4 month old gets up at 5am

[RLRapunzel]

Ugh I think this is karma for the inner smugness I felt at DD1 having never woken up for the day before 8am

DD2 wakes up for the day at 5am; wide awake bright eyed and bushytailed doing this horrible shrieky shout thing she does until I get her up (not crying just shouting). She feeds between 3 and 4am so I know she isn't hungry. The room is jet black at all times. During the day she won't nap for any longer than 30 minutes then she goes to bed at 6pm at nighttime. She doesn't feed between 6pm and 3/4am. She sleeps in a cot next to my bed; bringing her into my bed doesnt work because she's just wide awake and won't go back to sleep. Cosleeping is something I am against for myself anyway so I won't do that.

In theory this would be fine; I'd just go to bed early and sleep when she does. However, I have DD1 who hasn't long moved into her toddler bed and refuses to sleep until 11pm, sometimes later, because she runs around the room and plays instead of sleeping. DD1 has always been a night owl and a late riser; she went through a long period of not getting up for the day until 10am. Again, this would be fine except now I have the combination of an early riser and a night owl.

DD1 hasn't napped for months (she's 2) and DD2 takes about three or four 30 minute cat naps throughout the day. At the minute I'm coping because DHs furloughed so I'm getting a nap most days. However, when he goes back to work he will be doing 9am - 9pm 5 days a week and I'm really worried how I'm going to cope with so little sleep and an active toddler and nap resistant baby.

Is there anyway I can get DD2 to sleep in later than 5am? OR get DD1 to stop **ing about in the room all night and actually go to sleep?

4 month sleep regression, you just have to ride it out. Id say your real issue is DD1 not going to bed until so late. I would work on a routine that gets her settled, maybe change things up a bit and wake her at 5am if needs be to reset her clock a bit

I’d say 5am with a long stretch of sleep from 6pm is pretty good for a 4 month old.
I’d probably advise doing something about getting your 2 year old to sleep much earlier 11pm is too late. My 2 year old goes to bed at 6:45 and my 7 year old at 8.

DD1 goes to bed at 7pm everyday but she just doesn't stay in bed. When she was in a cot she would sit in her cot and play for hours too so I really don't know how to make her sleep?

I agree that DD2 is sleeping 11 hours so she’s doing really well. It could be worth shifting her bedtime back gradually and seeing if she starts to sleep a little later, until maybe 6am or so. But I do think early starts are just part of having a baby, and you need to have realistic expectations about how long she will actually sleep overnight. She’s getting 13 hours in 24 which is normal and might well be enough sleep for her. That’s what my DD tends to average so I set her bedtime at 7.30pm with this in mind.

With your older DD, have you tried waking her up in the morning? She is spending a lot of her time in bed (or in her room at least). How many hours is she generally getting a night? I would work back from there. So if she’s getting 10 hours, for example, and you want her to go to bed at 8pm, you would put her to bed, and then no matter what she does overnight you get her up at 6am. That way she isn’t making up for the late nights by sleeping in in the mornings. It’s a form of sleep restriction which you can google.

Could you put your 2yo back in a cot? 2 is young to be in a bed and it's quite reasonable to keep her in a cot for a year or more.

If DD2 is in the cot that was DD2's cot, I'd consider buying a second cot because the overlap of using two cots could be significant. Maybe buy a cot bed so it can be converted when you eventually need two toddler beds?

Regarding your youngest - a 6pm bedtime will indeed give you a ballpark wake up time of 5am. 11h overnight sleep would be average, with 10h to 12h all being in the range of normal. So indeed a 6pm bedtime could give you a 4am wake up and that be perfectly appropriate given the bedtime.

So your answer is a later bedtime for baby. I used to aim for an 8.30pm bedtime in order to aim for a 7.30am wake up (in the range of 6.30-8.30am).

I'd add in extra daytime naps to allow for a later bedtime.

Dc1 needs to just be left in her bedroom after 7. Stop battling with her to sleep in her bed. Make the room safe and boring (gate on the door, one book, one teddy), then just put her in her bed and close the door. She will go to sleep when she is ready.

DD1 climbed out of her cot that's why she's in a bed so I can't really put her back into it

Im happy to push bedtime back to push wake time forward but DD2 gets very grouchy at 6 because she's so tired. I've tried to get her to take decent naps during the day but everything I've tried has ultimately failed; she always wakes after 30 minutes max and will kick off if I try to get her to settle again. At 6pm I put her in her cot with her dummy and she goes straight to sleep and doesn't stir at all until midnight, but if I put her in her cot in the day she will cry.

'Dc1 needs to just beleftin her bedroom after 7. Stop battling with her to sleep in her bed. Make the room safe and boring (gate on the door, one book, one teddy), then just put her in her bed and close the door. She will go to sleep when she is ready.'

Thats exactly what I do apart from she does have more toys in her room but that's because I don't physically have anywhere else to store them. I've put as many as possible up high and filled her cot to the brim with toys to try and stop her playing all night but she still has access to a handful of them. I don't go back into her room at all after 7 and she still plays until 11pm

She always gets into bed and goes to sleep when she's had enough without any intervention from me but that just happens to be ridiculously late

Oh and also I forgot to mention i got DD1 up at 7am today so I'm hoping she will go to sleep at bedtime. She's already asking me if she can go to bed

How was last night with DD1?

You haven’t said how many hours’ sleep she usually gets - I think that would help with your question here.