waking at 5am!?!?!?!?!

[REIDnotREEDorREAD]

please help!

my almost 6 month old ds used to be such a good sleeper. He goes down at about 6.30pm has dream feed at 10.45pm ish (which we are hoping to drop asap)and used to sleep until 6.30am ish. HOWEVER, he has recently started waking at 5am!!!

(i apologise to many parents who may have los who have a really bad sleep pattern, i know we have been very lucky to get as much sleep as we do)

Any way, i was hoping that somebody would be able to give some advice or have any ideas why my ds has suddenly decided that at 5am every morning he wants to sing and googaga to himself in his cot absolutely wide awake, he soon gets fed up of his own company ad then screams until we get him up for the day!

What can i do to get him sleeping that extra hour and a half again.

any one?

i would start pushing his bedtime forward (later) bit by bit
whatever you do don't "start" the day with him at 5am
Ignore him for as long as you can, shhh, shhh, etc. as if it was 3am - last resort give him his milk in his cot if you have to(if ff)

i speak from someone who had DD1 up everyday at 5.30 for a year. it nearly killed me.

DD2 is 16 months and still wakes for milk during the night - which tbh i prefer to the very early starts!

thank you A, we have tried putting him to bed later but it doesnt seem to make any difference, although we didnt persevere with that for very long. he gets very tired at half 6 and sometimes if we dont catch him straight away he gets past it iykwim.

we keep him in his room as long as possible, got him up at half 6 this morning but that after a lot of winging and moaning.

a friend has recommended trying to cut down on naps during the day.

bump

having same prob with 7 mth old. 5.15 today but 4.45 the other day. a good day now is 5.45. seen on another thread to put them to bed earlier. also someone suggested delaying first nap of the day for as long as poss in case t's an extension of the night time stretch. am going to try both. she hasn't seemed that hungry when i go to her .

Hi - we had this problem with our baby at the same age and did the soft version of controlled crying - i.e, went in when she woke up and gave her a cuddle. Put her down. Go back in after 5 minutes of crying and stroke her for 30 secs. Walk out. Go back in after 10 minutes and just say - SHHHH, go to sleep!. Walk out. Go back in after 15 mins of crying and repeat. Within a week she was going to 7.
That's the good news.
The bad news is she's now 13 months and learnt how to pull herself up in her cot and has gone back to waking at 5.45. Arghh.
But it did get us 6 extra months of good sleep so I'd try it if I were you.
J

Just posted on the other thread. THis time is quite hard for them isn't it - teeth, food no end of different changes.

I don't know what your day is like but a few tips.....
If they wake early, give them a quick feed like it was nighttime and put them back again to wake at 7ish so that eventually they get used to sleeping to this time. Even if they don't sleep this time, at least you might !....and you can rule out that they arent' hungry. You will be able to drop this feed eventually but you might just want to

Do you do a dream feed? You might want to do this again until they are going to nearer 7ish - I haven't dropped mine with my 7 month old until he's well established on solids.

Does your lo nap? If they do, try to limit napping to no more than 3 hours a day.... Too much daytime sleep can make them wake earlier. If your baby has, say, a 7 - 7 day, then include any time before 7 as daytime sleep.

Is your lo overtired when they go to bed? If they are, that can also cause a baby to wake up early. I started putting my lo to bed earlier when he did this and it definitely helped, he wasn't so knackered so didnt' go straight into a deep sleep.

HTH

thanks siane, we try a version of that but not very controlled, he is so wide awake that he shows absolutely NO signs what so ever of going back to sleep! he really is WIDE AWAKE!!!

Will persevere with a more controlled version of it this week while i am of work.

amidaiwish, we put ds half an hour later than usualand he slept an xtra half hour this morning! we are going to keep that up and try our hardest to keep his naps to his usual routine (3 naps up to 2 hours altogether!)during the da and see how it goes.

Thankyou for the advice and any more is more than welcomm!!!

ps mean if you put them to bed at 6.30 instead of 7, include that half hour....

hrbgarden, he is still having a dreamfeed at 10.45pm was going to try to drop it, the theory being that if he's going to wake at 5 any way we might as well be able to go to bed earlier!

he has 3 naps a day (see post below) and i am trying to keep them to a minimum they usually only last half hour each.
he has been taking lots of solids but the amount of mlk has reduced (he has at least 16-20oz a day though)

yoo hoo reidie!

do you know, i think all babies do this at one stage or another, and then seem to grow out of it,

start putting him to bed 10 minutes later, and gradually increase how late he goes to bed, see if that helps..

does he have plenty of things in his cot to look at when he wakes?

hi lulu xxx

we put his singing winnie the pooh light projector thingy this morning which occupied hm for a whole 10 minutes, he still sleeps tightly swaddled though (which is a whole other problem altogether!)so he cant grab anything when he wakes anyway

is it time to loosen the swaddle? do yo think it is frustration that he cannot grab anything and has to just lie there?

could be lulu, the only trouble is as soon as he gets loose he wakes up in the night!!! aargh!

hmm..tricky one.....DS was swaddled until he was around this age, he started to get out of it himself, so we just left him unswaddled....he did settle himself back to sleep though......

is your LO trying to escape the swaddle yet?

he isnt trying very often although every now and again he does. we dont swaddle him during theb day, but he has his naps in his bouncy chair i feel we may have created a big problem for ourselves here! i trid him in a grow bag a couple of times but he just wouldnt settle!

'reet i'm out for the day now, but will be back this evening, hopefully for a drink in your bar lulu x

have a lovely day girlies, xxx

woo hoo, ds lasted until 6.15am!!! put him to bed at 650pm so i wonder if that helped?!

5.30am yesterday, 6.15am this morning! We are heading in the right direction!

thanks for all the advice! feel free to keep it coing!