Early waking and the Millpond Clinic

[sheeplikessleep]

DS2 is 2.4 and since 10 months old, has always woken between 4.30am and 5.30am every day. We've tried getting more daylight early evening, snack before bed, leaving him to cry etc, but he just seems to be ready for the day then.

We're thinking of using the Millpond clinic (after recommendations I've seen on here), but I just wondered if anyone has used it for early waking? At the moment, I see no end in sight. DS1 starts school in September and gets woken up by his little brother. I need to get DS2 sleeping until 6am ASAP.

Thanks for reading

Do you want to post his daytime routine on here for any suggestions? Does he still nap in the day & at what time/how long for?

Thanks for responding Omama. He naps for between 1 and 2 hours, normally starting at some point between 12pm and 1pm. By then, after his early wake ups, he is shattered and desperate for bed. Similarly at 7pm, when he settles down well for the night too. I really don't think he could cope from 4.30am until 7pm at night without sleep of some sort. TBH, the days he has a full 2 hour nap, he often goes until 5.30, occasionally 5.45 the following morning.

Any help or thoughts appreciated. I'd best get off to bed myself now (another habit I need to get into, getting earlier nights to compensate!). Cheers

Hiya

Well, my DS is a little younger but has also been a chronic early waker so I have truly BTDT & feel your pain. I have always found with my DS that offering too long/too early a nap leads to him waking early the next day. Its very difficult, because when these LO's wake early, then need to nap much earlier than a child of similar age who doesn't wake early. The trouble with this is that they also need to go to bed much earlier, and you can get trapped in a cycle of EW.

Your DS is actually napping quite early if he goes down as early as 12pm. And in all honesty, I also think at his age, while he is still having a nap, his bedtime is also pretty early. In my experience, the best thing to do to help his early waking is to push the nap later. I did this gradually (by 15mins/week) so I didn't make him too overtired. I think you need to aim to have his nap starting absolutely no earlier than 1pm every day, but probably nearer to 1.30pm.

My DS is 22 months & he is now napping at 1.15pm. I cap this nap at 1h 45 max(wake at 3pm) or he isn't tired enough to go to bed. And his bedtime is now 8pm. He sleeps through until anywhere between 6.45-7.15am.

Like your DS, he also used to go to bed at 7pm but the trade-off was this: with a long but early nap, we got early waking, and with a long & later nap he wasn't ready for bed at 7pm. I compromised & have given up some of my evening time & he is now settling to sleep well & sleeping in to a much more respectable time of morning.

On a final note, if, once you push his nap later to 1/1.30 & you find he isn't ready for bed, your other option would be to cap his nap. He is of an age where he should be able to cope with that. You could perhaps try 1.5hrs to start with, and gradually reduce this down to an hour. I think if the nap was 1hr at around 1/1.30pm you could possibly maintain your 7 (or 7.30pm) bedtime.

What do you think?

Hi Omama, thanks for your response. It all sounds great in practice, but we really have tried with delaying nap times and putting him down a bit later. He went down about 8.30pm for last two weeks we were on holiday and he was up 4.30am most mornings then (everyone said he'd be so tired, he's bound to sleep in!). I will try again with delaying his nap (I've literally just put him down) and seeing if that makes a difference. The first night on holiday, after flight and everything, he didn't get t sleep until 10pm and he slept until 8.30am the next morning (I was absolutely shocked). I'm sort of wondering whether to do 10pm bedtimes for a week or so and if that has an effect, then bringing it earlier each night. I am at a loss as to what to try next. That is why I was thinking of going to Millpond and seeing if they could help. He is just ready to start the day at 5am ish. I don't think any degree of cc or training will help. I need to fundamentally change his bodyclock somehow.

I think that some toddlers are ready to start the day early but you can't possibly know this until he has no daytime sleep at all. I think he's probably been having too much daytime sleep (or napping at the 'wrong tome') since his early morning waking began at 10 months.

My DD was down to 45 mins a day at 20 months and all but cut out her nap at 2. Any extra sleep and we'd always get early starts.

What I will say is that after such a prolonged period of early starts, you're unlikely to see instant improvement if you do make changes to his daytime sleeping. It took us 6 weeks of reducing daytime naps to see any improvement.

IIWM, I would try cutting down the nap gradually by 15 mins every few days before you spend money with a sleep clinic.

I also wouldn't mess with bedtime too much. If you move to 10pm but don't address the nap, you're just introducing another problem to be sorted later down the line.

Hope that helps and good luck!

Time not tome!!

I was about to say the same thing, you won't see much in the way of improvement for at least 3-4 weeks, well that was my experience anyway.

Can I just ask what it is a sleep clinic would actually do?
What I mean is, are they just going to put in a different routine or do they do something else?

Thanks Tantrums and Loveisagirlnameddaisy.

6 weeks? Agh! DS2 often falls asleep in his lunch (around 12, hence why I put him down straight after), he's so tired. I just don't see how I can keep him awake for 14 hours (i.e. 5am - 7pm). I will give it a try. I guess that's why I'm considering a sleep clinic, they might be able to say what strategy is likely to work - cutting out naps or later in evening, without having a meltdown boy in the day.

Tantrums - the clinic take a sleep diary for 2 weeks (well I do), then they follow up with a phone call to advise on best strategy. Millpond do seem to come very highly recommended. But that said, I haven't personally used them before. I just don't think I could cope with spending months finding the right strategy, I am so tired and everyone in the household is being affected. DS1 starts school in September and he is so tired, as he also gets woken at 5am too. He used to be a 7am boy . At the moment, I'd remortgage the house for finding the right solution quickly (although it isn't at that point ;) )

DS2s early morning waking didn't really 'start' at 10 months. At that point, we did cc (he was up 3 - 4 times a night breastfeeding), where DH rocked / patted him in his cot back to sleep. It took 3 nights, but he was then sleeping through. At the time, that was a breakthrough, so we just sort of coped with the 5am starts.

Sorry re-read - interesting what you say about shortening nap. Today he actually got woken after about 50 minutes by his brother. He was shattered, obviously woken earlier than he would have naturally woken himself. Maybe that is the route forward, maximum nap of 1 hour for 6 weeks and see where we are then.

I am going to talk to DH about idea of cutting back on daytime naps tonight. Thanks for posting.

I would try cutting down the daytime nap, ds2 was only napping 45 mins by 2, nap gone altogether at 2.5.

Just give it a few weeks and see how it goes.

I can understand how desperate for sleep you must be, I don't think a sleep clinic will be a quick fix, I think you will just have to go through the same trial and error if you do it yourself.

Cutting the nap gradually is the only way to do it otherwise you get overtiredness issues which is a whole new world of pain!! I really think that at his age, he is capable of having a much shorter nap or none at all (eventually). What should happen is that his waking time slowly extends to nearer 7am as the nap gets shorter. This is what happened to us but it did take a while and we were 100% consistent with the same timings every day. Consistency and patience are now my two mantras! X

Thank you for posting, you've all given me hope.

I'm going to do 1 hour max nap for a week, then down to 40 minutes, then cut it out. I'm going to do until middle of August. I'm really hoping this will work!

Completely agree with what pp's have said. When we have tackled early waking (due to giving the nap too early) it also took us a good 4-6 weeks to push the nap to where I wanted it & to see some results. I do still think a later nap will help your DS (esp if you cap his nap shorter) as then he won't be overtired at bedtime.

I think your plan sounds good, though you may be wise to give it more than a week at each stage, before cutting back more, as it might be he still needs a short nap. Hang in there, remain consistent & you will get there.

x

Thanks Omama. I feel like my expectations, time wise, are more realistic now. I am going to try to do it gradually, as he is so tired by lunchtime. I do have that nagging doubt in my head that on the days he does a 2hr+ marathon nap, he sleeps 'in' (i.e. the rare occasions he's managed 6am) the following morning. But I will quash that thought and give it 6 weeks of gradually shortening and possibly cutting out his nap and making it later. Things do need to change in our household, both boys are permanently tired, DH and I are irritable and just don't have the energy any more. 18 months of 5am wake ups gets tiring (and I know others get it far far worse), but I am not good when I don't get sleep. I'm keeping everything crossed this strategy works. And I'm fed up with 9pm bedtimes (where I'm going now!).

Thanks again.

Don't dismiss the nagging doubt in your head - that's mother's instinct! But I don't think longer naps are the way to solve your problem, it's probably caused by him getting overtired and needing the marathon nap to reset himself. OT is as much a problem as being undertired and babies who are constantly OT will need more sleep during the day in order to sleep better at night.

It may well be the case that he's just an early riser, but in my mind, there is a definite correlation between consistent early risers and daytime sleep - and until the daytime sleep is gone, I don't think you can know for sure. As toddlers grow, their sleep needs change and become more adult - and how many adults do you know who have a nap every day? It took me a while to see the link and I couldn't get my head around cutting the nap when she seemed so tired and needed it? But the reason she needed it was her early starts, which were caused by the nap 'robbing' her of a good 12 hour stint at night.

By the way, Omama makes a good point about moving the nap slightly later, esp as you cut it because if the gap between nap and bedtime becomes too long (and before he's ready), you could end up with an OT little boy.

You will go through a period of waking him from naps and him crying - and this is very hard - but it does get easier and the whole family will benefit in the long run from better sleep at night.

I was about to post a similar request for info on sleep consultants and early waking. I'm at my wits end with DS waking at 4.30/5 too. I've tried everything: early naps, short naps, early bed, gadgets, gizmos everything. And no change whatsoever. Good luck if you're going to try changes, but my DS's behaviour is suffering because he's so tired, and this needs to get sorted for us now. I might call Millpond, and if so I'll let you know how we get on OP!

latristesse, what's your sons age and does he still sleep in the day; if so for how long? Sympathise with the early starts, I did it for months on end and it's debilitating!

He's 2.3 and yes depending on what we are doing on the day if he's up at 4.30 we either do nap at 1 for 2-3 sleep cycles (i say this rather than 2 hours as when he naps he always wakes after a cycle then needs resettling for the next one), or on a bad bahaviour day he'll gave a morning nap about 10 then another about 3, each of one cycle.

On the plus side he goes to bed without a fuss every night at 6.30 and sleeps for 10 hours without interruption. His bedtime used to be 7.30 but following some advice on one of the many sleep threads I've started I moved it forward.

His behaviour is terrible if he's tired, spends a large part of the day overtired and always wakes from sleep crying and disoriented. I think there's more going on than just early waking, hence wanting some expert help, but I've heard it's not something they necessarily grow out of anytime soon, and I don't want him to be one of those children at school who just can't concentrate they're so tired...

LaTristesse - your DS sounds very similar to mine (although my DS stays asleep for his lunchtime nap). He is also very grouchy and constantly tired. I worry that it's affecting him so much, his tiredness. Likewise, he goes down every night at 7pm for 10 hours, not a noise during that time. He is literally desperate to get into his cot (we are moving him to his bed in next couple of weeks, which is another thing I'm sort of hopeful might make him sleep in a little ).

We're now on day 3 of max 1 hour daytime nap. He seems OK with it, he is very tired after waking and quite clingy for half an hour or so as he comes around. He has woken at 5.45am the last 3 mornings, but I doubt it's anything more than coincidence tbh at this stage.

Please do let us know how you get on LaTristesse. I'm giving it 6 weeks of 1 hour / 40 min / no nap (as the 6 weeks goes on) and if after that time, there's no change, I'm definitely phoning up Millpond. Good luck.

Hi all, I've read this thread with great interest and am keen to try anything to help my chronically OT and EWing 15 and half month old. I've been trying really hard to transition him to one nap since he was 13 months old and we've had all sorts of terrible problems. He's been waking earlier and earlier till we ended up with 4-4.30. It's been killing me and I'm suffering with PND and am 30 weeks or so pregnant. Can anyone suggest something...please? I'm willing to try things consistently for 4-6 weeks if that's what's required cuz I've dealt with this EW crap since he was about 6-7 months old. He's in obvious need of more sleep, rubbing eyes, whiny, poor behaviour and tantrums. I know the morning nap is the major bug bear for EW and he did love love love his am nap. As he's waking so early, I am really struggling to get him on one nap as he's so tired and when I do one nap, it ends up being too early and then he's OT at bedtime which just perpetuates the EW cycle all over again. Please do offer suggestions as I am truly willing to give these things a shot-ANYTHING-purrrrrleeeeeeaaaze.

Ps. I think the jump to one nap hasn't been working for him so I started the 30 min catnap from 9.30-10 today and will it him down for proper nap after lunch and perhaps reduce the am nap slowly slowly to get to the one nap cuz the longer A times aren't working on they're own so my instincts are telling me to know do this gradually by using the mini am nap-good plan or no?

I meant put him down not it him down-stupid phone!

We've done 4 weeks of 40 mins to 1 hour nap a day.

He is still waking at 5/5.30. He is absolutely shattered, keeps falling asleep in his lunch, pink bloodshot eyes, wanting to be carried everywhere etc. I'm not sure whether to give this up as a bad job, maybe he is just an early waker. But then part of me thinks maybe he is on the cusp of sleeping to a normal time?

Thanks

Did anyone have any success with millpond and the EW problem?