6 month old ready to start the day at 4am!

[Loxley]

Help! Our 6 month old DS has been waking any time from 4am for the last two months. He is not hungry, cranky or crying, just awake & ready to start the day. If nearer to 4 am we generally get him back to sleep after an hour of letting him chat & coo to himself, but if nearer to 5 am then our day is started! 3 year old DD's daily routine mean we have been unable to enforce a strict nap routine for DS but he gets about 3 x 40 min naps a day. Any ideas anyone?

I had similar problems with my DTs. I consulted my bible that I recommend to the whole world, Solving Your Childs Sleep Problem, Dr Richard Ferber.

Our problem was that the morning nap was coming too early (9.30am sometimes) and thus was becoming part of the nights sleep broken by breakfast. By stretching out the morning nap a little to about 10.30am/11am it was cured within 2 days!!! I then tried to get rid of this nap as soon as I could and they had a slightly bigger post lunch one. It helped enormously. Now I'm rigid about naps, never in the morning and always awake before 3pm so they are ready to sleep at 7pm! I found the book really interesting but you need to just pull out what you need, there's such a lot in it. Best of luck.

Thanks for the message. The problem is we have a walk to preschool at 9 which DS inevitably uses to have his morning nap! I feel that we are in such a vicious circle - if only we could push back that nap we could then hopefully get straight through out the night. Food for thought though - we'll try it at a weekend & get help with the school run if needs be until we break tha pattern!

Two Months!
You need a medal

Agree with frumpygrumpy. And also you should take the whole family out for tea at a cafe and thereby disrupt his routine further and he'll get out of the habit. You know, just like Sophie in the Tiger Who Came to Tea. Only don't forget to dress your daughter properly first

dd2 is nearly 7 months and started doing this at about 4/5m, after which time she found herself sleeping in her own room! to begin with we thought she was hungry and gave her a feed but one night we were especially knackered and slept through her waking and realised she'd gone back off on her own and so didn't need the feed.

now we just leave her to talk and caterwaul to herself and 9 times out of 10 she goes back off to sleep now she knows no one is coming to get her. if she's really going for it sometimes we go in and stroke her head and say 'night night' and this seems to do the trick.

she naps at 10am-ish for an hour then again at 2/3pm for up to 2 hours. bedtime is 7-7.30 and she'll wake up properly for a feed at about 7.30 am now (HURRAH)