if a quick bit of milk for a couple more hours in the morning is the easiest way of doing it, I would probably do that personally.

Others may well disagree!

Sorry can't help, but would be really interested to see how you get on. We're having a similar thing with dd (9mo).

Weaned her off night feed a couple of months ago and she generally sleeps through from 7pm... til 5am or thereabouts.

I usually give in and feed her at 5.30am. She feeds well so i think she's hungry. But even then she doesn't always go back to sleep, so I wonder if she's just up for the day.

I don't want to do sleep training in the morning if she's tired and is genuinely hungry- seems unfair!

But I really, really would like her to sleep til 6ish as her days go haywire with these early starts. Like you I've come to see 5.45 as a "good" morning!

ps Think am going to try wake-to-sleep later this week when dp off work. How about you?

what time does she go to bed? If a slightly later bedtime makes no difference, I would do cc for wake ups any time before 6am - this is the earliest civilised hr they should be up!

I've had the same issue with my son but it was coming into our bed rather than milk. We had to be strong and consistent and it improved and got a lot better once he dropped his daytime nap ( now 4 yrs)

Hi Ladies

Thanks for the advice. It's such a lottery isn't it. DD1 was a beautiful sleeper from 5 months onwards. Solid 12 hours each night. DD2 was up 'early' at 6.30 ish, but slept thru the night from 5 months old. And now DD3 has got me in a tail spin!

She goes to bed between 7 and 7.30. It doesn't make a jot of difference when she goes to bed. She'll still wake early.

Think I'll keep doing the milk then try the CC over Christmas when DD1 and 2 aren't at school and it doesn't matter of they have been woken by DD3 screaming the place down!

Be interesting to see if anyone else has a different opinion.

[NapWahtNap] - keep me posted on the wake to sleep technique. I'll be a coward and let you forge the way before I cling on to your coat tails!

Doh. I mean NapWhatNap

I would treat the 5:30 waking as a night waking - no lights, no conversation, shh/pat or a hug and back down in the cot she goes. a

Both my ds's went through a phase of waking at 4am and would refuse to settle again, so I just started our day at that time.
I found it was a lot easier to just deal with it than try to fight it, and they soon moved back to 6am on their own.

Sorry but that is a bit crazy. To each their own and all that, of course, but still...

I don't think it's crazy (obviously) to follow my children's lead in a developmental phase.
I personally don't want to put pressure on my children to comply with what others (including myself) want them to do. Although, they have bounderies etc in terms of behaviour, but if my children need to get up early, that's fine.
I just feel acceptance is often easier than fighting and getting wound up over it all. Nice and calm and just deal with whatever comes our way I say

A baby waking up at 4 am is not a "developmental phase". And we can hold hands and sing praises to going with the flow etc if you like, but getting up for the day at 4 am is still crazy.

Well, they both out-grew it after a few weeks and stressing over it when it happens and spending energy battling with a baby gets us nowhere does it?
Surely it's better for all to tackle these slight issues as calmly and simply as possible and for me that meant a sacrifice in sleep and a nice relaxed start to the day.
No big deal, save the worrying for something important that can't be dealt with as easily as getting up early