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!!

[LittleMilla]

Hello all,

Thought I would pop on and check in. We had a wobble last week (I think?) but he's back to sleeping until 6-6:30am which I am happy with.

Fifi I actually found that limiting naps just made things worse. DS likes to sleep in the morning and any amount of tinkering does nothing. Just makes him REALLY tired for PM nap, which is always the struggle for DS.

We're on a rough schedule of 9:30am morning nap for 1-1.5 hours. Then a c.2pm nap for 40 mins - 1 hour. So he's having up to 2.5 hours of sleep every day - but I am finding that this varies from day to day. TOday he's only had 1 hr int he morning and 40 mins this afternoon. Gone to bed shattered, so I think he'll prob be up early tomorrow.

I think that the best 'cure' for DS is to not let him get overtired and sleep as much as he needs to in the day. And also make sure he has a decent supper - carbs and some banana are good!

I think that early mornings are forever going to be a feature of our life. But for as long as he's going past 6am, I won't darken this thread.

Good luck to everyone xx

[lf12002]

wow, am i glad i found this thread!!!! I honestly thought i was the only one suffering with daft early mornings. My son is almost 13 months and seems to get by on 9 hours or less a night!! he thinks that 4.30 ish is a reasonable time to wake up! we've tried putting him to bed later, no luck. as for daytime naps, i think he'd rather be playing than sleeping....on a good day he'll have 1 nap of about 2 hours, but that only totals 11 hours sleep in 24 hours. All my other mummy friends seem to have babies that sleep the "normal" 14-15 hours, so thanks again for making me feel less alone at daft o'clock!!

[Meggymoodle]

Bleurgh - hi ladies - back to touch base. I've been absent from this post for a while - not because we've had any joy with later wakings but just because I'm getting used to the fact that we wake up at 5.30 every morning. tragic....

Ah well, there we go. Nothing is making any difference, one nap or two naps - makes no odds. We had a 4.45 the other day but I went and laid on her floor and finally after some faffing of around an hour she went back to sleep until DS surfaced loudly at 6.20. Who are these mythical children that sleep to 7am?? I want one.

[fififrog]

Hi folks same here, had 5.30s every time since I last posted give or take 10mins. We had a 5.40 yesterday, felt like a lie in! But she's been sleeping pretty well and the move to one nap has been going OK, even if its length is variable! Sometimes has 15min catnap on the way somewhere in the mornings but doesn't actually seem to need morning sleep at all. I am just trying to be chilled and be grateful that I don't have to get up in the night. I often doze between 5.30 and 6.00 anyway, though a couple of days back I lay there listening to DD roar at her toy lion - it was too cute!

[Krustyandthekids]

Ah, good morning!! Found this thread at 5.45 this morning then was unable to post as baby was throwing himself at the laptop - he is obsessed

I too am suffering with a 1yo early riser. He's my second one too (or 3rd if you count DP). Am I the only one in this house who loves their bed and enjoys sleeping past 7am??!!

WHEN WILL IT END

As my mother says, "this too shall pass" - it's just taking BLOODY AGES!!!

[fififrog]

Aarrrrgh I have cursed myself again! Last time I posted I said "ooh things are lookin up" and then she stopped with the 6am and went back to 5-something-small. Last night I tried to be positive and say at least she was sleeping well. Hmph. Had a terrible night's sleep. DP and I barely slept after 4.20, and she was up for good at 5. Managed to leave her til 6 but nearly cracked at 5.40 when she started up with "mamadadamamadadamamadada"!

[LittleMilla]

After I posed on Monday I had 6 days of c.5am wake ups! Yesterday he was up for good at 5:10am - DH and I had gone out on Sat night to celebrate DS's first birthday - DS did have a family party in the day too! So we got to bed at midnight, then he was up at 5am. Eurgh!

We were reminising over dinner that we'd got up at about 5:45am on the day I was going in for the c-section. I said at the time that "oooh, feels like we're going on holiday being up at this time". Ha, if only we knew!!

fifi love the idea of roaring at lion. Sweet!!

Krusty this is my first and I am offcially a sleeper. So praying that if/when we have another it might sleep more!

Meggy I have found that acceptance is actually half the battle. Lowering expectations and all that.

x

[Meggymoodle]

Hi ladies - we're mostly all still here then.....ah well, that's not such a good thing but as I always say, misery loves company. That said, my beloved DD woke this morning at 5.10 which is earlier than usual and I said some choice words but we left her for a little while and she went back to sleep until......da da daaaaa 6.30am!

It won't happen tomorrow but it was nice for once. Oh how my standards have fallen, that 6.30am on a bank holiday is good!

[Iwantcandy]

Fuck fuck fuck. I can't sleep and know I'll be up with Ds in about 5 1/2 hours -if I'm lucky

[fififrog]

Must be something in the air, met my colleague at nursery this morning and he asked if we'd found a tactic to deal with the early mornings as his daughter has started waking at 5.30... These days I'm just hoping for a night when she doesn't cry out in the night. Oh, she just has. Great. That bodes well, not.

[buggyRunner]

Hi all can I join? I have dd1 who is 2.10 who would sleep until 7 if it wasn't for dd2 who likes 430/530 far too much!

I'm going to try good night milk and have tried leaving her which occasionally works (9 months old)
She goes to bed for 730 - is that too early/ late?
I am back at work and dying!

[Iwantcandy]

The last few days Ds has managed to sleep til about half six. The main change I can pinpoint is he's eating more protein and he's napping more in the day. Instead of 3 short naps he's doing 2 very long ones. Yesterday he napped 2 1/2 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon. He slept last night 7pm to 6.30 with a dreamfeed at 10.30 pm

[fififrog]

Hey candy I can't remember how old your DS is? Sounds like you've had some great nights though, long may they last! What an incredible amount of nappage! I hope I am not subliminally going to burst the bubble but it sounds like one of those weird super-tired phases. DD had one when the clocks changed (12mo) which lasted a good few days.

I am having one last ditch attempt at helping her sleep longer: blackout blinds (which do nothing so far) and gradually moving for a later bedtime. Which would also be helpful as it would mean I didn't keep having to sprint off from work 15 mins early to get her home from nursery in time for dinner and bed... We're on day 2 of "not before 7pm", my aim is to go for 7.15 in about a week's time then maybe 7.30. If that doesn't work it's back to 7.15 and I officially give up the idea of ever staying awake past 10pm!

[Meggymoodle]

Afternoon ladies. We had the heady heights of 6.20 this morning from DD. I couldn't believe it, but what I really couldn't believe was that DS woke at 2.30 with a bad dream and then got out of bed at 05.55. It's like a tag-team conspiracy to keep me permanently knackered.

buggy - I am reticent to give advice because if I had any idea, I wouldn't have a daughter who has consistently woken before 6 for over a year :( - but that said, I would say 7.30 is too early and is being used as a continuation of night sleep. Try dragging it out by 15 mins every three days until you can get to 9am. Good luck!

candy - good going! Long may it continue.

frog - let us know if the pushing back of bedtime works. It never has for me, and she ends up waking the same time and being over-tired, but that said, I've never been consistent with it. Good luck!

[charlmills]

Can I join too. My ds has always been a very random sleeper and he is 11 months now. We have been waiting for him to drop a night feed. Which he has now pretty much but now will wake at 5/5.30. He sometimes will have a bottle and eventually go down again and then dd will wake up :(. He will then sleep until 8 ish. However I soooo want him to sleep past 6 as then I can get them in the same room as ay the moment he is still in with us. But he just can't do it and its driving me nuts.
There must be a magic cure out there.... no? Oh well.

[fififrog]

Isn't buggy saying DD goes to bed at 7.30pm? Rather than naps at 7.30am...?

We had a 5.54am today. Ahhh, a lie in, finally! Lucky us ;-)

[fififrog]

PS hi char (not sure what to call you , i's and l's look the same on my iPod!) we had that, DD used to sleep til about 6.20 til she dropped her last night feed, had a few weeks where I could resettle her after a quick feed at 5, but that became unreliable so I decided to force her to go til 6. Bit of a double-edged sword - I reckon she now can't sleep past 6 even on the best days because the 6am feed is too much of a habit... Don't think I can break it til I stop BF.

[Iwantcandy]

Spoke to soon. We re back to 5am wakeups here!

[Meggymoodle]

buggy apologies - have just read frog's post - of course that is what you're saying - I'm a total numpty.

We had 2 days of post 6 am. Back to 5.35 this morning. YAAAWWWNNN

[charlmills]

Hi fififrog, its CHARLMILLS. not shouting at you just thought the capitals might help u to read it on your phone.

We had a 6.30 waking this morn which was absolute bliss but just afraid its a one off. He does this from time to time just to tease us. I've given up that hopeful feeling now as I always end up disappointed and I think someone on here said that half the battle is acceptance, so true.

I am trying to think of all the things we did yesterday that could have contributed to such a lie in ;) and all I can think of is that he had a lot of food and half a bottle more than usual. So maybe he was just v v full.
Fingers crossed it continues.

[Meggymoodle]

Hi ladies - how are we doing? charlmills congrats! Let's hope it continues. I had a - da da daaaaaa - 0645 from both mine yesterday morning. I could not believe it. I was convinced it was the fact that I put DD without the boob for the first time ever (she's done it twice before when I've been away and DH has put her down) and I thought we'd cracked it. However, back to 0540 this morning. Oh well, at least it's nice and sunny in the mornings - it's soooo much more bearable at this time of the year than it is in the winter - 5.30 in the winter is a total nightmare.....

DD has been early waking now for over a year - I'm beginning to think that I just have to get used to it and stop moaning. And frankly EW is way better than night wakings. I just need to get to bed a bit earlier.

[Iwantcandy]

5am today. However dh works shifts and had a day off so he had to get up

I go back to work in 3 weeks. Gulp!

[leebitton]

4.58 this morning. ffs.
He did resettle though after maybe 10/15 mins and then got woken properly at 5.30 by DS1 (who is ill)
I usually just leave DS2 to grump but i took him on my bed as Ollie was shouting "can you look after Jacob, i'm trying to sleep", i would have laughed if i wasn't so pee'd off!! ALthough i'm chuckling now!!
He's been sleeping till post 6am for 2 weeks now as he's had a horrible viral thing - at least the early starts are made easier by the fact he is an awsome little boy through the day!
I try to remind myself all his good points and all the things he does so well, because i think i dwell on his early waking faaar to much. Although it is bloody rubbish getting up before 6!!

[Iwantcandy]

Out of interest what is your dc wearing to sleep in in this weather? Ds is just wearing a sleepsuit and feels a bit hot and clammy. I've just opened the window in his room as much ad it can go. He wore the same last night and was very hot when I went to bed but very cold when he woke up at 5

[vix206]

Hi everyone, I didn't want to post and jinx myself but.... DS hasn't woken before 6am for around 3 weeks now. A couple of mornings it's been the mythical 7am!! I'm so grateful for it. I honestly never thought he'd do it, he's 21 months old on Tuesday and I've changed absolutely nothing. He naps better in the day now too, and I've not needed to cap naps or interfere with anything the improvement just seemed to happen naturally.

So I'm sorry not to have any magic cure and I hope your DC's follow suit very soon. I have no doubt i will be back on here again soon saying he's up at 4.30 again but for now we are doing well.

Oh and PS Iwantcandy, at the moment DS is just in his nappy and a 1 tog grobag.