Can I just leave him to scream, because I can’t take any more?

[feesh]

Early morning wakings have been killing us for 3 or 4 months now.

He’s 12 months old and goes to bed at 7pm ish. Our day starts at 6am.

But he always, always wakes up between 4am and 5.30am and it’s killing me. Because I have to get up at 6 anyway, the last thing I want to be doing at 4.30 is spending an hour trying to get him back to sleep again. It’s been going on for months and I’m exhausted. He’s not hungry (won’t breastfeed) - he’s just awake.

I’m on my own this week and tried switching him to one nap in the day instead of two. But it anything it’s made it worse - he woke up at 3.30am yesterday and it took me an hour to get him back off and then another hour of me lying there awake and then he woke up for the day anyway at 5.30.

Now he’s been awake since 4.30am today and I brought him in bed with me to avoid spending an hour stood over the cot, but he’s been a total nightmare thrashing around and chatting and neither of us have slept.

If he does it tomorrow I just want to leave him, because nothing I do will make him sleep, but he will scream and scream and scream and it will escalate.

His room is pitch black by the way. We live in the Middle East and the sun isn’t even near coming up at 5am.

I’m at the end of my rope.

If he's just moving about and chatting, ignore him. Don't go near him.

I didn't and I had one of these. I remember looking at the clock at 4.17am more than once. It sent me spare. I would not blame you if you did but I couldn't sleep if she was screaming anyway. I did nap every time she napped though.

Can you get any help?

I do feel for you my 2nd child always woke at 4,30 am and it is really exhausting!

At 10 he now still wakes at 5.30...but is very quiet!

What l used to do was to keep a night light on, and put a couple of safe toys in his bed for him to play with when he woke up...it would keep him happy for another 45 mins.

Later, l used to keep a small tv in his room , stagger in when he woke put on CBeebies, and leave for a snooze.

The only practical way to cope, is to live as though 4,30 am is the start of your day and go to bed early instead, l used to find this was fine....l used to go to bed by 9.30 pm.

Dropping the nap probably will not help.

Yes of course you can leave him to scream, my mum used to put me in the pram and at the bottom of the garden! We joke about it being child abuse now but I turned out ok!

I saw this great gadget on amazon. It's a clock for toddlers. It's by the gro company and called the sleep trainer. It's a clock that changes colour when it's the right time to get up. Then baby will know if it's bed time or play time as it counts down. Maybe worth a try, especially as you are using a black out Blind, they maybe getting confused about when it's day and night.

Perhaps you could use it in conjunction with a rewards system, get a chart in the kitchen with stickers for when they sleep through. Put some toys in the cot to keep them entertained whilst waiting to get up.

Good luck xx

put him to bed at 20.30!

All of my kids have done this, and to a great or lesser degree gone to a 7am start.

Is the baby used to always being settled for sleeps every time he wakes? If not I'd consider some form of sleep training that suits you both. Not that it would fix the morning problem, but it would teach him not to just scream when he wakes up.

With mine, we used to leave them to chatter away, play (without extra toys), mildly cry. If they started screaming we would mostly go in and tell us them it wasn't time to wake up and go back to sleep. (Never worked, but didn't want to just leave them screaming!)

Our feeling was that if we got into the habit of going in to them and getting them up all the time then we only reinforced the habit. It mostly lasted about 6 months for each one. For DC2 we actually put a travel cot up downstairs, (small house) and he slept in that so we couldn't hear the constant chatter. We had a baby monitor set so we could hear if he as crying, but set that we didn't have to hear every little thing.

These things might work for you, but the more I go on in life I realise every parent is different and every child is different.

Good luck OP!

Thanks guys. I do go to bed early, but even that is pissing me off as I want my evenings back.

He cries as soon as he wakes. He will NOT tolerate being left in his cot (unlike his older siblings who were always absolutely fine when they woke up).

I feed him to sleep at bedtime, but sometimes he doesn’t fall asleep and will go down awake, but that’s very rare and anyway usually results in me having to go back in his room and settle him at some point in the next 30 minutes.

He goes down for naps with a few bum pats.

My husband is actually quite good at getting him back off to sleep with patient bum pats, but it can take an hour in the early hours of the morning and I do NOT have the patience or the stamina.

I think I’ll contact a sleep consultant today. I can’t do this any more, I’m broken.

If you are desperate for him to sleep later in the morning, he needs a later bedtime.

Babies can sleep on average 10-12 hours a night. If yours sleeps 10 hours then he should be going to sleep at 8pm for a 6am wake up.

Most parents either get time to themselves in the evening or a later wake-up in the morning. You can’t have it both ways.

And please don’t leave him to scream. I know it’s hard (believe me) but he’s just a baby and can’t help it.

Lol at later bedtime. Does not work. If they are early risers they are early risers and there’s not a lot you can do about it. My 7 year old get up at 5am every day regardless. Doesn’t matter what time she goes to bed. My 2 year old is exactly the same. Tried a week of 9pm bedtime for her she was still up at 5am everyday. Just have to get on with it really

I’d be happy with 5am. Honestly when he first wakes up, if the time starts with a ‘5’ I am happy.

leave him.

sometimes you just have to accept it and get up. hope that as baby gets older it will gradually increase. maybe he has just had enough sleep. I have twins with autism and they never go past 4.30am. this is in conjunction with it taking 4 hours to go to sleep, waking almost hourly through the night because of various issues and no naps in the day. its difficult but ive actually found it easier once we accepted it. it sounds like u r spending an hour trying to get him back to sleep by which time u have to get up anyway?

I know some people are dismissive of later bedtimes but it worked with my two. But yes the downside is of course less evening. Sleep deprivation is really hard. Hope it gets better soon.

If your husband is good with him, then take turns. He does one morning, you do the next.
I don;t support leaving to cry at all, and this seems like an obvious way to take the pressure off you.

And leaving him to scream is hardly conducive to you sleeping more, or your other kids

Just let him scream for a bit. 5 minutes - then if he's still at it, go in.

Does he have a dummy?

Id try a combo of a later bedtime for him and leaving him to 'scream'.... dont leave him for an hour though as he might hurt himself! Do leave it for about 30 mins to see if he will self settle...
I did this with my son when he moved into his own room and he did very quickly realise that we only would come and get him up if the sun was up.
Would go in and check that his nappy was okay/if he needed a drink if he cried but would then just give him a kiss and tuck him in and leave him again and not go in again unless it was morning (or there was a few hours gap in the crying so might mean he was thirsty or needed changing again)
Would spend more time with him if hed been woken by something like a storm and was scared of course... but if he were just trying to get up early then no id tell him it was night time and leave him.
It only took a couple of weeks for him to get the message and only cry if he actually needed something rather than expect to get up.
And that was at about 8 months.

Later bedtimes made both of mine worse, but it is worth a try if you haven’t tried it.

Have you tried offering a bottle of water?

I have a DD the same age. We've been through phases like this. The key for us has been consistency. I consistently changed nappy, feed, then back to bed.

Even if it doesn't work, do the same every day.

I have to say though, I've got friends who would give anything for their baby to sleep as long as 7-4:30!

At that age I didn't worry about early bedtimes because they don't have school the next morning. Could you try making bedtime 8.30? You'd still get a decent evening and hopefully he won't wake before 6 am then? Our babies always had late bedtimes until they started nursery for this reason (and still got their recommended sleep amount).

Make bedtime later so he will sleep in later, or keep bedtime early and deal with him waking up early. What has more impact on your life- early waking or a shorter period of time to yourself in the evening?

Later bedtimes didn't work with DD.

I think any suggestions should always have the subtitle this will not work on every child. Too many people think they've found The Answer. Nope, it's the answer for your child. Or they just hit the age they were going to sleep though anyway.

Can I recommend thesleeplady / Linda russell

Used her and she was great. It could be reflux bothering him at that time. She will also support you in teaching him to self settle.