For people with early wakers and no judgey pants, is there SOMETHING we can give them?

[MissHonkover]

It's been about 10 months of waking any time from 4.30ish to 5.15ish. We can't stand it any longer. Utterly sick of it.

Is there anything that can be prescribed or bought?

Please, I don't want to hear from anyone who says "just go to bed earlier".

If she's 8, can't she just read, or even watch a DVD- you don't hqve to ame up too!

Wake up-I meant!

no, she is quadriplegic so some poor sod has to get up with her. I just want her to sleep till a decent time. Even 6am.

Sympathy here too.

DS2 is 22 months and wakes at 5am everyday since he was 10 months old.

It is truly exhausting. He did a spate of 6am for about a week and I started to get excited, but he's gone back to 5am. No rhyme nor reason.

Thanks everyone.

I posted hoping for a huge range of chemical solutions, and only got one, there's obviously a gap in the market there. Was also expecting a mega flaming for even suggesting it. A friend of mine is a nurse for children with disabilities, and they use melatonin there. God I'm tempted.

Having said which, today is a much brighter day as she slept until 7. That was because we had an hour of crying from 11 til 12, and half an hour of cuddling at 3. Which I would gladly take over a 5 am start.

She does wake whiney and grizzly, which makes it harder as you know there's a cycle of tiredness all round. Today she woke happy as Larry. Obviously even she knows that 5 am is ridiculous.

Tonight we're going to try an earlier bedtime and tea, and a gro clock is on order.

I did assume you were joking about wanting to sedate her..............!

Misshonker remember that when you try something new, like tonight's going to bed early, you will not get any results straight away unless you are very lucky. You need to introduce new systems for about 5 days or so before you can expect to change. One night won't do it as she wont realise this is for keeps. Dd sleeps better when going to bed earlier not later. Nothing works for ds.

Good luck x

My DD used to wake up early because of wet nappy/hunger so I used to wake her up before I went to bed (11ish) and give her milk and change her. I was lucky that she would go to sleep easily after ( must admit I usually cuddled her back to sleep and put her back in cot). This worked for me.

OP - A 1.25hr nap is actually quite short for her age so I definitely wouldn't cut it. What time is her nap??? I am just wondering if perhaps it may just be the timing of her nap that needs tweaking, rather than the amount of sleep.

I've recently had to do this with my 17.5mo DS who was napping 11-1 & going to bed 6.30ish & waking 5-5.30. I tried stretching his bedtime later to 7/7.30 & he still woke early so was getting less sleep & was even more tired. What I've done is gradually push his nap later over 5-6 weeks so it starts at 12.30 & capped at 2hrs max & he goes to bed at 7.30pm & is now generally sleeping in until 6.45/7am. Its not a quick fix & requires patience as it takes a long time to do, but it has really worked.

HTH.x

Nope, wasn't joking at all!

iget, thanks for the suggestion, will keep a close eye on exactly how hungry she is when she wakes. She doesn't seem that bothered at the moment, so I'll keep the idea of reinstating a dream feed until we've tried everything else.

Yes, all changes we've tried we've persevered with for about a week.

Following suggestions from wise MNers, we've been creeping her nap earlier, today she's gone to bed at 1. will aim for bed at 7.15.

melatonin helps dd get to sleep - she used to yell till midnight. Now she is asleep by 10pm but it doesnt keep her asleep. If someone finds something that keeps them asleep I will have a bucket of it please.

Ah. Leaves thread with severe sense of humour failure.

What time does she have her first milk/breakfast? From your posts it sounds like it's not straight after she wakes, so this may not be useful, but I did read somewhere that little ones wake 45 minutes before their first feed of the day before (which can mean the wake up getting earlier and earlier iyswim).

Ds is an early waker. He's 6.5 - 6am is common. He now can read a clock and has a clock radio in his room and we make sure he knows what time he's allowed to get up and read a book and what time he can go downstairs on his own. We also have boxes of lego (used to be mega blocks) in his room and he knows he can play with these if its after 6 but before he's allowed to go downstairs.

Having said that, 5.15 was quite a regular occurance when he was younger - and I always did my best to ensure that he didn't start thinking that this was 'the time' to get up becuase he has a built-in timeclock for waking (a bit like me). So, at that time I would go in, say it was still sleepy time and put some music on for him.

Moving bedtime later didn't affect waking times - and missing a nap out would tend to exacerbate the problems.

I can sympathise - and it does get better to some extent at least!

Her breakfast time is normally about 15 mins after she's got up. We don't have a set time for it. Ooh butternut, that's interesting, not heard that before. So by that reckoning moving her breakfast later could affect what time she wakes up the next day?

She's just awake, in tears, following a nap of an hour and 25 mins. She often wakes from a nap in tears, is this common?

Usually waking unhappy is a sign she is overtired. So she's 18 months right? And from what I've read she napped today at 1pm & that is earlier than usual? What time does she usually go down & what time is her BT now?

My LO is 17months & he currently wakes at 7am & naps at 12.30 for 2hrs & BT is 7.30. I'm just wondering if you try a slightly earlier nap say 12.30 & then do a 7pm BT if nap is 1.5hrs or 7.30pm if its 2hrs & see what happens? My son has also been a chronic early waker & for us, we find overtiredness is the biggest cause. HTH.x

It does seem counter-intuitive - but we found that better naps during the day meant better sleep at night.

Hi omama, yes, we're gradually bringing her nap and bedtime earlier, having been trying a later bedtime and later nap. She was napping for a few minutes in the morning (unavoidable due to early wake), then nap for about an hour and a half at 2, then bedtime at 8.

We're shifting it forward now, so we're managing to avoid a morning nap, and so far we've got the lunchtime sleep forward to 1. She has sometimes slept for 2 hours, but mostly her nap is about an hour and a half, waking in tears. Poor thing.

Tonight we're aiming for 7.15 bed.

Oh bless it does sound like she is a bit OT. Well it sounds like you're on the right track by bringing the nap a wee bit earlier so I hope things settle for you all soon.x

4.35 this morning. Cuddled her in her room til 6 then gave up. Each time I put her back in her cot she yelled and I couldn't face taking her downstairs so I stayed with her.

Off to get a gro clock today so we can very clear about whether it's morning.

I think our tactics should be that we use the clock so she can see it's still night time, and then she has to stay in bed until morning no matter what. Poor neighbours. Feel a bit down about it to be honest.

I do wonder whether she maybe just doesn't need the mythical 12 hours at night, but the fact she wakes crying from naps and grizzly in the mornings must mean she's not getting enough at the moment.

DS used to do this. Woke up at 5am every day. I used the technique commonly known as "attrition". Had inflatable mattress in his room and duvet. When he woke up I would go in there, try to resettle. If he wouldn't I'd just lie down on the mattress and stay with him but no lights/ no talking until 6.30 which I deemed was an acceptable time to wake up. Took about 2 weeks till he stopped yelling and another 2 until he actually fell back to sleep. He's subsequently stretched to 7am and actually now he just sits in his cot and waits for us to come in (within reason, obviously- not past 7.30).

Might be worth a try. Also, I try to wear DS out as much as poss in the day- get him to walk everywhere, lots of playgroups, lots of playdates. I do see a big improvement in sleep on a physically active day.

HTH

I have sleep sense

It's a really nice book. I was going to sell it on Ebay then realised I can't as I've written on the sleep chart bit. I'm happy to send it to you? PM me if interested.

we have this globetrotter clock which works with stickers and bribery.

I'm really sympathetic. It used to make me so f*cking angry when they went through the early waking phase.

Miss Honkover - your DD sounds exactly the same as our DS. He sleeps anywhere between an hour and an hour and a half in the daytime, goes to sleep at 7, wakes at 5 every day, for the last 12 months. Screams as he wakes up every time.

I know I need to 'sort' some sort of change by September when DS1 goes to school (he gets woken by 5.30am every day and he is shattered as a result too). It's so draining.