Early morning waking driving me mad!

[Fivemoreminutesmummy]

11mo has gone through the night since around 9mo but gets up anytime from 4.45- 5.50am. I am bone tired all day apart from if I get a chance to go back to bed if DH is off work.

I go back to work start of feb and don't know how I'll manage as I have to do long days (12 hour shifts sometimes)

DS goes to bed around 6.45-7pm and is still a bit tired when he wakes up.

Anyone got any advice and do they grow out of it?
Thanks

Sorry wakes 4.45-5.30 at the latest- 5.50 would actually be quite good!

Whats his daytime routine look like?nap times & lengths? Might be related.

Hi, I guess I don't have a very set routine- I put him down when he's tired. He is usually tired by 7.30am so I put him down and he will nap on a good day for an hour and a bit. Then he would have a second nap around midday for 45 mins - 1.5 hours. Then he's usually up till bedtime but is shattered from about 5pm. Any ideas???

Sorry no advice, but watching with interest. My ds (2) does this too. DH and I take turns getting up with him. I SAH, but I just couldn't do it anymore, but we've been doing for a year.

could I suggest sorting out your day time naps, he's obviously not ready to wake up properly if he's that tired he wants to sleep again by 7.30 dd (11mo) was like this and we've gradually sorted it to 1hrs nap at 10.30 and 2hrs in the afternoon, bath and bed time for 7pm. usually wakes around 7am.

we had to get her used to self setting so when she woke in the morning she could go back off to sleep.

sorry for spelling and punctuation my phones rubbish.

I'd love to get into a routine like that- shall I just keep him up in the mornings do you think? I just feel so sorry for him as he just rubs his eyes and puts his head down but I agree he's not really ready to wake up st 5am. (And neither am I!)

Madcap- we do the same- we always take turns but my DH leaves for work at 7am so not much chance to catch up.

What is he like when he wakes that early? Chattering, crying, shouting for you?

Could you creep in and pop his dummy in and say night night?

I treat any wakings from dd before 6.30am as a night waking.

I feel for you Five, at least my lo is almost old enough now to think about one of those groclocks. We're also going to change him into a bed soon to see if he'll just play quietly or climb in bed with us.

Pat and shush in his room for as long as you can. Sit on a chair near his cot, lights off, saying back to sleep, lie down, as long as you can keep it up. Try to move the morning nap as suggested above. And also put him to bed earlier. Doesn't always work but worked a treat for my Dd, at this age, 6pm bed time moved wake up time till 6am.

He's a bit grouchy to be honest but when we just leave him he cries and cries (despite us going in and lying him down every few minutes) and we think it's not worth the crying for an extra half an hour as we would be ok with a 6am start.
I think you are right though- 4.45 is night and so we should treat it as that!
Ok- here's a plan- I'm going to change daytime naps and gradually put back the time I'll get him up so 5.30 tomorrow morning then maybe 5.35 the day after.
And I'll aim for 7pm bedtime, no earlier.
Feel better for having a plan,.

Just x posted- earlier bedtime? I know he would happily go down at 6pm so maybe that's worth a try.

Stay strong.

if you think it might be hunger, do a 'night feed' and put him back down.

Thanks, we tried the night feed but it got earlier and earlier until we were back to 3am!
Then we had to go through night weaning again.
I'm just so tired almost all the time and feel I'm wishing time away which is not how I want to be.

Earlier bed time has worked for mine and now they are older if they start to get nightmares we put their bed time back and it works. Seems to be a leap rhythm thing.

You could try putting a light on a timer and see if that could trigger a wake up reflex. People seem impressed with the gro clock but I've never tried one. Might be a bit young though, we did the light in thing at 2 and I thnk could have done it from 18 months.

Whatever you try, do your self a chart so you know what you are aiming for and so you can see what happened in the day and what impact it had (colours on squared paper to mark naps and wake up makes this easy to do and look at - can you tell we used a sleep consultant??) and stick with it for at least two weeks before you give up. If you get to 6am, have a party!! 6 is good for early risers!

Thankyou, I like the idea of doing a chart to see if that highlights anything. It's interesting to hear about doing an earlier bedtime- I would like to try this but am slightly nervous about a 4.15 wake up!

Def agree with pps, i did same as you when my ds woke early but the super early nap def perpetuates the ew cycle. Try moving the nap later to 9.30am earliest but do this VERY gradually, if you do it all in one go gell get really overtired. I found 10-15mins per week worked well. By pushing this nap later, nap 2 will also get later & he'll make it to bedtime without getting overtired. Give it a few weeks & his wakeup will get later too.

We also decided 6am was the earliest we were willing to get up in the morning so if he woke before then it would be treated like night, we'd leave him to it unless he got upset & if he did we'd go on & sit with him in silence. Whether this helped or not idk, the key thing imo was shifting the nap. It completely stopped his EW &we've never looked back. Hth.x

Def push to one nap a day. Have lunch really early if need be, but try to get it after the lunch.

If you can get to playgroups or stimulating places in the morning to help keep him awake.

Accept that it may be after 5 am is wake up time, but certainly not before. Don't under estimate telling him in clear words that when it is ok on mummy's clock he can get up to play but if not, then no talking no playing. His understanding will be able to follow this although he can't respond to you yet! And go mega on the praise if he manages it!

My DS was an early waker from about 1 to 2 yr. now he doesn't nap everyday maybe twice or three times a week and so on the whole he is tired enough to get to 7. It was a very long time coming though.

Be kind to yourself tho. Maybe a snooze at weekends etc.

Okay it was 4.45 this morning, we lay him down and shushed him a few times but he started crying around 5.20 so DH got him up. He's already tired and wants to go back to bed but I'm going to go shopping soon to avoid the temptation of putting him back to bed too soon. I'll see how we get on.
I really appreciate everyone's advice btw, thanks.

1 nap a day is too little IMO and you risk making it worse.

My dd sleeps in in the morning - we always have an AM nap at 9am. Never earlier. Ds on the other hand, we napped him earlier if he woke early and it probably made it worse.

I wouldn't rule out hunger though.

I'd also go to bed earlier yourself.

Marking my place with interest. My 2 were up at 0510. I'm so tired I'm not sure how I'm going to get thru the day.

Saggy- I feel your pain!
Iggly- I'm determined to stick it out this morning a bit longer but bless him, he's lolling all over the place! We're now getting ready as I think we need to get out to keep him awake. Hope tescos is open!

No improvement this morning- 4.40 so I gave a bottle but he was still grumpy and crying so got him up at 5.30 eventually.
Yesterday was rubbish for naps- 30mins in the morning (9.30am) and 45 mins at 1pm.
I suspect he's overtired now.
I'm going to persist though with the later morning nap and later afternoon nap and just hope things get a bit better over the next week.

Keep going!! It will come!

You could give him an earlier morning and afternoon nap to over come the overtiredness then push it back? So 8.30am and 12.30pm?

Then push back the morning nap and keep the lunch time at 12.30 then push that to 1?

Also super early bedtime of 6/6.30pm too.

Also could he be cold or teething?