Please help me re very early rising!

[Natale28]

I've posted before about my early rising DS. He's now 8.5 months and is ready to start the day at 4.15 am! He is then shattered by 7 am and wants his first nap which of course throws the whole day out of whack.

He goes to bed between 6.30 pm and 7 pm. He naps for a total of around 2.5 hours per day consisting of 2 naps, about an hour in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon.

I've tried earlier bedtime, later bedtime (gets very overtired), white noise, shush pat, we have black out blinds, literally nothing has worked.

Is there anything else I can try?!

He eats well, has 4 bottles in the day totalling around 28-30 oz of milk plus 3 meals so I don't think he is hungry and he doesn't want milk when he wakes at 4.15 am.

My DP is very good and we are now sharing the early mornings because I was starting to struggle with it everyday even though we go to bed early.

Sorry this is long - does anyone have any suggestions? TIA.

Slinky my DS is just over 8.5 months and he has dropped a bottle recently, he now has 3 bottles a day of 7 oz each plus something like this:
B: weetabix or hipp organic porridge
Mid-morning snack: some cubes of cheddar and a couple of organix snack things
L: sometimes ellas kitchen or hipp organic pouch, sometimes more snacky like toast or a sandwich with soft cheese, or hard boiled egg mashed up etc, then a fruit pot afterwards.
Dinner: homemade such as chicken casserole, beef stew, spag bol etc followed by fresh fruit such as banana or strawberries.

I think he needs more of a snack mid-morning as he gets grizzly so I'm going to increase that a bit but I don't want to put him off his lunch!

It's all such a juggling act, isn't it?! Good to know he's having roughly the same as your ds.

Erm, despite him not having one for a week now, he's just gone down for an evening nap. Will wake him after 30 mins tho. I let him sleep 9-10am earlier, but when I tried to wake him he was dead to the world bless him! Afternoon nap was 2.45 - 3.45 in the car.

Reallly hoping I don't see 4am tomorrow.

My DD eats like a horse but still doesn't help sleep at all!!

So we were up at 450 today which is a little better I guess but had a disturbed night with a huge vomit so ended up not going down til late so could be why??

I managed to delay her nap til 845 today, she slept 80 mins and then at 2pm she went another 80 mins but with a bit of help by buggy pushing after 40 when she briefly woke up.

She was tricky ish to get down tonight, the screaming seems to be getting worse not better??!! But went at 730pm eventually, let's see what happens.... I'm predicting 345 wake up and not going back down as I seem totally unable to get her down again in the mornings anymore regardless of time

Good Luck!! Natale how did you do with naps and bed today in the end??

My little bugger only drank 2ozs out of his 7oz bedtime bottle ! He fell asleep about 7.20 (only had 15 min evening nap). And it's cold and very windy out, so I'm predicting a bad night.

I've just sat down for the first time all evening, and am meant to be doing a load of ironing...think I'll just ditch it and go to bed instead.

Thanks Slinky and Natale. I'm really grateful of the support. She definitely doesn't need the feed at 5 as she's been going right through for a couple of months. I just took the path of least resistance when the clocks went back and thought the 5am wake-ups would only last a few nights. Doh. Now she's got used to it. Once I'm back home and DP's back too I'll try cut it again and hopefully stretch her back to 6am wake-ups.

Good luck tonight everyone!

Sorry I haven't read the whole thread and this is probably obvious, but do you bring him in to you when he wakes? I have always done that with mine when they have woken in the early morning hours and then not actually got out of bed/turned a light on until 6.30/7am.

That should read "bring him in to bed with you".

So here we are, I've been up since 330 attempting to settle her. She is having absolutely none of it and just continues to stand up in the cot screaming every time I leave the room. (she is fine if I'm in there stroking and patting her).

Literally seems she is up for the day, wide awake.

I feel cruel but I'm doing anything to try and not feed her as I honestly don't believe she needs it.

Do people have any advice on whether this is the right (I know there is no right but right ish) thing to be doing? I'm finding it a bit stressful and DH is just telling me to go in and feed her.....

Limes - DS napped at 9 am til 9.45 am then 1 pm til 3 pm!! Bed at 7 pm and he seemed more settled rather than his usual overtired self by bedtime. However he was still up at 5.15 am today! Do you think it will just take a while for the change of naps to have an impact on the early wake ups?

Fuzzywigs how did you get on this morning?

Ghost - we did go through a stage of bringing DS to our bed but he still wouldn't settle and would just move around, pull my hair and tug at us etc so we gave up on that!

Aw Limes - did she go back to sleep in the end? I only have the one DS and I don't know what is the best thing to do re feeding at that time. Would she settle quickly after a feed? My DS would stay awake after a feed anyway so we gave up doing that at 5 am also I knew he wasn't hungry, just taking a few ounces because they were on offer if you know what I mean. Be sure to sleep today when DD naps if you can?

If my dc was doing this I would actually interrupt their deep sleep pattern! So if they wake at 4.30 every day I would wake them up at say 3:45. This will interrupt their body clock and is worth a try.

Fwiw my two have struggled since the clock changes (just getting up an hour earlier) but it's so annoying! I will just wait it out

We had this for ages.
What worked was this.
Not letting her nap earky in the morning (they use that as an extension of their night sleep.
It's tough but push it later each day by as long as you can manage.
Also late afternoon daylight and fresh air.
Yes we literally would go to the park around 5pm or if that's not possible play in the garden for half an hour.
As an aside we also looked at her eating over the whole day and snuck in some extra snacks but it was the top two that helped the most.
Good luck. It's soul destroying, we took it in turns too and went to bed at 8 like children.

Natale - thanks for the support she eventually settled at 530 after a huge feed but only for 45 mins... Better than nothing I suppose. I did have to rock her and sing to her for 15 mins to get her off tho.

She is breast fed still as point blank refuses a bottle or any sort of Formula (that's another blooming issue) so I'm not sure how much she takes, I still don't think she needs it at that hour, think it's more habitual hence me holding off. It's not as if a feed send her back to sleep... If it did I'd be in there like a flash!!

I've tried the whole later nap and fresh air thing and it seems to have absolutely no impact on this little devil!!

I could honestly cope if it was 430 or 5 each day but 330 is just taking the mickey!!

Thanks Ledkr. We had a 5.50 wake up her which is brilliant. I think coz she napped late and also stuck a blanket on her. She woke up happy too. Hopefully we can get back into this pattern again. crosses all fingers and toes

Unfortunately some kids are just really early risers.

We tried everything with my DS who used to wake between 4-5am everyday and now at 8.5 years old he generally wakes between 5-6am but my DD wakes between 4-5am too and she's 20 months so its not looking like its going to stop anytime soon.

You do wade through the tiredness and get used to it eventually but stressing about it made life so much more difficult, no matter what we tried nothing worked including routine changes and guidance from a sleep specialist so its just become part of life with the kids (albeit a very exhausting part)

Thanks Ledkr, I have pushed the morning nap back to 9 am which is definitely helping as he used to wake at 4 am ish but now seems to be creeping later to 5.15 am ish which is much better. It does seem to be different each day but I'm hoping we'll regularly make it past 5 am now. We went to the park at 4 pm yesterday for a good half an hour too so maybe that helped!

Limes I know what you mean - 3.30 am is the middle of the night! I find anything before 5 am unbearable!

Fuzzywigs - good wake up time there! Fingers crossed it continues for you!

Squtter I was wondering if it was something that could actually be changed long term or if my DS just prefers early bedtime and early rise. It's tough when all my friends babies sleep til 6.30 am or 7 am! Don't you find the days really long? Do your DCs go to bed early to make up for the early wake ups?

The light at the end of it is that now dd is 3 and wakes around 7 which still feels like a long lie in to me!!

Sorry, just read my post back and it sounded really condescending

What I meant was you have my sympathies and that its really tough to start but somehow you do get used to it and it becomes "normal" after a while if it does persist but in the meantime try not to stress yourself on top of the exhaustion. I also struggle to bite my tongue sometimes when friends complain about being woken at 7.30-8am because its too early (pah that would be a dream here! :o)

I do find the days really long so I just try and keep busy with school runs, toddler groups, swimming etc as this makes it easier for me to cope. My DC's just don't seem to need a lot of sleep as DD will go to bed at 7-7.30 and DS around 7.30-8 but he rarely falls asleep before 8.30.

Yes 7 am is a dream - 6 am would be absolutely fine with me!

I can imagine it would become 'normal' after a while Squtter! I guess I'll just have to carry on with my 9.30 pm bedtime so I can be asleep by 10 pm latest and then I get enough sleep to get by! I'm dreading my return to work on 2nd Jan! If we have a particularly bad night at the moment I can grab an hour or so of sleep when DS naps, that'll be out the window!

How did everyone get on today? 5 am here even with later naps, afternoon fresh air and a bit of porridge after bedtime milk. Grrr!

If if helps I'm reading this feeling insanely jealous of your 4am starts...my 8 month old still wakes all the flipping time :-(

Aw no sorry findingherfeet! I know it could be a lot worse, DS did go through a phase of waking a lot through the night but that's passed (for now!). Hopefully it'll pass soon for you!

615 here after an earlier than usual morning nap and shorter than usual afternoon one!

That was good Sephy!

4.45 am here today, feel really fed up now as nothing I've changed seems to be working!

My dd used to do.this when she was little. She had stopped night.feeding so I'm.afraid we got a little tough with her. We would.give her some.calpol in case of pain, then give her a kiss and lie her back down. Leave for 5 minutes and repeat kiss and lie down if necessary, repeat for however long it takes for them to sleep again. If you.know.they are not hungry or in pain you can't let them.get up for the day at 3.30am.