A thread for my early waking friends who want a whinge

[fififrog]

A few weeks back there were quite a few of us with DCs about a year old, too young for gro clocks etc waking up TOO BLOOMING EARLY. Where are you all at now? DD seems to be getting earlier. Cough not helping but we had 4.55 this morning. I hate to say it but I actually enjoyed her being ill last week as she slept til 6.30 once. Some mornings I think "just a long phase we can live with it" but this morning I was in total despair. Will I ever be able to make it to 10pm without thinking I will regret staying up this late??! I know some of you will say stick with the messing around with morning nap, it will fix it, but to be honest I don't believe it will and I just want to WHINGE to people who will understand!!

[vix206]

If I've nothing good to say about gro clock I promise I'll keep quiet :)

[ebmummy]

ok, well have been trying Omama's method of a short 30 min morning nap at 9.30 am (after a pre-6 wake up), and a longer 1.5 hr afternoon nap at 1.30pm (till 3pm), and he's been better but no cigar as yet. Maybe have to persevere for a few more weeks..

[vix206]

Good morning. It's been scream city since 5.30 here. Not going in until 6 though

[fififrog]

Bonjour. No fab news here I'm afraid though overjoyed to hear of meg's success! DD has nearly been on one nap 2 days in a row because coincidentally she has only had 10-15 min catnaps in th morning but she's still woken early.

I too woke up before her today at 5.10, she woke 5.15 but might have dozed off again for a bit. I certainly did, woke again at 5.50 but DH reckon he heard her thrashing her teddy around at 5.40...

Today is a mess, visiting friends after swimming this pm so giving her a longish one now so she makes it through swimming and hopefully will cope with just a snooze in the car this pm!

[Meggymoodle]

Hi there,

I would be coming in to gloat again - 6.23am following a one-nap day yesterday - except the rest night was total wash out. She cried out periodically between 11am and 2am and then DS - bless him - got up to tell me at 2.55am that his groclock was yellow. WHAT???? Scrap all the positives I've said about it - it was indeed yellow at 2.55am!!! I can only assume that that was woke him up. He was then up, for some inexplicable reason, for 2 HOURS. DD then cried out at 5.30 but went back to sleep for nearly an hour.

I'm knackered and going back to bed as DH has taken DS out of my way so I don't kill him and DD is sleeping. I'm praying she does longer than 45 mins which she sometimes achieves :(

frog from my limited week's experience, it didn't make any difference if she only had 10 mins at 10am, she still woke early. It was only on the days she had nothing around the 10am mark that she went through till later. We had to put her down majorly early though around 6.15pm which made me nervous the first day.

We have to do a cat nap at 10am tomorrow though as we have church and she'll never make it through until 12 without. So, Monday will be up again at 5am and we start again.....YAWN.

[Meggymoodle]

Oh well, that last all of a week then. Back to 0540 this morning regardless of only one nap yesterday. I could weep. :(

[fififrog]

Ah meggy take heart, you know these things are not linear! It's great she managed a whole week! This one seems to have a new cough. Again. And has been refusing afternoon naps. Might try her out on one nap, might wait til clocks change so it's not so long til lunchtime on the first day... Clutches at straws...

[Meggymoodle]

Oooh good idea re. the time change frog - why on earth didn't I think of that! How old is your LO?

My terror DD was back to two naps today as she was up so early, so she'll be up again at 5ish tomorrow am. Boo hoo.

We've had a constant cough here since September - always seems the way..... roll on spring proper!

[LittleMilla]

Just catching up on everyone's woes. We've been away for the weekend and DS has been up and down. He only had one nap yesterday and was up at 5:20am, so clearly massively over-tired - not going to try that again in a hurry! Full of cold today and due to car journey and stupidly early start, a couple of decent kips. Praying for a 6am+ as I am working tomorrow and won't be able to go back to bed with him in the morning!

He's also got a gooey eye (as well as being completely bunged up) so will be staggered if he makes it through the night.

Ahhh, clocks chaging. NEVER did I think I would actually be pleased about losing an hour...if only to make our hellish mornings slightly shorter!

[emmyloo2]

I am joining this thread! I have a 16 month old who has taken to waking anywhere between 4am and 7am, but more and more it is around 4-5am. This morning was 4.10am. Brutal.

Does anyone find a bottle of milk works? My DS wakes up asking for his bottle and then grabs it out of our hands when we give it to him. He then went back to sleep this morning at 4.45am until 7.30am. Nice for him, but I get up at 5.30am to go for a run before work so no sleep in for me.

I fear the bottle becomes a habit and is encouraging the early waking but otherwise I don't think we would get him back to sleep. And with him, it seems to be the odd morning, and then the next morning he will sleep until 6.30am. I can't figure it out. It seems random.

He has one sleep from about 1pm to 3pm.

CC works for him when he goes to sleep at 7pm at night - we went through that and came out the other side with a much better bedtime situation. It's just the early mornings. CC WILL NOT work in anyway at 4am despite our sleep consultant telling us to try it. I know my son and he just wants company and a chat. He is happy as larry and just sits there and talks and talks. drinks his bottle and then he goes back into his cot and goes back to sleep.

I am hoping it's a phase....and yes I am in bed by 9pm every night. On Saturday night my husband and I were both in bed by 8.45pm!!!! on a Saturday!!!

[LexieSinclair]

Hi there, can I join this thread? I have an 18M DS who is always up by 5-5.30. Not as early as some, I know, but I'm shattered!
I have tried changing nap times, plenty of fresh air and exercise during the day etc but nothing works. The aim is always to get him up as quickly and quietly as possible before he wakes DD who is in reception and needs her sleep! (She has always been a very good sleeper, waking around 7-7.30 so DS has been a shock to the system!)

[leftmysociallifeatthedoor]

Can I join? Dd is 17 months and regularly wakes around 5am but ds is fucking 5 years old and usually gets up and makes as much noise as humanly possible and refuses to go downstairs alone cos hes scared about 530am. He has done this almost every bastard day since he was born.

[Meggymoodle]

Hello everyone. So, we did well this morning....not.....0430!!!! What is that all about? Tried to settle her nicely for nearly an hour and a half and then left her to it. She was asleep 10 mins later and slept to 7.15 which means I can start my plan over again of only having one nap. Well...it was a nice week whilst it lasted.

FWIW Lexie - DS who is 3 and also needs his sleep, slept through the entire thing and at points it was v. noisy! He slept a full 12 hours. I can't believe how different my two children are.

[vix206]

I'm not gloating (it's probably a brief interlude of post 6am wake ups anyway) but since bringing bed time forward by half an hour DS has been waking at 6.30am and napping for 1 hr 40 during the day instead of a pathetic cat nap. This is the best we've had in 19 months so I'm enjoying it but not expecting it to last. He also lives his Gro clock and I do think it is helping, although not as much as the early bed times!

[LittleMilla]

Vix - another line of enquiry opens up for me! DS actually refused bottle and pointed at his cot tonight, poor chap! So perhaps an earlier bedtime could work.

Think I'll wait until cold clears up so that I am have uniform 'test conditions'!

x

[LittleMilla]

SOrry, monopolising this slightly. But, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

First peep at 4am (!!!) and after enough squeaks and coughs to stop me getting back to sleep, he started to shout properly at 5:30am.

Birds were in full song by this point, but it was as if DS was up early enough to give them the fecking hymn sheets!!

I am tired, exhausted. Lost of sense of humour today and have a big interview to prepare for on Friday. All I want to do is sleep...

[LittleMilla]

6:30pm-6:30am.

He was tired so I thought I'd try Vix's suggestion. Also full of cold and has a cough, so plenty of snuffling/coughing etc...but I heard him stirring at about 4am. Was obviously still early enough that he put himself back to sleep again.

Not expecting it to be repeated. But guess what time DS will be going down tonight...

[Meggymoodle]

Well done guys on the early bed time late up - I'm envious. Mine worked for precisely one week and we are back to one nap, early bed, early up :(

Oh well, we'll keep on trying.

[LittleMilla]

Meggy I am under no illusions that this will last - just foolishly rejoicing, ha!

[Meggymoodle]

Milla - enjoy it while it lasts!! Fingers crossed for tonight.....

[fififrog]

milla we had a near identical Wednesday night! DD is all over the shop at the moment. Monday was fairly nnormal, 1/2 hr in morning and for once i didn't have to wake her, Tuesday (nursery) 3 naps, Wed (nursery) 9.45-11.30 then nothing til early to bed at 6.30, slept til 6.10 - fab!!! But was utterly miserable in the evening so wouldn't want a repeat of that! Thursday was her birthday (can't believe she's one). Normal Thursday 5 mins in car 9.30 then near 2 hours after lunch. Friday quiet til 5.55, then she refused to have a nap, 10mins in pushchair at 11 then DH spent half an hour walking get around and eventually had 50mins at 2.30. This morning 5.37, just trying to decide whether to wake her now after 30mins, we have swimming at 12.30 then a 1 hour car journey.

Hmm who knows what's happening! Going to try one conventional nap from Monday (we have birthday party tomorrow so another messed up day!)

The two 6am days in a row was AMAZING!! Pity it didn't last...

[LittleMilla]

DS been up

[Meggymoodle]

Milla - we are trying with one nap at the moment and had a blinding first week and a crap second week. I am trusting that the change in clocks tonight will help us!

I usually leave her max 6 hours between wake up and sleep but I guess it also depends on how your DS is. My DD is nearly 16 months.

But whilst I thought we had triumphed when we put her onto one nap initially now she's back to early waking and still only having one nap. I think she might be getting overtired as well which is not helping things. ARGGGGGHHHH.

Just out of interest everyone- are all your early waking children incredibly active? DD is just the most ludicrously active child I have ever seen - she runs around the entire time and only sits still if forcibly restrained like in a high chair or buggy. DS who has slept brilliantly for most of his 3 years and never had early waking issues, is a lot more chilled out and quite happy to sit and read books or just sit. I get exhausted just watching DD!

[fififrog]

I think it's really hard to know when they're ready to go to one nap. I've been wondering for about 2.5 months already. All I can say is that her daytime sleep behaviour has been getting more and more random, and given we are struggling to get her to have about 50% of her naps now, I think it might be worth trying the move to one. I'd say that contrary to the books, probably more than half the babies I know moved to one nap by 1yr and this is not correlated with presence/absence of disturbed night sleep.

Someone further up the page asked if anyone had tried milk to get back to sleep... Well, yes. We used to have waking anywhere between 4 and 5. I'd feed her and if she was lying next to me I'd usually get her back off for a bit but sleep would be v restless and often I'd feed her again 45-60mins later. It wasn't working reliably,!so I decided nonferding before 6am, as that's what I want to achieve. To be honest I think she is very hungry/thirsty by then but she still won't go back to sleep after a feed.

[fififrog]

Nonferding??! I meant to type "no feeding"!