4am! Really?

[autumnberry]

For the at least a month now ds has been impossible to settle back to sleep ater waking for a feed at about 4am. He feeds until about 4.40, at which point he usually ( and rather loudly) fills his nappy. He then wiggles and chats for about 20 mins. I then consider 'getting up' at about 5am. He will eventually settle back to sleep at about 7am when we return to bed. We co-sleep, so I am aware of disturbing DP, but more than half the time we sleep in different beds anyway (when he is working) and the pattern is no different. I try to stay in bed and keep things dark and quiet and only nappy-change if necesarry. I have also tried more feeding and rocking to induce sleep to no avail. Does anyone have any tips on extending the sleep? I do have a lot of patience, but effectively getting up at 4am cannot continue. Baby is 7 months old, goes to bed any time between 6 and 7pm.

Oh god, I feel your pain. We had 6 months of 4:15 wakings.. we were like the walking dead :(

The only thing that worked was feeding immediately (and changing) and then after watching the hell that is pre-6am cbeebies for a while he'd go back to bed. This slowly got earlier and earlier, so we sort of merged the 4am wake up with his first nap.

Huge sympathies. Do whatever it takes. You really don't have to accept it going on till he's four ..and believe me you will not look back with regret either.

My dc only ever needed 12 hours ish sleep out of 24, so when they were about that age they had a couple of hours napping in the day and slept 10 hours at night. If they had gone to bed at 6:30, they would have been up at 4:30.

I used to put them to bed at 8pm.

Ds still woke up bouncing off the ceiling at 5:30 - 6am until he started school.

I would just like to add that, although ds did manage to sleep a straight 10 hours through at that age, dd emphatically DID NOT.

Yawn.

Hi OP. First of all, sincere sympathies. DS was a great sleeper, DD far less so and I went back to work when she was 4 months and still having a 2-3am feed. It is very hard, especially driving home in the dark at 5.30 when you are tired! Anyway, you are getting lots of good advice on here but some of it is directly contradictory - no sleep after 3pm, more sleep at 5.30 etc. You said in one that you're scared to try something but really it is the only way you can test out the possibilities (for what its worth, DD sometimes has a little 30 min nap in the late afternoon so I can get her to a 7pm bedtime, otherwise she goes up early, is too full of dinner to have much milk and wakes for a feed). If you are still on mat leave, please try it now when you may have some down-time in the middle of the day. Whatever you try, do persist with it for a few nights at least otherwise you won;t know if its a fluke or some other factor. Best of luck

Sorry but 7mo really does not need a middle of the night feed, you might have hell for a few nights as he is now USED to getting one, but tbh you could cut it with no negative effects.

I know it sounds harsh, and definitely each to their own, but I needed my sleep to be a decent mother the nest day.

I disagree, at 7 months if they are having a growth spurt some babies do need a night feed, 7 months is tiny still. After a year old is a whole different thing.

The baby has already slept for 9 hours, after that length of time it's to be expected that they wake to be fed.

You are welcome to disagree, but medically after about 6mo they have no legitimate reason for a middle of the night feed.

If you like doing it, fair dos. I didnt.

But it's not the middle of the night - baby has already slept for 9 hours.

If a baby was waking after 3 or 4 that's different but NINE? Do you really expect a 7 month old to sleep for 12 hours straight?

Bollocks rhonda you clearly didn't have a baby that woke 3 times a night an thought that 4am was an acceptable time to start the day.

'medically after 6 months' utter fucking bollocks - there's a very good reason that the WHO guidelines are up to 2yo for BF, teeny babies aren't machines and they don't magically start sleeping through at 6mo ( much to my disbelief and horror )

Nice of you to leave your kids to cry in the night, but I don't like doing it, so I didn't.

This is probably really obvious but have you tried feeding when you go to bed? Made a massive difference with dd, I feed her at 11 and she sleeps till 6 at least.

Rhonda I was going to swear at you, but I see jareth has got there first

Ali!

This whole sleep thing is one of those areas where people take a bit too much credit for what their baby's doing I think. I should know-I took full credit for dd1s sleeping habits. Not that she slept through early or anything. Ds brought me down to earth with a bump and I've not done anything but be grateful for the few weeks where dd2 slept very well. So at least now I don't take too much blame for the four oclock wake ups we're having now! You can do stuff to help something happen that a baby has it within them to do but there are babies who just don't have it in them to sleep through early and some whose predisposition is to do it.

Hi there, we're going to move this thread to 'Sleep' as we think it's the best place for it.

Swear away, both my kids slept through from 5/6 months and as they were still in the room with me, I know they were sleeping.

I dont need to swear, Im well rested.

Well rested and smug.