I can't get my DS to sleep past 4:50am/5:20am. Please help!!!

[PavlovtheCat]

He has been a terrible sleeper. Absolutely terrible. Up to recently has been waking between 2-5 times a night. He used to be breastfed back to sleep and this stopped about 3 months ago? But continued to wake up. 16 days ago I Had Enough and did controlled crying for one night and it worked for the most part. DS now generally sleeps from 7:15pm to either 4:50am or 5:20am, but mostly 4:50amgoes to sleep without a fuss, straight down, maybe he cries for 1-2 mins but generally that is it. Sometimes he will wake brielfy in the night, and gently cry, put himself back to sleep. Or DH/I will go in pick him up, kiss him, straight back down and he is asleep before we leave the room. On one occasion he woke at 4am and would not settle for 45 mins, and on this day he then slept til 7am.

But, I simply cannot get him to sleep properly past this time. I had to start with brought him in with me for a feed and he would sleep/fuss til 6-6:30am. This did not work for me as I could not sleep, and nor could DH.

So for 7 days I have been attempting to put him back to sleep with controlled crying method. 3/6/10/15 mins. Tend to get him back to sleep within this time, but only for 10-15 mins at a time. And this continues until he/i finally give up at 6am when he has woken DD up.

Today he slept il 5:17am. But he did not go to bed til late as we had a friend over with her little one and we got distracted. He slept straight away at 8:15pm and well, right through til 5:17am.

From then on he has slept 10 mins and 5 mins. He is tired, it is clear he is tired, but he just will not go back to sleep. He woke DD up at 5:40am.

He has been offered water, and milk, but no breastmilk. And he is not asking for milk from me either.

I am quite down about having no life any more due to starting my day at 4:50am so go to bed so early. DH just goes out most evenings now as I am in bed so early.

Suggestions/shoulder to cry on would be hugely appreciated.

Sorry I forgot to say his age - 14 months and 14 days.

no suggestions - i am also a 5am waking victim. just sympathy....

how old is your lo?

I am guessing he is hungry. It is the only thing I can think of but he is not desperate for boob, once he is in my arms for a cuddle he calms and I would think snuggle right in if i let him (almost did that this morning, but held off trying to get him to settle).

But the hunger, well he does love his food. And we he is drinking less milk from me and won't substitute with normal milk, or rather, he does but nowhere near as much.

Do you think that might be it? and if so how do i sort that.

Both my Ds's were early risers 5am, tried everything to no avail, I just used to bring them in with me and snuggle until 6. Oh and I used to go to bed at 9pm to cope!

Both my Ds's were early risers 5am, tried everything to no avail, I just used to bring them in with me and snuggle until 6. Oh and I used to go to bed at 9pm to cope!

mine was too a terrible night sleeper and then a really early riser... used to bring him into bed with us for an hour snuggle/doze which did really help preserve some sanity! when he was 2 we got him a gro clock which against all the odds was a miracle worker...worth looking into for the future for your ds...
what time does he have his tea and do you give him a bottle/boob just before bed?
also hold off giving breakfast til 6.30 - 7am - this will slowly train his tummy to not expect food till later and might keep him sleeping a bit longer?

know what you mean about no life...i have 5 month old too now and some days just give up and go to bed after putting them both down - have been known to be sipping camomile tea and mumsnetting ready in pjs at 6.30pm...to think a decade ago I was an all night clubber every weekend....

It sounds like you have been doing a great job trying to settle him in the morning but it's just not going to work.

He is having 9-10 hours sleep a night, which isn't actually that far from ideal, I think children this age are meant to have 10-12? So I think your best bet is to get the 10 hours placed where you want them.

If he is having a 2-3 hour after lunch nap then that would probably be enough sleep in total anyway.

When do you have dinner? Lots of people seem to have children's dinner around 4 or 5 pm, in which case I think you need a substantial supper. Or you could go for a 6/7pm dinner with a substantial afternoon snack. Supper or afternoon snack I would go for milk, couple of crumpets or cheese on toast or cheese and crackers or marmite on toast or beans and toast or noodles etc. Something really filling. Then bed at 9ish which would get you through to 7pm.

I agree with the person who said no breakfast until the time you deem acceptable.

How far away is that from what you currently do? Do you think it could work?

thanks all. Some great suggestions will respond later have a party to take dd to, but wanted to let you know I have read your thoughts...

First of all, good for you and your DS -- it sounds like you have already made good progress with his nighttime sleep.

Funny. . . reading this my guess would be overtiredness. It's a major cause of early wakings. What are his naps like? (If the naps are adequate then that might not be it, of course!) But a child that is consistently getting 9-10 hours of nighttime sleep (instead of the 11-12 that LOs his age usually need) could be chronically overtired. What you describe that he will cry and go back to sleep fitfully does not sound like he's waking up rested.

I would try an earlier bedtime -- say maybe 6 or even 5:30 for a few nights to catch up. Go to bed with him or soon after in case it backfires, and it might be worth trying for several days. Our DD is almost exactly the same age. She used to sleep 10 restless hours with lots of wakings but now after sleep training she sleeps 12 hours calmly (plus daytime nap/s). If he starts having longer nights you can aim for 7-7.

I would make sure he's getting adequate naps. Have you done CC for naps as well? Nap sleep is more difficult to sort out but it's just as important.

Have you heard of waking to sleep? The idea is that consistent early wakings like this are habits that can be broken. I haven't done this but there are lots of threads on it. Might be worth a try, and I think it's most likely to work if he's generally getting enough rest.

It's certainly possible, as Moomaa says, that he just needs less sleep than most little ones and you can move his bedtime later, but I would err on the side of assuming he needs more sleep than he's getting as a first try to sort things.

ok so, let me do it point by point:

afternoon snack at around 2-3pm ish (sometimes breastmilk, sometimes not) then tea at about 5-6pm, usually followed by pudding/weetabix or something similar.

Breastfeed before bed, refuses a bottle, but tbh I am not sure that he is getting much milk from me at the moment, it is more a comfort thing.

Naps - oh to sleep for 2-3 hours in the afternoon!!! His sleep has become quite random, due to the fact there is too much to see/do and he is now walking so does not stop. He is now not sleeping when he normally does, he is getting 30mins-1hour per day, and then every two days or so he will sleep for one good stretch of 1-2 hours. He may get two lots of 30 mins.

And the problem with the little sleep at night is that he does not catch it up in the day time. Last night he slept from 8:30pm-5:17am, so 9 hours, and then he napped for a grand total of 30 mins today!

I have taken two things from you lovely ladies so far that I am going to try.

Move morning breakfast to later - currently has breakfast about 7am ish but more often than not he has milk from me once he gets up. I am going to stop this and offer him milk at 7am while we get his breakfast ready.

And if this does not work we will try

Moving his bedtime to later and get him to sleep to 6:30am, so say 9pm-7:00am, and then once this is established will bring his bedtime forward slowly to a time we are move comfortable with. Only drawback with this is that both children get quite full on at night and as I am so tired and also start work early so that would be night night to my nights, and my mornings as I have to get up for work at 6:30am latest anyway (but not at weekends)

I do remind myself that the clocks will change soon so technically he will be waking at 6am!

pavlov - i could have written your post. we've managed to get our 3 wakes a night bf back to sleep baby to sleeping through from 6.30/7pm until 5am. (through combination of cuddling to sleep and cutting out night feeds, to controlled crying).

teapots post is very interesting. our ds2 has rubbish naps - 30-40 minutes, twice a day (at around 9am and 1pm). i cannot get him to sleep longer, have tried controlled crying and it just goes on and on, he is so resistant, much more than he was at night. he wakes up crying from naps and rubs his eyes. i try putting him back down, doing cc and he just screams and screams, until i cave in like an hour later.

we've got to the point where we are letting ds2 cry a bit in the morning. i'll go in and check he hasn't pooed, then sing him his sleepy song, put him back down and leave him, until 6am. he generally quietens down, starts whimpering, but doesn't get back to sleep.

i'm sorry, no solutions or advice really. but just to say you are not alone! 5am starts are the pitts, they really are. i know the sleep deprivation of frequent night wakes are crap, but anything before 6am is awful too.

I have this exact same problem. DD will be 14 months old in 5 days and currently sleeps from 7pm till somewhere between 5 and 6am. We dropped morning naps to try and get her to sleep later but she still has a 60-90 min afternoon nap at about 2pm. Dinner at 5pm.

I'd kill for an extra hour in the morning but nothing we seem to do helps

Pavlov, my sympathies. You might need to give your DS two naps a day - one around half 8am and another after lunch. When DS (16 months) got up that early, I had to put him down early as he really needs that morning nap. Sleep begets sleep and all that. Don't put him to bed later - I think it might backfire. Get his sleep up a bit in the day so he catches up then after a week see how he is.

Also is something waking him up in the mornings? The birds are bloody loud at that time - we have white noise to cut some of it out. DS wakes at half 5.

Is he teething? At that time in the morning, they're sleeping quite lightly so if the teeth are a bit bothersome, DS finds it hard to go back to sleep.

The other possibility is wind - DS gets parpy in the mornings so I figure that stops him sleeping longer.

It's good to see the extra info. The mealtimes sound good. I was horrified at the bit about naps though - when do you get a break from him, you must be exhausted!!!

I have found with my ones that bad napping at day means bad sleeping at night (don't know why), but I'm not sure how you fix naps in the day. I agree with Iggly that it's best to tackle that as a priority.

(still think most people put their little ones to bed too early though).

iggly there is some noise around that time actually. Not the sweet sounds of songbird, no. My neighbour revs his motorbike engine outside our house at well the same type of time as DS wakes. I have wondered about this, but guess I put this to the back of my mind...

...Just had a chat about this with DH. Will ask neighbour about moving his bike around the back of the house, by our window instead. We get on ok with him.

iggly we do offer him his normal two naps, but he is just simply refusing.

He normally/used to sleep on the school run, and stay asleep for up to 1.5 hours, but now he just does not sleep . DH tries to put him down for a nap (he is also harsher than I am so will not give in easily) and he is refusing. DH resorted today at 2pm to drive for over 1 hour to get him to sleep while I took DD to a birthday party. Not a jot. He had 30 mins this morning in the car as refused to go down for a nap.

His naps used to be 8:30-9am for 1.5 hours, then 2pm for about 45 mins. Occasionally a bit longer for each, sometimes less. He changed it to midday so DH moved his lunch forward as he kept missing it by falling asleep and it putting him out (before we got his night sleeping sorted as well as we do now) and now he is refusing most naps, it is all so random.

Problem with this time is that he has always woke at this time. Even when he woke lots in the night he would wake at between 4-5am. He used to wake at 4:30am for 1-2 hours before going back to sleep, so maybe the bike thing is it...

moo a break? i go to work. And today i went to a children's party. Yes. I considered going to a 5yo's birthday party as a break. How sad is that...!

Yes def sort out the bike. We've got a motorbike that goes through our road at DS's wake up time plus trains but I can't do anything about it! The birds are earlier so the white noise helps stop the pre half 5 wake ups.

I'd keep trying with one nap a day anyway and see how it goes. Hopefully the bike thing will make a difference though!

Pavlov - DD's naps used to be 9.30am for 1.5 hours and 2pm for 45 mins!! Spookily similar.

iggly how do you do the white noise? do you have a noise machine thingy? or do you leave the hoover on all night Seriously though DS loves white noise and actually the best nap he had for a while with me present was with me hoovering the entire house while he went into deep nap sleep so might be worth considering, especially if it helps with the bike if our neighbour is not receptive to change.

blather oh no I hope it does not mean that our early mornings are destined to stay due to our children's character

I downloaded a white noise track onto my iPod and set up speakers in his room with the track on loop! We've used it since he was little - when he used to get massively overtired as a newborn, we had to play it very loudly and rock him to sleep in the dark. Happy days

I really think his early rising is because of him being so overtired when he goes to bed. I read somewhere years ago (and its always stuck in my head) that when children are overtired they fall instantly into their deep deep sleep then that is often the result that they wake up silly early!! I still notice this in my 4 yr old!!

So you need to find some way (and i know its hard) to get him to nap probably in the middle of the day!!

Good luck!