DS1 waking up at 4.45am. So tired :-(

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DS1 is waking up earlier and earlier every day and the lack of sleep is destroying us. He wakes a couple of times in the night because he loses his dummy so I go in and give him it and he falls asleep. He then wakes up 5am and recently it's been 4.45am!

He has his dinner at 5.30 followed by desert at around 6pm and milk before bed at 7pm. The trouble is he won't have his milk anymore and only has 1-2 ounces most nights. We've tried to give it at 7.30pm on some nights but he can get too tired. He's in a gro-bag and has a bath to wind down. During the day he naps 2-2.5 hours but we don't let him nap past 3.30pm.

I return to work next week and I'm panicking about how I'll manage with the lack of sleep. Sometimes he will have his dummy and lie quietly other times he will cry so he wakes up DS5 too who is also exhausted. Any advice on how we can get him to sleep later?

P.s. Not sure if it's completely hunger because when he does wake up we give him milk at about 7am (refuse to give any earlier in the hope he doesn't get into the habit of earlier waking) and he only has 4 ounces but wolfs down his breakfast

How dark is his room when he wakes? Have you got proper black out blinds? They make such a difference.

DS was waking at 5 most days. We cut his daytime nap to one hour and he has reliably slept until 7 for a month now. Bliss.

How old is he?

Could you try him having dinner a little earlier so that he is hungry enough for his milk at 7pm?

After following advice on here, I've managed to push my DS's wake up time to around 6-6.30am, which might seem early for some but suits us for work. I did this by pushing his first nap a little later and then allowing his afternoon nap to be a bit later too. If he wakes from his afternoon nap at about 4.30pm this means he is ready for bed around 7.30-8pm.

My DS is almost 8 months though and still can't manage 4 hours between late nap and bedtime

Have you tried treating the waking as a night feed? Keep the room dark, no talking, milk and then back down. It used to work sometimes with DS, not every time but it was worth it when it did.

Hi. He's about to turn 1.

We haven't got blackout blinds but I do think I'll get some

We've tried giving dinner earlier but he's been off his milk for months now so it hasn't made a difference.

Will try reduce his nap to 1 hour today because we can't carry on like this! The only problem then is he's so tired and can't eat

My dog wakes up at between three and four every night and we are sure it's because it's getting light then and so she's all 'hooray! It's morning!'

My children have black out linings on their curtains and black out blinds too. Try a Dunelm if you have one nearby. They are cheap and have loads of sizes.

Black blinds are essential. Try a blanket or towels S a short term solution to see the difference. They really do associate say light with waking up.

He's about to turn 1

How are your son's fine motor skills? Things like:

• using the pincer grip
• picking up small objects
• moving items from one hand to the other
• turning objects around (like turning a spoon around if given the wrong way around)
• putting objects down (as opposed to just letting go and dropping things)
• building simple towers with 3 or 4 blocks on top of each other

The reason i ask is:

He wakes a couple of times in the night because he loses his dummy so I go in and give him it

The ability to do his own dummy comes with the development of fine motor skills. My children were 7-8 months when this happened, but children develop at different rates.

I would suggest that your son should be able to do this himself though. So the question becomes, why isn't he?

The two most obvious answers would be:

■ He can't find the dummy.

Being able to put dummy in is not the same as being willing to search for a lost dummy in the middle of the night. Find ways to make grabbing hold of the dummy easy:

• sew a ribbon into the sleeping bag with a press stud at the end
• dummy saver toys, where you attach a dummy to the keys of a toy
• knot the dummy to the corner of a muslin square
• scatter millions of dummies around the cot

■ He's calling you because he wants your reassurance, the dummy is just an excuse to get you to come to him

If he can find his dummy and can put it in himself, then for a million possible reasons, he is shouting you because he wants your comfort and reassurance. This would suggest he's feeling insecure in the night so the most successful techniques will be those to help him feel more secure, safe and comforted in the middle of the night.

What hapiens happens when he goes to sleep? This may be affecting matters.

Not even 1?? You are expecting way too much! He's just a baby!

Sleep makes sleep at this age! He's having two naps? He should be. Move his later nap back. Move his bedtime back accordingly. 15 minutes a week if you need to.

Give him the night time feed. You say you don't want to give him a habit of waking but he already has that habit. A belly full of warm milk and a bounce back to sleep should do it. I put my girls (11 months) in a bouncer next to my bed and after I feed them just stick my foot of of bed and sleepily bounce them back to sleep in the dark. Of course they still wake at night sometimes! But they go back to sleep until 8am.

The dummy is a classic error. They sound like a good idea but I don't know any parent who hasn't had this problem with them. The BABY is half asleep and just knows his comfort is gone.

Please ignore the above about his motor skills etc. He's half asleep! I can't find my mobile to put the torch on when I'm half asleep, why would your tiny baby be able to find his dummy and put it back in? He calls for help. That's what babies do! There's nothing wrong with him. Either lose the dummy or accept that you'll be doing dummy fetching for some time.

DO NOT put a bunch of stuff in his crib - ESPECIALLY strangulation hazards like string. That is dangerous and stupid advice.

Hi, his motor skills are in line with his age. He has a sleepytot teddy with dummies on it and is half asleep so can't find it when he loses it. During the day he's fine and gets it himself.

So tonight we've hung up black sheets on the window to block out all light so will see what happens

Until he gets better (through whatever means you/he chooses), the way to cope is to go to bed when he does at least a couple of times a week. Yes there are things that need doing in the evenings but ruthless prioritisation is required.

Tin foil on the window panes makes a great temporary black out, just to test the theory for a few nights. Light will still come though the sheets, I would imagine.

Since he has a sleepytot, there is absolutely no read on he should need you for his dummy at this age. I would place get that if it wasn't the dummy, he would find another reason to call you. Sounds like for whatever reason, he needs the reassurance of your presence and knowing you are there when he wakes.

I would give him milk, treat it as a night waking and do whatever it took to get him back to sleep. He's only very little still.

I wouldn't reduce his day sleep either, they need sleep in the day at that age. I think it's a bit cruel reducing his nap to one hour and making him so tired he can't eat his dinner.

Ok so we have a breakthrough! We covered the windows last night with a black sheet and blocked out all the light. DS slept til 6.30am and woke up happier than he's ever been! He lay there giggling and squealing when he woke up and was so happy all morning. The broken sleep must have been hard on him

Glad it worked. But a black out blind you can stick to window or blackout linings you hang to the curtains (or on their own on a wire close to the window!)