Need help with my little 5am alarm clock

[lozzy1982]

Hi ladies. So i have a 9 week old Ds. In the last week we have brought his moses basket upstairs, set up the angel care in our bedroom and started to try and get into a bedtime routine, which is only basic. Bath at 6.30. Baby massage, feed and book. Then layed down by 8 and hopefully settles by 8.30. Most of the time he is pretty good at self soothing, and i may have to pop up once or twice to shussh him or pat his belly, but generally he falls alseep. He then sleeps will either 1 or 2. We feed and off he goes again pretty quickly. Then however bang on 5 or quarter past he wakes. Bang on the 3 hour feed pattern we have in the daytime. I really want to try and rid us of this wake up call. I know he is capable of sleeping longer, as the first stint is a longer one, so really want to try and train him out of what i think is habit him waking up and not actually hunger! Any thoughts appreciated! Thanks

At 9 weeks old the wakings are not down to habit. Any upset at this age is down to a need that the baby has, a need you need to meet.

It's not unusual for longer sleeps to be earlier in the night. It is frustrating, for Mums everywhere, but is quite normal. The fact that he is 'capable' of a longer sleep early night time does not mean he is capable of the same in the early morning. Indeed your son is telling you he is definitely not capable.

Some general things that will help with better sleep:

• Feeding very frequently through the daytime - 2 ish hourly - to fill up on milk during the daytime allowing for more sleeping at night time
• Sleeping frequently and for decent lengths of time through the daytime - I'd aim for 30-45 mins nap in every 120-150 minutes through the day - since over tiredness causes restlessness and broken sleep in the night.
• Establish a comforter as a sleep trigger. Dummies are great for this.
• Swaddling, if baby likes that secure feeling.
• Separate feeding and sleeping, so that baby can sleep without being fed. The EASY structure is great for developing this habit.

Also acceptance that sleep habits are not linear, but fluid. Your sons sleeping will change many, many times over the coming months.

I agree. It isn't habit at 9 weeks.

It also isn't the case that he's automatically 'capable of sleeping longer' just because he does it at the start of the night. It's quite normal for the first sleep of the night to be longest, because they are most tired.

It's just what they do at 9 weeks. My 3yo are still mostly up between 5 and 6...

It's been a while 7 years,
But we used to dream feed around 10pm and then they would go through to the morning. They were still up around 5 but at least we all got a good nights sleep.

And yes, what jem said, all three ours were early risers, they grew out of it eventually after several years.

I'd say one night feed at 9 weeks is amazing going.
If you really want to get him up later, I'd suggest getting everything pushed back an hour - so his bedtime starts at 7.30, and hopefully everything else an hour later too (including wake up).

The other way to deal with it is adjust your timescales, so 5am is a good time to get up. I've found readjusting parents sleeping patterns easier than a babies!