My 13mo wakes at 4:30am every day

[Queazy]

I'm so tired with work and a 3yo too. I know some babies are early risers and I may need to just suck it up, but he wants to go back to sleep on me, using me as a dummy, until 6:30am. I know it's a habit but previous advice to leave him to cry or controlled crying for up to an hour doesn't sit well, and would also wake my 3yo who needs her sleep. He goes down fine at night. He has CMPA but no longer on medication. This has been going on since mid Dec, though he's always woken by 5:30/5:45 anyway.

Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated. Even if just 'suck it up, and wait it out'

How about trying a wake up, feed and nappy changes when you go to bed, say 11 ish.

The idea is to reset baby's sleep. So come early morning his tummy is a little less empty and his nappy a little less uncomfortable.

What naps does he have?
Presume he won't take a dummy?
Yes a feed at 10.30/11 may be worth trying.

I don't think CC works in the early mornings anyway, or for a baby who can already self settle.

Thanks so much. He has two naps a day, both of 1-1.5hrs. The afternoon one is often shorter. When he's had one longer nap at nursery instead of two he sleeps no better. I'll try the wake up idea. I'm a bit nervous in case it takes an hour to get him back down! It's a good plan - thank you!

Oh also - is he teething? That has caused early morning wake ups with my two. If so, teething gel, or even nurofen if it's bad (you'll need to cuddle him till it kicks in and he falls asleep, but means he is less likely to wake up again).

If not, I would suggest a shorter afternoon nap, so he's more tired in the early morning and more likely to go back to sleep. 2.5 or 3 hours is quite a lot of naps at this age, I'd keep it down to 2-2.25 hours and try to weight it to the morning if you can.

Co sleeping? Will he sleep next to you so you can sleep a bit too?

I just give mine a bottle of warm milk and he goes back to sleep.

He's exclusively breastfed and a bad co-sleeper. He basically just lies in bed with me and wants to breastfeed/treat me like a dummy for 2hrs every morning. I'm hoping to move him to one nap a day, and sounds like that might help. Thanks so much for all your ideas. My DD1 went back down with just a cuddle for 10mins. He's refusing!

Sounds like my DD, she's almost 13 months old and seems to have developed a 'natural' wake up time of 4am (after a recent stretch of middle of the night waking and refusing to resettle due to what I suspected was some kind of attatchment issue)

So yeh she's awake from like 4am every day, won't resettle in her cot, so comes in with us and basically thrashes around trying to sleep/wriggle/wake us up until our alarm goes off at 6.15am.

I'm hoping it's just a phase and linked to her teething but following this thread with interest.

I don't fancy the rewaking at 11pm as she has milk before bed at 7pm and wouldn't need a fresh nappy etc, and would take us ages to resettle.

Her naps are fine, anywhere between 40 mins to an hour twice a day but she's not ready to drop to one just yet as she struggles to last until nap time some days as it is.

Am I ever going to get a 7am lie in ever again?! Ha,

mylittlebird, I'm not pleased you've got the same issue, but it's nice to know I'm not alone. Misery loves company, as they say...so does sleep deprivation. I so hope they'll make it past 6am soon. It's hard work x

One of mine was the same. He's 2.5 now and wakes at around 5:30-6am. It's become normal to me now though and doesn't have the same effect as it used to. I think your body does adjust to it slowly. I understand the problem though, I had other children in bed asleep that I was worried he would wake up at 4am! Quite often I'd end up asleep on his floor because he would settle then... not ideal. I wasn't breastfeeding at that point though so didn't have to cope with him using me as a dummy, that must be annoying when you are shattered