10 month old early rising!

[Sunshinegirl82]

Hello,

I have posted on here before regarding DS's sleep. In short it has never been great and he has never been close to 'sleeping through'. That's fine, I understand babies wake at night. Recently however he seems to have developed a habit of waking very early (between 4.30 and 5) and refusing to go back down. Given he is still waking in the night as well this is getting a bit tiring!

Prior to this recent change to early waking he had been waking 1-2 times a night, usually somewhere between 10 and 11 and then somewhere between 1 and 2. He would then wake for the day at around 6ish. This was perfectly manageable.

Around 2 weeks ago he started crawling and since mastering this has started pulling himself up on furniture. He also caught a cold from which he has now pretty much recovered. I initially put the early waking down to cold/developmental leap but it shows no sign of passing.

Does anyone have any tips? I'm conscious that early waking can be a sign of both too much and too little daytime sleep so it's hard to know how to manage his naps! Because if the early waking he is normally reading to go down again at 7.30 but I try to stretch this to 8/8.30 is I can. He will often have 1.5 hours nap in the morning. He normally sleeps again around 1.30 for a further hour. Bed time is 7(ish).

He eats well in the day and is still breastfed on demand. I feed him when he wakes in the night (he guzzles it down and seems genuinely hungry). I have tried offering more milk/food in the day but he won't breastfeed much in the day unless it's at nap time.

Thanks in advance!

Well he went down at 1pm, woke after 45 mins and I resettled, he's still asleep! I'm thinking I'll wake him at 3.30?! The aim for a 7.30 bedtime? Fingers crossed!

Well, we had a better night than the one before - bed at 7.30, woke to be resettled at 8 (which is normal for him - always needs a quick cuddle after half an hour or so) and then 10.30 when I woke him by rattling around in the bedroom - oops!

Woke for feeds at 11 and 4, then slept til 5.30. He chatted til 6 so we got a bit of a lie in...!

Naps today a mixed bag:
90 mins this morning but he woke after half an hour as I'd tried to get him down without the sleepyhead. Rest of nap with sleepyhead!

30-40 mins in pram at lunchtime, then would've fallen asleep again but we had a baby class so he's just nodded off again at 3.30 - suspect this will be a longish, late nap.

See how we both go tonight...!

PS yes, give resettling during naps a go - I find DS wakes after 45 mins but is definitely still tired

Arrrrggggh! 4.45!!! I sat in the dark and rocked him for an hour, wide awake! Another 9 hour night, that can't be enough for him. He did only wake once at 10.30 so that's something. Oh well, will keep going with the naps and what happens! How was your night mini?

Oh no! Similar tbh.

Asleep 7.45
Woke 11 for a feed - straight back to sleep
Woke 4 for a feed - took a while to settle, back to bed 4.45
Woke 5.15!

It's as if he enters "nap mode" after his 4am feed - which means he will only sleep 45 mins at a time. I tried to resettle him at 5.20 but he was having none of it!

Wondering if we should consider night weaning to try to push that feed a bit later. Not sure how you go about it though.

Good luck with naps etc today. Compare notes later!!

I also couldn't post yesterday Sunshinegirl82. Felt like my arm had been chopped off!

Have you thought about night weaning?

Hi Fate, I have thought about it, he's nearly 11 months and he eats well so I'm fairly confident he gets enough food. Plus now he's started doing these longer stretches at night it seems more likely that he's ready.

I suppose if I'm honest the reason I haven't is that it's the quickest way to get him back to sleep when he wakes! Plus I'm not really sure how I'd do it? He screams blue murder if DH goes into him at night and will often look for milk when it's me and I've been so tired for such a long time now that I just give in!

He was knackered by 8 this morning so I put him down and he had bout 80 mins. I tried again at 11.30 but he refused to go diwn. We went to baby sensory and he was knackered after and went straight down, he's had 90 mins so far!

I only thought about it because there is another thread about a 11 month only running concurrently on the sleep board, so similar age. OP on that thread just popped back to say she decided to night wean and as a result baby is now sleeping through.

10 month old in fact

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/2926238-10-month-old-sleeping-disaster

How did it go? Well, I hope.

Same old same old here - asleep by 7.15 (a bit earlier than normal). Pretty unsettled all evening including a feed at 9.30 (though he was low on milk for the day). Slept until 2 for another feed, back to bed and woke at..... 5.20!

Today's aim is to continue with nap promotion and get him to bed by 6.30.

I have a feeling we will be doing these daily updates until they are teenagers

Ladies you have my sympathy (and empathy)

I'm the OP of the 1 yr old early waking thread currently running... Personally, I'm finding the early waking much easier to deal with because DS sleeps through the night. He sleeps through the night because we night weaned (somewhat by accident, when he was teething and MIL came round for a few nights and offered to try settling him without me going in at all). Would be finding the early wakings much harder otherwise!

P.s. "Easier" is obviously relative!

Haha thanks pika - I was saying to DH just yesterday that I could cope with a 5am start if DS hadn't been up between 4-4.30! Good to know it can get easier.

My mum was telling me how I used to get up at 5 so perhaps it's just genetic

Hello, well I guess 5.20 is a slight improvement (clutches at straws!) I agree that the early starts combined with the night waking is the problem!

Ds threw at temp yesterday afternoon so was a bit fretful at bedtime. He had calpol and went down at about 7.15. He slept until 10ish when I went up to resettle. I tried not feeding but everytime I put him down he only lasted 15 mins then woke again so at the third wake I fed him and he then slept till 3ish.

He was hot again so he had more calpol and then I took him in with me in the spare room for the rest of the night. He slept until 5.45! I cuddled him and he went back off for another hour! I suspect this is the virus/calpol talking but hey!

He was still warm this morning so more calpol and has been down for a nap for about 45 mins. I'm not going to attempt night weaning until he's over this virus or whatever it is but I wonder if it's something we need to think about soonish.

Will work on the naps again today and see what the night brings!

Sorry to hear he's not well. All bets are off until he's better...!

How's it going, Sunshine?

A couple of better nights here:

Last night he slept 7.45-5.30 with a feed at 2.30. Then back to bed 6-6.30 this morning after a cuddle.

Night before was even better! Asleep 7-5, no night feed (first time in ages), then fed him twice (!) between 5-6.30am and he went back to bed until 8.15!

By no means cracked it, but feeling good after a bit more sleep.

Hope your DS is over the worst of his virus and you're getting some rest.

That sounds great! Fingers crossed its the start of a swing in the right direction!

Not so great here unfortunately! He has a temp all over the weekend and last night refused to sleep unless pressed against me so I slept with him in the spare room. He woke quite a few times but did go through till 6.30 so that's something!

He only napped for 20 mins this morning although he is clearly shattered. I think his cough is waking him up. I tried to resettle for 45 mins but no joy. He can barely keep his eyes open so have just tried again to get him to go down but he's fighting it with everything he's got. Have just left him playing in the cot for a moment so I can have 5 mins to gather myself then heading back in to try again! Arrrghhhh!

Took 40 minutes but he's finally asleep! Keeping everything crossed he has a decent nap! Poor thing sounds like dearth Vader so have stuck the humidifier on, fingers crossed the steam calms the cough a bit so he can sleep.

Oh that's really tough. Our DS had similar and it really affected his sleep. Hope yours is on the mend ASAP.

In the meantime: !

How was your night mini?

We had a slight improvement here. Woke at 11 and 12.30 then at 4.15 but back down till 5.30. Not great by normal standards but an improvement on the previous few nights!

Took him up for a nap at 8.30 and he's still asleep so that's good as he's been having really short naps and getting exhausted which I suspect will make everything worse.

Temp is back to normal now and he seems brighter this morning so I'm keeping my fingers crossed we're over the worst of it!

That's good to hear!

We had another decent night:

Asleep by 8
Slept through until 3.30 for a feed
Woke at 5.30 then quite quickly back to sleep until 6.20

So many factors that might be making a difference, it's hard to know if it's anything we've done or just him!

Fingers crossed we both keep making progress!

That's great! Hopefully the longer naps are helping! Hopefully he'll start to drop that 5.30 wake and start to push straight through.

Ds is still asleep so we're over 90 mins now which is good. I think he's got some catching up to do!

How was your night mini? Pretty decent here. Good naps yesterday, nearly 2 hours in the morning and about 90 mins in the afternoon. Down at 7ish.

He woke at 11ish then 3.45 and back down until just after 6! He played in his cot for a bit so we got him up at about 6.20! Felt like a massive lie in! I'm sure normal service will be resumed soon but it proves that he can do it!

That's great! Very reassuring to know he can do it!

Ours was:

Bed around 7.30
Up at midnight for milk
Woke at 5.30 and chatted to himself for half an hour before we got up at 6

So not too bad! That said he's barely napped today as it's so hot so we shall see what tonight is like...!

How was your night?

Decent one here - down around 8 I think (I was out so it was DH's turn for bedtime!). Slept straight through to 5am - super early but no night waking made a difference!