Singing in cot at 4.30am

[NickyEds]

DS is 22 weeks and has been a great sleeper- did 7-8pm to 6-7am from around 12 weeks. But....for the last 2 weeks or so he's started waking between 4 and 5 am. Not crying at first just singing, making his "dinosaur" noises, banging his legs up and down etc. I usually leave him to see if he'll self settle but he very gradually gets pissed off with being left and makes more unhappy noises increasing to proper crying. Then the only way to resettle him is to feed to sleep.If I bf him he falls asleep immediately but wakes as soon as I unlatch him. If I give him a bottle he'll take a few oz the settle for maybe 40 minutes then wake up. Either way I feel like I'm feeding him when he doesn't need to be fed and I'm up from around 4.30 for the day
Booo! The sleep Gods are punishing me for all that earlier sleep. Anyone else had this? Any great tips for a WIDE awake baby at 4.30am?

Does your LO nap? If so when and for how long?

For my daughter long happy night wakings usually meant undertired.

He usually has either 3, 45 minute naps or 2 naps with one being over an hour. He gets very grumpy if he doesn't nap and I do tend to let him nap as soon as he looks tired. I've been told "sleep begets sleep" so I should get him to nap more. Maybe he's growing out of one of his naps???

im so sorry i read your initial post as 22months. Instead of weeks.
Hopefully someone with a LO closer to that age will be able to help.
But i did have a rough sample schedule that use to help with times etc. If it helps you at all.

Wu: 7am
Nap: 9:30-11
Nap: 1:30-3:00
Nap: 5-5.30/5.45 (sometimes woken up so bedtimes not too late)
Bed: 7:00

Thanks- that's way more daytime sleep than DS gets at the minute! He slept through night before last then was up again at 4 this morning- there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it!!

Our DD is 22 weeks too and is waking wide awake at 5am every morning... I thought it was because my husband gets up at that time and might be waking her, but he's very quiet and when he's tried getting up later she still wakes at 5.

I read it might be normal sleep regression linked to development during the day, but I'm not so sure. Like you, she's slept brilliantly up until now (9-12hrs a night since 5wks!) but a 5am wake up call means I'm up for 18 hours a day which is taking its toll. DD naps again 2 hours after waking once I've bf her and entertained her for a while, but by then I'm up and about.

I'm not sure of the solution though - have you started weaning yet?

Could you nip in as soon as he wakes and feed him back to sleep? Hopefully he will still be sleepy enough to go back over rather than have woken himself properly?

My ds went through a phase of early waking for a couple of weeks at the same age and has gone back to sleeping all night again now.

We've only being doing a few purees(with mixed success!) so by no means proper nutrition. We've had two really good nights. We went nuclear with the blackout blinds- taping the edges to the window frame so it stays really dark. We've been in the nursery up to now and we moved out!! Don't know if it was us disturbing him or when he heard we were there he wanted us but last night he woke up at 2 and 4.30 but settled himself back to sleep- Previously I would have gone to him.
Really hoping we've turned a corner-I totally understand what you mean about the long days. It wasn't so much not getting enough nighttime sleep it's the exhaustion of such long days. Fingers firmly crossed.