10 month waking at 5am - any ideas? Help!

[1500mmania]

I'm so tired and open to trying any suggestions as my 10 month old has been waking up regularly at 5am for ages. When he was younger I used to be able to bf him and 60% of the time he would go back to sleep til 6.30 but now he never goes back to sleep and is wide awake at 5am.

He has two naps a day now, I have stretched the time to the first nap (as previously advised on here) so he sleeps 9am for 2hrs and then usually 2pm for 1.5hrs. If He is out in the pram though he will only sleep 30mins (v annoying). Bath at 6 and then usually asleep 7-7.30pm

I have tried
Blackout blinds
Stretching the morning nap to 9am

What else can I do? Should i try doing something with his naps? Any suggestions or is the 5am start going to stay - sob

No advice sorry but feeling your pain as my 10 month old is exactly the same!

Mine too. She is asleep again. What is 9am nap meant to do?

No advice either, I would love to say they get better but my soon to be 1 year old still does this and with the imminent arrival of my twins I really panicking that I'm never actually going to sleep again until they all move out.

I DS's nap is usually around 10am ish, what is 9am nap supposed to do?

I was previously putting him down for a nap 2hrs after waking (so when he woke early his first nap was 7ish). Mumsnet advice was to stretch him out til 9am even when we woke early to try and reset the bodyclock. Not really sure what I'm doing with naps now - his longest one is definitely morning - should it be lunchtime? These babies eh. . . . . Why do they never read the books

What is he doing at 5am? Chatting, whinging, moaning or full on crying?? DD is 10 months and usually wakes at 6 but she stays in her cot til 7 because I'm too lazy tired to get up before then. So she chats, whinges and plays til im ready to go into her. she very often falls back to sleep.

Maybe you could ignore him, put some soft toys in there or a cot toy, I have a touch piano thing she plays with, and only go into him if he gets really upset, I did let DD cry when she was waking at 5am, like controlled crying and it worked. She now knows its not up time til I come into her room.

Can you tell I'm not a morning person??

Oh and dd goes down for a 20min nap at 8.15, then a 2 hour nap at 11 and then half an hour at 3!

Tango in the night I would love to be able to do that but unfortunately I live in a London flat with flats above and below - both these flats main bedroom are above and below my DS so unfortunately letting him cry isn't really an option (neighbours bang on the floor) usually I wait until he is really crying before I go in which gives me about 10mins.

I did CC to sort out his bedtime so maybe this might work - but I would just feel bad for my neighbours. I want to live in a house!

Aw pants that's awful you should bang the roof and tell then to shaddap!!! :o

Do you have a radiator that comes on in his room early or anything like that? He's possibly waking early because he's too warm?

Or maybe he's just going to be an early riser, god love you!

Buy a book called 'how to solve your child's sleep problems' by Richard Ferber and read chapter on early waking.

There's a mahoosive thread about early waking that I was on for months beofre reading thsi book. It has changed my life. My 15 MO DS now sleeps until 6:30am (early day) until 7:10am almost every day. Couple of slip ups, but sticking to the rules laid out has been fab.

Main things I took from it:

Leave them for as long as you can before going in (I too lived in a flat until a month ago and so appreciate that this is v.hard)
Don't give milk until the time that you WANT them to be getting up. i.e. 7am
Go in and offer water when they wake up but put them back down and say that it's still 'sleepy time' or whatever you call it. Again, I know that this will be tough with wanker neighbours, but they need to know that it's not time to get up
Aim to push them until 10am before first nap. Hate to say it, but our breakthoughh has coincided with DS moving to one nap
Make sure they have plenty of food late in the day. My DS has his lunch at 11:30am, snack at 3pm, supper at 6pm, bed at 7:30pm. He also only has milk at the beginning at end of the day

Can't think of any more. But get the book as it's only about £3 and has really changed our life. Sorry to sound dramatic, but early waking can be SOOOO bad .

Little Milla that pretty much sounds like the way we do things, especially the leaving them in the morning, I used to bring dd into bed with me and she had no interest in going back to sleep but them I started leaving her to it and she is fine now, still whinges a bit but in general isn't getting up til 7.30 or 7.45 if I push it lol!

I don't feel I can leave her once she escalates to a cry as that wakes DD1 up. She was doing so well with her GroClock too. Will try fiddling with naps as we can't handle all being up at 530 everyday long term. Thanks.

We honestly haven't had hours of crying but you will probably need to do a little. Short term pain, long term gain and all that.

Buy the book (it's about £3) and have a read through, I am sure that there will be tips that you can try out. Just don't continue as it can be detrimental to your health, trust me!

x