5am start, anyone?

[mummaduke]

Please help me!!

For the last month or so, DS has been wide awake at 5.30. The last few days this has bee creeping to 5am

I've tried leaving him (he shouts and shouts). I've tried feeding him, made no difference. He is awake, chatty, and ready to play. It also doesn't help that he does a poo around 5.30am, so nappy needs changing.

How can I push him back? Even to 6am?? I'm so tired, cannot get back to sleep after the first wake up call

He is eating well, FF, not a huge milk guzzler, but about 20 oz a day.

Last feed at 6.30 (6oz), bed by 7pm. He goes to sleep like a dream, and stays there until 5am.

Any ideas anyone?

He often naps for 2 hours in the morning, from 8-10am.

Then a decent 60 min lunchtime nap, sometimes longer.

I feel you pain! My little girl had a phase of waking up at 4.30am every morning.
We delayed her bath until 7pm and feed at 7.30, she settles herself into a deep sleep at around 8.15. She wakes at 2.30-3am for a feed and goes round to about 6.30 which is fine. Im used to getting up for work at that time. I basically kept pushing it back a little each day. She does have a nap around 5-5.30 for about half an hour then I keep her awake until bath time.
Also, black out the room as much as you can, and use ear plugs! Most of my waking was all her snuffles! Hope that helps?

Thank you! It's so hard to know the right thing to do! I don't want to encourage him to feed at 5am, but equally I need a bit more sleep than that! Especially as I'm about to go back to work too.

I thought about trying a later bedtime but he's ready for bed by 7, he's so tired!

Yeah. My daughter was the same. But just try pushing it back each day a little bit. Yes you might get a bit less evening time to yourself, but that extra hour or so asleep in the morning is worth it!! Good luck!

Maybe stop him napping so early as that's allowing him to catch up. Maybe don't put him down til 9am?

Have you got blackout blinds/curtains in the room your DS sleeps in? Our DD (15 weeks) was waking around 5am every morning until we had blackout blackout blinds installed. She now sleeps until 7am.
However a couple of nights ago we left the blinds open as it was too hot in our room and she woke at 5am again.

You could try delaying the morning nap a bit - aiming to get it to start at 9am in the end - and don't let him sleep as long as he does now. Wake him after an hour or so. He will then hopefully sleep longer at his afternoon nap and then be able to get through to a slightly later bedtime, which will lead to a later morning wakeup time.

And yyy to blackout blinds - utterly indispensable!

Yep, blackout blinds installed, no difference!

I can prob get the morning nap going a bit later, and he's starting nursery in a month - drop off is 8am so he won't be able to nap!! Good to get into this routine ASAP then.

I don't have any words of wisdom I'm afraid, but I am in the same situation. It seems to be quite common based on the number of threads about it!

We've tried the following:

blackout blinds (up for nearly a month now)
later bedtime
earlier bedtime (to rule out overtiredness as a cause of early waking)
pushing back the time of the first nap (not easy when it means keeping DS up for 4 hours)

None of this has made any difference whatsoever. He still wakes at between 5 and 5.30am. The only time it's ever later is if he wakes up during the night and takes ages to get back to sleep, so we're no better off then!

Like your DS he's chatty and cheery when he wakes, which makes me think he's getting as much sleep as he needs. It's just exhausting though isn't it?!

Noisy, it's so tough!!

I've pushed back first nap today, did a later bedtime too... I'm going to wake him after 1hr 15 and see how we get on tonight.

Like you though, I've got a bad feeling this could just be his natural sleep pattern and we might be stuck with an early riser!

It's all made worse because DH and I are night owls, we go to be at midnight...

No advice, but my DD at 3yo is still doing 5-6am starts. I've just accepted she's a morning person. Otherwise she's a fantastic sleeper from a very young age. I just changed to going to bed early.

Fantastic meaning she sleeps through from 3mo. She's just an early riser!

I used to be up til 11/12 but I've started going to bed at 10-ish (slightly later at weekends) to try and get a decent chunk of sleep.

My DS's feeding and sleeping habits sound very similar to yours OP. He went out like a light at around 7.00 last night, not a peep out of him all night, then wide awake just after 5.20am. I often just give him a drink of water and a toy and leave him in the cot for a while, but he's so shouty it's not like we'd get any more sleep that way! Does your DH ever take the early morning shift? My DP will often take DS downstairs and feed him so I can go back to bed for a while. I'm making the most of this til I go back to work

Aaaaaaaarrrgggghh it got worse!! Put him down at 7.30pm, he was awake at 4.50am. Wide awake. And loud. Not crying, just SHOUTING!!

It is the summer. It will get better when the sun comes up later. Promise. Morning babies and children wake up with the sun.

I'd push his bedtime back to 8 or 9 and let him nap later in the afternoon.

mumma I feel your pain. I don't poo poo the later nap & bedtime idea just to be a bitch awkward, but unfortunately it really doesn't seem to work for some babies.

Yesterday it just so happened that DS's afternoon nap finished at 4.20, so we didn't try to put him to bed til about 7.45. He finally went off at 9.15, so you'd think he'd sleep later. He woke this morning at.....5.30

You won't see results immediately if you shift their sleep pattern though, you'd need to be consistent for a couple of weeks.

Ah I see.
It's hard to know what to do for the best tbh. I like having a bit of an evening with DP and being able to eat dinner before 8.30, but I'd also like at least another hours' sleep in the morning

Last night was not great due to a night waking, which thankfully is quite rare these days. It's also painful because for whatever reason DS is wide awake and hard to settle. I finally got him back off at gone 3. He then woke again at 4 for 10 minutes. Maybe it was the heat. Anyway, as I mentioned upthread, night waking is currently the only thing that makes him sleep longer in the morning - he woke at 7.00 today!

How did your LO get on last night mumma?

Hi everyone,

Hope no one is too sleep deprived this morning!

Anyway, thought I'd update...

For the last two mornings, DS has managed to sleep until 6.10am. Amazing! He shuffled at 5am but put himself back to sleep.

I think this is down to the following:

Cutting out afternoon nap completely
Bedtime at 7pm still, he's too tired to go later
Morning nap pushed back to 8.30 (and going to aim for 8.45)
Waking him from naps after 1hr 15 mins.

Thanks everyone for all your tips, it's only been a few days but hopeful this will continue. 6.15 we can cope with!!