8wo wakes for the day at 5:30am...arghh!

[beginnersluck]

Although he's clearly still sleepy, my 8wo won't go back to sleep after his feed at about 5:30am - is there anything I can do to encourage him? He wakes every 2-3 hours through the night before that. The early morning wake-up happens whether he goes to bed at 7:30pm or 10pm....I'm shattered!
Any thoughts?

Doesn't he go back to sleep after about an hour? Most babies that small are not 'awake for the day' at all

Yes of course he does sleep again - but just short naps for half an hour or so and often a couple of hours afterwards - so more like the daytime napping pattern than the night-time sleeps that can last 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

What happens if you feed then cuddle in bed with you? At that age, ds and dd didn't really get up until I woke them.

I'm sure you're doing this anyway but keeping the whole thing 'nighttime' is quite important - staying in bed etc.

Although from what I remember I was just shattered for about the first 3 or 4 months. Sorry, that's not terribly encouraging but it does get better. Those first few months are absolutely exhausting.

Babies that age tend to do their own thing if you're following a baby-led 'routine'. Anything more structured would probably require you to structure naps and feeding during the day to promote more/better quality of sleeping during the day. Not everyone likes this when babies are young, so it depends what your personal preference is?

It's true that sleeping changes a LOT in the first four months and several times so you do have to go with the flow a lot and not get used to any sort of sleep behaviour - just as you do, it all changes again!

My DD randomly started waking at 5:30am a few weeks back (one day at 4:40am!) but she is 20wo so it's a bit different. In her case she was at that age where she was wanting to stay up longer so was adjusting her sleep pattern. It was all sorted until the clocks changed.....gahhhh (now trying to get back into it again).

If I were in your shoes (and I am in so way an expert, I'm making it up as I go along like most other mums) I would set a bedtime and a bedtime routine, for us we did bath, milk, story, bed starting at 7pm (at 6wo). The first night it took 5 hours, the next 4, the next 3 and then by a week we could just put her down. I do appreciate that not all babies are the same and I do think we hit it lucky. We can now put her down to sleep at night and she will sleep through until morning. One thing we did notice when setting a bedtime routine was that she started to notice what was coming next. Now when we put her sleepsuit on she puts her arms up right before we put it on! The routine improved how long she slept at night, as a newborn she woke up every 3 hours and when we started the routine she changed to every 5 hours...that's not to say that it wasn't a coincidence of course.

If you were to try it and he still woke up at 5:30am but started to sleep for longer periods at night then at least you would be getting a little more sleep. When DD started waking at 5:30am I would get up with her and then put her back down at 7/7:30am and go back to bed myself, it was the only way I could get through it. It's also really important that you do nap when he naps during the day. I have stopped doing this now because she sleeps well at night, but if she didn't you can be sure I'd be in my bed snoozing when she was napping. Looking back I didn't do it as much as I should have, I was always expressing or doing housework. Don't go down that bath, the first few months is shattering and you must rest or you'll go crazy!!

Heh, heh, you'd better get used to that one.

DD (9 weeks) wakes up about 6ish and tends not to settle again properly in her basket. I've taken to bringing her into bed with me and then she generally drops off again for another hour or so as long as she's lying on the bed with my arm around her somehow. I always swore I wouldn't have my DC's in bed with me as I didn't want to start a habit I would have to break later, but the reality is that I enjoy that extra hour or two's sleep too much!