another early riser, what the hell are we doing wrong?!

[Neiffer]

Ds1 is 2.3 years old and ds2 9 months, they have been room sharing for the past month as we are in a two bed house. Ds1 sleeps through but gets up at 5am is and has done since he was about 8 months old. Ds2 has just started sleeping through but gets up at 4am, sometimes for milk but not always. Then he's wide bloody awake from then. What can we do?! Why have we got another early riser?! We can't do controlled crying as they room share, and we're trying to use gro clock with eldest to get towards 6am get up. Help! Have we broken or children?! They go to bed fine at 7,early or later by 30 mins sometimes which makes no difference either. I just want to get up after 5am :(

Hi Neiffer, I have a 17 month old and 36 weeks pregnant with DS2, DS1 is a great sleeper and I'm worried DS2 is not going to be!

When my son sometimes wakes up early I quickly warm a milk in microwave and hand it to him in his bed which usually sends him off for a few hours. Do you do this or do your boys physically get out of bed?

I do have to be honest and say DS1 sleeps in between us and always has and doesn't go to bed until 20.30pm but whether this is why he sleeps to 9am or not in unknown?! I think mostly it just depends on their own personally body clock, but I feel for you as you must be exhausted! Let us know if you find any handy tips in case my DS2 is a little nightmare! lol xx

I do give ds2 milk when he wakes, sometime he wants it and others not. It was the same with Ds1 too. I bring ds2 into bed with me after his milk so he doesn't wake ds1 up even sodding earlier than usual. Then ds2 crawl about and generally whines until one of us gives in and takes him downstairs. He has, very occasionally, gone back to sleep for about 30 mins. This is becoming less frequent :( I just feel it must be us supporting they're habits which has made ds2 do it too. There must be some way to stop it..... Anyone?! Good luck with your baby, having two is wonderful and exhausting x

My LO is 12 mo. He used to wake at 5am. In the winter I always tried to get him back to sleep with milk, but this could take up to 2 hours. Now he wakes about 5:30. Normally I play music through the baby moniter. At the minute, it's called calm waves. This sends him back off for another hour, and I don't need to move out of bed.

He also has this on when he goes to sleep, and also if he wakes during the night, I put it on, as sort of a sleep signal. Could u try something like that?

It's nothing you've done, some babies are like that.

He has a ewan dream sheep which he's used to get off to sleep since he was tiny. Doesn't seem to help much at that time, thanks for the advice tho :)

Can you black out the windows so no light comes into the room and keep it as dark as possible? Maybe that might help a little?

Have u tried giving him water rather than milk. I used to always give LO milk until someone said have u ever thought that he is waking up for milk? Now if he wakes, and doesn't settle with music, I give him water. It might not work at first, but it might stop him waking....it might not...

I would suggest that ds1 body clock now means he automatically gets up at 5am, cos he's been doing it so long

We used when the clocks went forward to try and move bedtime & waking time forward an hour. It's kinda worked for us...a hit or miss whether it's 5:30 or 6:30 the initial wake up is, but just another idea to keep in mind.