Will wake to sleep help early morning wakings?

[sharond101]

My 11mo DS wakes at 6am and will not go back to sleep although I think he is still tired as gets grumpy after an hour or so. A rough routine is,

6am wake
7am milk
8am breakfast
9am-10am nap
12noon lunch
1pm milk
1.30-2.30 nap
4.30 dinner
6pm bath then milk
7pm bed

He had been going to bed at 8pm up until last week and still woke at 6am. He doesn't seem hungry when he wakes although normally does a poop after 10 minutes of being awake. Wold wake to sleep help????

My DS is 11 months and is/can be early riser. Varies between 5:45 and 6:30. I'm quite grateful now if its 630 :) We're co-sleeping at the minute, I've been desperate to give up breastfeeding but in reality when he wakes at ungodly hour (maybe 3 or 4am) I give him booby and pray he sleeps a bit longer. I'll repeat when he wakes again until I have the mental strength to get up (usually after half 6). Our routines are very similar, I'm doing 3.3.4 or 3.3.5 between naps depending how the day goes. Its a killer isn't it. My central heating goes on at half 5 now so house is nice and warm for our early start.

SwivelHips its' when you look at the clock and it's not even 9am yet but it feels like mid afternoon you realise it's going to be a long day.

Both mine were early risers and remained so until they were about 8 or 9 YO!!! Thank goodness for cbeebies is all I can say. At one point it was a 5.30 am start- that was a real killer.

DS is an early riser and had a similar routine to yours. He is 4 in the morning and we've only just broken the 5am curse with the help of a groclock - sadly your ds is probably too young for that yet.

Nothing seemed to work with us really. It's funny because 5.50 am and I was dying all day over my 5am start. 6.05 am and I didn't feel so bad!

Hope he starts sleeping longer for you.

Yours naps?

We had a blissful week. Followed shortly by total sleep regression

Joy

Intrigue to read others experience though as I feel 3 naps isn't working: she wakes early but then doesn't sleep enough during the day that we then don't have an hot and a half of screaming in the evening.

Sigh

I'm watching this with interest, my 16mo wakes up, without fail, at 5.30 every morning. Thinking about trying wake to sleep but then I would have to get up at 4.30 (bleurgh)

I would say a 3am WTS should work, esp if not waking from hunger. Also a total back out blind, good day time sleeping, not going to bed for the night too exhausted.

Have you tried shortening the morning nap, to then lengthen the afternoon nap so that at 7pm your DS doesn't go into a very deep sleep too soon? That too is a reason for early waking - my DS does it too if he is awake for a long time between afternoon nap and bedtime.

Another thing to try would be pushing the morning nap later by 10mins every 3-5days until it starts at 9.30am at the earliest. We did this & saw a real improvement in ds' EW. If you find it means he is no longer tired enough for his afternoon nap, then try shortening the morning nap. He should be more tired & sleep a longer afternoon nap, which as pp says will reduce chance of him being overtired at bedtime & falling into a deep sleep too quickly.

I tried shortening the morning nap twice this week with disastrous effects. I woke him after 40 minutes on the first day and after 30 minutes on the second and on both days he woke from his afternoon nap after 40-45 minutes which is unheard of. I have also tried pushing back his morning nap which didn't work either. Last night he was staying with GPs. Before his bath I gave him a weetabix with milk then he had his bottle after his bath. He slept until 7.20am so I am hoping for a repeat tonight.

Did you bring his afternoon nap a bit earlier after waking him from his morning nap? That is key to prevent him getting overtired & pulling a short afternoon nap too.

Also how long did you try the later morning nap for? Its not something that will work overnight, you would probably need to move the nap slowly by 10-15mins later per week & give it a good 2 weeks at 9.30am earliest before you are likely to see any improvement.

I'm glad you got a good night after the weetabix, hopefully that will sort his early starts out for good. To be honest though, 6am is a pretty decent start to the day if he's had 2 good naps & gone to sleep at 7. You might find things stay this way until he's ready to drop his morning nap - its pretty common at this age. Good luck!!!

omama I did bring the afternoon nap earlier yes. i tried it for two days and it was so unbearable. He has had 2 mornings of waking at 7.20am then 7am. This morning we were back at 5.50am but yesterday he missed a nap completely as he was having too much fun whilst I was at work (why is it noone else understands babies need routine and sleep??) and this seemed to upset his system alot.