The dreaded 5am wake up......

[TheSleeperandTheSpindle]

My 7.5 month old DS has dropped his night feed - hurrah!

However, he has now started waking up between 5-5.30am I bought a blackout blind thinking maybe it was the lighter mornings doing it but that hasn't made a difference. If anyone could take a look at his routine and give me some advice I would be very grateful. I'm going back to work in 4 weeks so a 6-6.30am wake up would be ok, but 5am starts will kill me

5-6am DS wakes up and I try to ignore him
6am get up
6.30am milk (6oz)
7.15am breakfast
8am nap (around 1.5 hours)
10.30am milk (6oz)
11.30am lunch
12.30 nap (1.5 hrs)
2.30pm milk
4-5pm a power nap, sometimes 30 mins, sometimes a hour.
5pm dinner
7pm milk
Sleep around 7.30pm

DS goes to sleep quite quickly but does have a few mini wake ups during the night where I need to resettle, mostly by patting his back/bum, but he doesn't want any milk until the morning. This new pattern of his has been going on for around a week since his new top teeth came in.

I also know I'm very lucky with his sleep now, especially after a horrendous few months

That's a really good point Fate - can't believe I didn't think of it as it seems so obvious now you've mentioned it
Naps from the sleep consultant were 9.20-10 and 12.30-2.30. I've shifted the 12.30 nap to 1pm over the past week to allow for a 7pm bedtime (was previously ready for sleep by 6.30) and this worked quite nicely but didn't have any impact on the early wake up unfortunately.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will give that a try instead of the extra nap

Well we had a better night last night when I tried making the afternoon nap the longer one and pushing bedtime a bit later.

Yesterday DS napped 8.30-9.30, 12-1 and then 3-4.30. He couldn't quite make it to 8-8.30pm for bedtime but went down at 7.50pm. He then woke for milk at 11pm and 2am and then woke up for the day at 6.10am!

I know it usually takes a couple of weeks to change routine but it seems that making his bedtime later will help

Hope your night wasn't too bad coffee

That's great sleeper! Definitely a step in the right direction :)

Naps didn't go so great yesterday so night was surprisingly good considering! She napped 9-9.40 but it was really broken (waking every 10 mins after the first 20) then 1-2.45pm. Managed to keep her up until 7 but she was getting progressively grumpy so I gave in and put her down, asleep by 7.15. She fed at 2 then woke at 5.40, went back down after complaining but it only lasted 10 mins and was up just before 6. More palatable than pre-5am but I would like to get it a bit later still

I'm going to put her down earlier for the first nap today because I think the fragmented morning nap yesterday was due to overtiredness. I'll let her sleep for longer and see where we go from there

Hope your day goes well today - planning to expose her to lots of sunshine and fresh air as she always sleeps well after that!

So my plan failed today. She went down nicely for her first nap but woke after 1 sleep cycle and refused to go back to sleep. Second nap didn't even last the usual 2 hours so I resorted to a third assisted nap in pram otherwise would have ended up with a 6-6.30 bedtime and I dread to think how early she would then wake tomorrow.

Having a third nap allowed a slightly later bedtime but I am now wondering if assisted naps is the way forward to get the 2 longer naps Fate suggested which will allow the later bedtime.

It's hard isn't coffee when things don't go to plan and you've got no idea what kind of night lies ahead.

All of DSs naps are assisted, mostly in the pram where I can start pushing the pram at the right moment to tip him into the next sleep cycle. As the weather is nice at the moment sometimes I go and sit in the park with a coffee and a book with DS in his pram, makes it all a little less relentless

We ended up with a 5.45am wake up here. DS went to sleep again at 7.50pm last night and I couldn't keep him awake any longer so going to play around with naps again today to see if I can stretch him to a 8-8.30pm bedtime. On the plus side he actually slept in his cot (with the side off and me partly lying in there with him) but that's a big step after unintentionally cosleeping for the past few weeks

Pram walks aren't such a chore in this weather, sitting in the park with a coffee and boom sounds quite appealing - I just end up doing housework while she naps in the cot!

Since sleep training, our nights are generally pretty predictable but last night that all went out the window and she was awake for more than 2 hours in the middle of the night, just refusing to go back to sleep. I'm now even more exhausted and starting to think maybe I should just suck up the early wake ups if the alternative is going back to these kind of nights! I'm just going to go back to 2-3-4 today with her napping in cot like always and see what happens tonight.

Glad to see you are making good progress - sleeping in cot and moving from 5 to 5.45 is a step in the right direction 😊. Hopefully he will push it a little bit further to 6.30 over the next few days.

Gah, the 2 hour wide awake times are brutual! I find them worse than the early wake ups.

We had fantastic naps yesterday - 8am-10am, 1pm-3pm and then 4.30-5pm. Lots of milk and food. He even fell asleep at 8.10pm in my arms without rocking! He then screamed every hour from 10pm until 2am, woke for milk at 4am but then decided he only wanted 3oz and we got up at 6.10am! I sometimes wonder why I try and plan his naps, it often all goes to shit anyway

DS turned 3 last month and has been waking at 5 - 5.30 for a good 18 months now. We've moved naps, dropped naps, everything and makes no difference. My MIL minded him for 2 nights when we were away at a wedding and was convinced she could make him sleep in, kept him up really late and he woke at 5.20 and was ratty for the day...
I think some kids are just early risers and there's nothing you can do except hope it changes!!

Slightly controversial view here but I find that if my son naps for longer than about 3 hours cumulatively over a day, he doesn't sleep very well/wakes v early. DS is 9 months now but at 7.5 months I believe he had an hour in the morning and 1-1.5hr in the afternoon. Is there any chance your DS is sleeping too much during the day which is impacting nighttime?

It's a funny stage I found - you've got that third nap they sometimes need (the powernap, as I called it) but many babies drop that around the 8-9m mark - were now on two naps a day but leaving that power nap behind was a minefield of working out what worked best alongside weaning and feeding and argh just remembering month 7....it was information overload.

I'd try cutting back the morning nap - hour max, followed by the post lunch nap of 2 hours. If you can push that post lunch nap back to 1-3 or 1:30-3:30 you'll start to see the powernap becoming less important (or needed) around the 8m mark and your DS getting grumpy and ready for bed around 7ish. We start our bedtime routine at 6:15 but take a while, so a bath, massage/play, book, bottle and bed. He's always down by 7pm (sometimes asleep, sometimes wanting to party) but I've found if he sleeps any later than around 3pm now he just doesn't go off very easily to sleep, nor does he have a good quality sleep.

Also - around this time babies can start to go longer between naps. 1-2 hours awake in their first 6 months turns more into 2-3 by around 8 months. We can get 3 hours out of DS (unless he's in a car and he'll nod off irrespective of how little time has elapsed) now and it means his quality of naps is much better, meaning he needs less of them and is far happier when going to bed oppose to the misery we had in month 7

You've read my mind ButtMuncher (love the name btw )

I was just sitting here wondering the same thing. I read somewhere that babies need around 14hrs sleep over 24hrs so if he sleeps 4ish hours during the day, he will only sleep 9.5-10hrs at night, which makes perfect sense.

I think we've got into the cycle of early wake up, so early first nap and then too long between last nap and bedtime. Which then means he needs the power nap

You're so right about it being a minefield. Between working out naps, DS going longer between feeds and also fitting in solids I feel like I don't time to think

Oh no sleeper, sounds like a really tough night :(

I was lucky that she napped well yesterday (probably because she was catching up from the previous disastrous night) and a relatively good night too. Decided to try stick with the late bedtime for a week and she slept from just after 8 until 7 this morning. She woke for her feed as usual and woke a couple of times between 6 and 7 but went back to sleep.

I totally agree about the difficulty in working out naps and feeds - feels like you have to get it just right, either side of perfect and you have a terrible night! In our case, we rarely achieve more than 3h cumulative napping in a day, usually closer to the 2.5hr mark (30-40mins in morning and 2ish hours in the afternoon). We dropped the 3rd nap when she repeatedly resisted it

Hope you are having a good day today

Sleeper - month 6/7 was by far my hardest test. The whole weaning malarkey took FOR FUCKING EVA to establish and I was tying myself up in total knots about the whole thing. We're now down to 3 bottles and 3 meals a day with two naps, which is so substantially easier than the oh shit does he need a nap or a bottle or a meal conundrum. Honestly I think i found it easier when he was a newborn - least he'd sleep through box sets

Another shit night here

DS napped for 3 hours in total and went down like a dream at 7.15pm. Because of his early wake ups and only napping for 3 hours there was no way of stretching him to 8pm. Oh well I thought, I'll just accept any early wake ups for now.

Then the shit hit the fan. He woke every hour and there seemed no consoling him. He had a feed at 10.30pm and I thought maybe that would settle him. DH (I use the D in the loosest of terms ) came into the bedroom at 11.30pm to see if I needed any help and I just ranted at him. We ended up having a bit of an argument while DS screamed He reckons babies cry and it's something to expect. I said that at nearly 8 months if DS is dry and fed there is no reason to wake every hour, he isn't a newborn!

I then might have told DH to fuck off and leave me to it. Which he did. I then cried until DS and I fell asleep around 12.30am. DS then slept until 6am.

I now feel like someone has caved my head in with an axe and like I've done something so wrong with DS that I've broken him and we will be like this forever

Oh God, talk about verbal diarrhoea

sleeper that sounds utterly awful At least you had a nice block of sleep from 1230-6am look on the bright side?!

We also had a horrible night - combination of the heat and DS being constipated due to weaning. I ended up just bringing him into my bed and co sleeping - dh went down onto a blow up bed in DSs room so we could roll around the big bed unimpeded. So whilst I didn't have any proper sleep I also didn't fully wake up until 5am.

Do you think your DS could be uncomfortable due to the heat? A muslin soaked in cold water does wonders if that's the case.

Thank you for your reply stealth My previous post was very indulgent of me, definitely agree with looking on the bright side

Great tip about the muslin. I think he was hot, even though he was just in a long sleeved vest. That's probably why he calmed down around midnight once the room had cooled.

Sorry to hear you had a terrible night too and that your DS is suffering with constipation. I think my DS might be too because when he had a poo this morning it was kind of like playdough.

Like ButtMuncher said upthread, I think it was easier when DS was a newborn

It is so awful when you're not sleeping. And I can relate to the screaming matches whispered arguments with husband too. Mine drives me mad as he just throws a lot of "shoulds" at me: "he should be sleeping through the night", "he should take the bottle". Well, yes, he SHOULD but he doesn't so do you have any bright ideas?! Of course not!

I had DS in just a short sleeved vest last night and still had a cool facecloth I was running over him. It is clammy!

DS slept from 730-430am until he was 14 weeks old. I hear you on the newborn phase!

And I will be very glad when weaning is over. DS loves food but his system is really struggling. And the poos are a bit of a shock after the relative ease of ebf poos! He did a massive poo just now so hopefully he'll be more comfortable.

Oh sleeper, that sounds like such a tough night . Its so hard as the lack of sleep makes you both agitated and I definitely get annoyed about little comments and actions that usually would never bother me when I'm tired.

I feel like you and buttmuncher are talking about my daughter! Slept through the night until 4 months then all went wrong, we are also struggling with irregular bowel movements from weaning. Since weaning, she sometimes wakes up mid-nap to poo and then screams for us to go and change her - by then she is wide awake and getting her back to sleep is so tough (usually impossible) :( Heat has also resulted in more wake ups than normal as she is used to her room being really cool and having a nice warm sleeping bag.

We had an ok night last night, down at 8, woke a few times before her feed - I think because of the heat - but she did put herself back to sleep within 5-10 minutes. Up at 6am this morning though and didn't have particularly long naps yesterday so still need to work out how to get that to 7. Napped ok today and have put her down, room is super hot so think tonight is going to be a tough one

I feel like we're all talking about the same child - doesn't sleep, up at the crack of dawn and poo problems. Do you think we received a malfunctioning batch?

Well I tried your suggestions of a cool cloth, also put the fan on all night, and......we had a brilliant night! So thank you for the advice!

DS went down at 7.30, woke at 10.30pm and 2.30am for milk and then up for the day at 6am. Didn't hear a peep in between! He did sleep in our bed but who cares, he slept

I've now got to work out what black magic was at play last night and do it all again tonight.

Hope you've all had better nights too.

I agree sleeper, our batch of children function differently where sleep is concerned!

Nights are improving with 8pm bedtime - wake ups are now usually somewhere between 6.30-7.15 which I can happily deal with. She can go upto 10 hours before her first feed at night (usually going 6 hours though) so I want to start night weaning slowly as solid intake is improving but am going to wait for the weather to cool down as I'm conscious she may be thirsty when she wakes up at night.

Poos are still all over the place though, really hoping it settles soon as she gets so uncomfortable.