1 yo and Early Morning Waking - I am losing the plot, please help!

[shatteredboo]

I have just about got to the end of my tether with DS and constant early morning waking. It's starting to cause issues with my DP and I as we are so sleep deprived we end up being vile to one another. I'm finding it very very hard to get through the day.

Just a bit of background:

DS has always been a pretty terrible sleeper, up until very recently, he was waking several times in the night and needing a BF to send him back off. I would only be getting around 3 hours at a time max. Fingers crossed, I seem to have night weaned him now and it doesnt seem to be milk that he is waking up for. Gone are the days when a BF would magically send him back off again, it just doesn't do the trick any more.
His bed time is between 6,30 and 7pm and although I am extremely grateful that he is no longer waking multiple times throughout the night, he wakes up EVERY morning anywhere between 4.30 and 5.45. I honestly cant remember the last time he was up after 6am.
He usually wakes up crying and there is nothing that DP or I can do get him back to sleep. He just wants to be up for the day. This has been going on for months now and I am really suffering.

He has blackout blinds, so its not the morning light thats waking him, and although he used to feed to sleep at night, he now gets himself off to sleep with just a little fuss, so its not that he cant self settle.

As DS is BF, (which I don't regret for a second btw) I have always been the one to get up to him in the night, so after nearly a year of night feeds falling solely on me, I'm now having to cope with this early morning waking too.

I'm going back to work in a few weeks and I am absolutely dreading it. I could cry sitting here writing this. I'm a primary school teacher and teach early years, so starting my day at 4.30, then going to work all day with very young children will just about finish me off I think. (This is also why going to bed very early to get more sleep isn't really an option for me as I have school work to do most nights.)

He has always been a really crap napper too. Up until he was around 7 months, he would only nap for 30 minutes at a time, no matter what I did (and I did try EVERYTHING). I just never had any time to collect myself and just felt like it was a constant treadmill of misery. (excuse the dramatics - thats sleep deprivation for you!) SO the old 'sleep when the baby sleeps' has just never been possible.

He's now having 2 naps a day. One at 9.30-10, then another after lunch at 1.30. I usually have to resettle him after half an hour, and on a good day he'll sleep til about 3.

So, my question for you wise ladies is: Will dropping his morning nap help combat this EMW? And could this help extend his afternoon nap? This seems to be a popular solution looking online through various forums.
As he is waking so early in the morning, he is absolutely desperate for his nap by the time 9.30 comes around, so I just dont know what to do for the best.

I really hope someone has some words of advice, I feel like such a shit mum at the moment, I'm a complete zombie for the first couple of hours of the day (and the rest......) and feel like I'm not giving DS the attention he deserves. I just have no energy.
I would dearly love another child and always thought I would have more, but the way things are going at the moment I think DS will end up being an only child, which makes me really, really sad. I just can't go through this again.

So sorry for the extremely long post. DM has taken him out for a while, so I've well and truly taken the opportunity to spill my guts!

How old is he?

I'd try dropping one of the naps and putting him to bed later.

DD2 was very similar- it turned out she didn't need as much daytime sleep and putting her bedtime back by an hour meant that she woke later.

His morning nap is too early. 12 months is a prime nap transition time but he'll probably still need two for a couple more months.

Try the following times;

11 lunch
11.30-1.00 sleep

4.30 - 6pm sleep

8.30pm bed

This routine worked for us at that age. DS would sleep 8.30-7.30 usually.

The later nap then got shorter until he dropped it at 15 months.

The lunchtime nap and lunch itself then got pushed back bit by bit whenever the mornings got a bit earlier.

Oh, and to a fellow member of the Wide Awake Club. Sleep deprivation is hell.

If it helps, DD2 is now 2 and reliably sleeps from 8pm until 6.30 (sometimes even 7!). It can get better

Sorry just to add, you're not a shit Mum. You're just tired. Lack of sleep has made me get the contraceptive implant!

The first few days of a later nap will be hard going but it is worthwhile.

Sleep deprivation IS torture. You have my sympathy. If DD hadn't had a long nap in the middle of the day for the last few months, I think I would have totally lost it.

You could try for one nap, and move it later - the fact you have to resettle him in the afternoon indicates it's not quite working for him.

The other thing you could do is stick to two naps and move bedtime back. DD has always slept about 11 hours at night, or less. A 6.30 bedtime for her means 5.30 wakings. How is he at about 6pm? tired, or doing ok? if he's ok, consider keeping him up a bit longer (you can make this time quiet time, looking at books with lights slightly dimmed or whatever).

Does he wake at all at night now?

Lastly, before you go back to work, you MUST try to get some rest. Go to bed a couple of nights in a row at 8pm. I know it means you get no time to yourself or with DP but you simply must.

Thanks for the replies everyone. So it looks like dropping am nap, or at least moving it back might be worth a shot. Thanks for the kind words tether and Farmyard.
Rooty, he is pretty much ready for bed by 6, probably OT due to crappy naps during the day. We did try putting his bed time back for a while, didn't really have much effect, maybe we didn't give it long enough?
He does occasionally wake at night, but we very rarely have to go into him, he usually gets himself back to sleep.

I'd be very firm and say no its not morning yet tuck him back in and leave the room, smiling or trying to sooth just firm and calm. "it's not morning yet mummy needs some more sleep and so do you, good night, love you" if he crys let him for 10 mins then do the same again. Never get him up before 7. Even if you have to be up and down up and down it should only last a morning or 2 and he should get it.
Good luck

I just don't think that they understand that at 1 yo fishfinger

It's so tricky, because sleep does beget sleep, and DD is a screaming tearful mess when overtired. She woke up at 5.30 from about 11 months, when she started sleeping through, and is only now going to 6.30 or sometimes 7 at nearly 22mo - so perhaps similar to tether's experience. It is bloody horrendous - I was also a zombie and many a time stuck Charlie and Lola on the iPad or put toys on the bed while I snoozed next to her. I was just dying. I can't imagine 4.30

I don't see why not, they might not understand fully the concept of the sentence but they certainly understand your actions if your firm and consistent with it. It's hard but if you get them up at that time and treat it like morning they will keep waking at that time.
Between the hours of 7pm and 7am it's night time rules, darkness and quietness no getting out of bed. (unless nappy issue etc)

I would try dropping the morning nap and doing 11.30 lunch, 12.30 nap for however long he wants but up no later than 3ish.

Then tea at 5pm, bath and bed for 7.30ish, maybe even earlier.

I would also invest in a gro clock and set it for 5am. When he wakes earlier, stay in his room with him till it goes orange (morning time). He's a bit young but we started using the gro clock around 1yo just so dd got used to it.

Set it 10 mins later every couple of days until it's at 6am.

We also invested in a single bed for dd's room so that I could stay in bed with her until her clock went orange. She was in her cot but I'd pull her into the single bed if she woke up too early.

We had this OP and it's HELL. Remember to give routine changes a couple of days before trying something new, it takes a while to settle into a new routine. You've had a couple of suggestions on here so maybe try each one for a week to see if anything helps!

With small children you either get evenings to yourself or a later morning, not both. It's a rare 1 year old who will go to bed early and sleep late.

My DS is the same age and we are struggling too, OP. He didn't nap well until about 3 months ago when I gave up on the morning nap. He now only has one nap from 12-130pm. He doesn't seem to need more than this and goes to sleep around 8pm and wakes for the day at 730am. He does still wake once during the night though and we give him a bottle and he goes back to sleep. I know we shouldn't do this but it's all that works. We also can't get him back into cot once he wakes so one of us sleeps with him in a double bed in his room after his night waking!

Thanks Turtle, we do have a Gro clock, thought it might be too soon for it, but if needs must!
Some fab suggestions, thanks to everyone.

Hollie, I'm really not expecting him to sleep late, I would be ecstatic with a 6am wake up. 4.30 is not early morning. It's the middle of the night.

I am in the midst of this OP, dd2 who has always reliable slept 7 til 6.30/7 has taken for the past week to getting up for the day at 5.26, I am on my knees. Today I have cut her nap from
1 hour to half hour so will see if that makes a diff.

Also I think you can expect them to go through til past six, I don't think that is the definition of "sleeping late"

If he goes to bed at 6.30pm, then 4.30am isn't so unreasonable though.

At that age, to get a 7am wake-up, my DS had to go to bed about 8.30-9pm. If I'd put him to bed at 7pm he'd have been ready to start the day by 5.30am.

Hmmm op this is my 1yrold and I thought it was normal for a 1yr old. Wakes at 5 ish has milk, plays for an hour ish, nap, one other nap normally and bed about 7 ish.

:/

Sometimes misses first nap and it moves to 10ish.

The issue isn't so much about whether 7am is "sleeping late" but that you want your baby to sleep 12 hours straight - not all do by a long shot. 10+ hours is a pretty good night's sleep.

When I say bed time is 6.30 or 7, I mean that is when his routine starts. He's often asleep by 7, 7.15. So his night time sleep is closer to 9, 9 1/2 hours. It's not enough, I know when he is not getting enough sleep.
I should have added in my OP that we did try a later bedtime (almost 8) for a while and it did not work.
Imo a 1 year old should not be going to bed as late as 9pm! I couldn't expect him to be awake for 6 hours or more between his last nap and bed time.

Why shouldn't a 1 year old go to bed at 9 What an odd thing to say.

I don't think a 1 year old should go to bed at 9 either OP. Mine certainly need 12 hours but also think each to their own and whilst it works for others it certainly wouldn't work here (or with many other families I know).

Why shouldn't they go to bed at 9 though? That's a bit arbitrary.

God I am desperate, desperate, for DD to be asleep by the time 7pm rolls around. Luckily, she seems to feel the same!

A 7pm bedtime is nice (though actually I enjoyed eating a relaxed evening meal all together a bit later) but for me a 7am wake up was more of a priority

There are so many posts on here agonising about why a baby refuses to sleep 12 hours in one go, but really 10-12 hours at night is totally normal for this age. The way I saw it was you can either stress about trying to make the baby sleep longer or you can just shift your routine a bit to accommodate their natural patterns.