Exhausted by seriously early mornings

[Emmagee]

Help, am at wits end. Our daughter 2 and a half, had taken to waking at 5, regularly and that's it, she rarely goes back to sleep and won't stay in her room. We bought the bunny alarm clock but although she understands the concept will not actually stay put until he 'wakes up'. In addition, because of light evenings, although bedtime routine starts at 7-7.30 she isn't asleep until 9, so she's not really getting enough sleep and is fairly grumpy by 9am. The icing on the cake is that our second baby is due in three weeks so even more broken nights are coming. 'Controlled crying' isn't going to work as she can't be forced to stay in her room and I am getting really bored of being 'fierce' so early in the morning. All advice gratefully received!!

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Couple of suggestions Emmagee as we've been having this problem too. Get yourself a seriously effective blackout blind. We have found this helps alot as you can say that it is still night time at 5am as the room is so dark. Also how about putting a portable stairgate accross her doorway, so that she can't escape.
A friend of mine has used a reward system with her little boy and early mornings. Like you she bought a very simple clock and she explained that if her son remained in his room until 7am then he would get a gold star/treat for breakfast/go somewhere special etc. I know that not everyone approves of rewards but it may be worth a try.
How about really wearing her out one afternoon, big long walk - 2yr olds can walk for miles - and a play at the park so that she is really tired and goes to bed earlier. Sometimes toddlers sleep worse when they are not getting enough sleep (if that makes sense) and I wouldn't have thought that 9pm until 5am (which is only 8 hours)was enough for her on a regular basis. So maybe by really exhausting her one afternoon you could break the pattern.
Hope some of this helps. 5am really makes it such a long day!

Our water/central heating clicks on at 5 am and makes one hell of a racket - could something like that be waking her up?

Is she waking up because she's hungry or thirsty? I sometimes find that if our son hasn't eaten very much the evening before then he wakes up earlier. Before you go to bed could you put a biscuit and some juice in her room so maybe she'll snack on those and perhaps drift off to sleep again. Or alternatively, if she has her dinner early, could you give her a weetabix or breakfast cereal before she goes to bed to make sure she is 'topped up' and less likely to wake up early through hunger.

Emmagee, do I sympathise. Our son (aged 22 months) went to sleep at 9pm last night and was awake again, thirsty and vocal, at 5.30am. I lost my temper with him in the end which meant we all went to bed tearful and cross. It's definitely the light evenings/early sunshine for him I think so we will be getting blackout blinds as Bugsy suggested. But the thought of sleep-training him is hanging over me. At least I'm not heavily pregnant as well. I'm so sorry and hope you manage to sort something out.

Emmagee, oh yes, been there. 5.00 am is a truly horrible hour to have to start your day. May, June and July are the worst months, I find, for early wakings up. All that tempting sun peeping through the curtains. I've grown to accept that my sons will wake up with the dawn chorus every now and again, as I do, but what you seem to be witnessing is a developing habit. Not good, is it?

I've always tried to make the bedroom as dark as possible - I second Bugsey's black out curtain suggestion. Also think where you put the cot or bed. Not too near, or in view of the window. And possibly try this together with the bore-them-back-to-sleep-tactic, by taking too-interesting toys out of the bedroom, and tiding other toys away.

I've definitely found that tiring them out works wonders. A good long stint in the park, late afternoon should do it. At least the long light evenings give more tiring out possibilities.

As a last resort, I find that taking my early waking toddler downstairs and letting him play quietly with his cars for 40 minutes can do the trick. I just lay on the sofa, keeping a bleary eye on him with minimum interaction or stimulation - easy to do at that time in the morning. After a while I say 'bed time now' firmly carry him upstairs and go through a mini bedtime routine (nappy, drink etc) finishing with the set lullaby. Then leave him in his room, usually a bit of grumbing and crying, then zonk. About a 70% success rate with this! so worth keeping up my sleeve for one-offs.

Hope it gets better for you.

Another sympathetic mumsnet member here. I've just got my daughter (aged 1) to sleep through the night with just one night's controlled crying (which I thought was pretty good) and then this week, my son has taken to waking up at 6.00 am really lively and ready to play. We let him come in our bed but he doesn't go back to sleep - so the other morning I let him go downstairs and watch TV on his own for an hour. It's hardly ideal. Can anyone tell me where you can get the black out blinds from? they sound like a possible solution. I can't say I like the idea of 'locking' him in the room...also I've got to consider the fact that his screams would waken up his sister, who shares a room and then all hell would break loose....

You can buy black-out blinds at John Lewis, I think.

Most major department stores will sell blackout blinds, in fact Homebase do them too. However the hanging of them is very important as you need to ensure that the material covers all of the window with no opportunities for light escaping anywhere. I resorted to making my own in the end as we have awkward windows and it really wasn't too difficult. I am no seamstress, just followed the instructions in the book. Only had to sew in straight lines.

Wow, what a response, thankyou! I have thought about blackout blinds but there's a skylight outside her room and so as soon as she's out, she knows it's light really. I have both the Ferber and Green books and have used them both over the years, I do however find the door/rope thing a bit alarming!

I will try earlier bedtime, but at the moment she seems to fill the hours from 7 to 9 with demands to change her nappy, go to the loo etc etc, at first we treated these quite firmly saying that it was naughty to keep coming out of her room, but that rather conflicts with us trying to get her out of nappies at night - she has to be able to get up and go to the loo after all, we do!

We've just started 'star charts' to encourage more poohs in potty, rather than nappy so will see how succesful that is and if she grasps the concept then we could apply it to mornings....I have faith that it's 'just a stage' but...I'll keep you posted

I heard a very alarming story about a mother shutting the door, putting a dressing gown cord round the handle and attaching the other end to the airing cupboard door handle. It doesnt bear thinking about if there was a fire .....

Ems, that is the basis of christopher green's method...

Rozzy, I don't think you're a tyrant but I know I couldn't do it. When she first started sleeping in a bed she did wander alot and we put a stairgate across the landing outside her bedroom - partly for safety - so it's not that I'm against boundaries, just that I think that you shouldn't 'imprison' them in their room (and I never used a cot for that either), it should be a safe place, not somewhere they are going to resent going into. With regard to the potty, she does wear nappies at night but has taken to saving up poohs (see MANY other threads on this!) and only doing them in the nappy, so we are trying to encourage her to use the potty/loo whenever she wants to go.

Today was better, she woke at 6! Also we will see about more sleep, her nanny had her out all day and she didn't have her nap, so was asleep by 7.30 so we'll see what time she wakes.... But I know I'm not ready for her to give up her nap, she was hysterical by 6 (and I don't mean funny!) and I cannot imagine that combining well with the early evening gripes of a newborn!

I'm well aware of that Rozzy, I am talking about a particular mother who kept it on all night and then opened it when it was morning.

I'm with Ems and Emmagee on this one. I find Christopher Green just too keen on controlling children! Our house is my children's home as well, and I couldn't imagine trying to train them by imprisoning them in their room, even if it's only temporary.

Hi, I've read the thread but it doesn't seem to apply to me. I wonder if anyone has any useful hints on the same subject with regard a baby of seven months.

We did the controlled crying thing which worked pretty quickly but we now have the situation where he always wakes around five and will only settle back down after a lengthy feed.

He eats well throughout the day, has a bedtime routine of bath, story, breastmilk and is asleep in his cot by 7.30. He has two 15-20 minute sleeps in the day and is on the go the remainder of the time. By bedtime he is always in need of sleep.

Am I being over optimistic in thinking I can possibly lengthen his time asleep? I am returning to work soon and the thought of a 5 am start everyday is horrid!

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Bloss, thanks for the post. To answer your question he normally goes back to sleep again but this can take anything from twenty minutes to 1hr+. This morning I was feeding him for 1hr 15 mins and he didn't go back to sleep! But mostly he does. I think we will try the cc because as you describe it, it sure sounds worth it.

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Bloss, thanks for the words of encouragement! Two days in to the cc and I feel like the worst, most selfish parent in the world (!) but I know it will be worth it. Having done the cc at bedtimes our lives have been made much easier and the morning thing is an absolute necessity (as you know)... I'll let you know how we get on. Best wishes

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Winnie, sorry to sound pessimistic, but your little one sounds just like our 2nd.. From the age of 3 months, she woke up at 5:10 precisely. Very, very occasionaly she went through til 5:30. She also only had 2 very short naps during the day, but liked to go to bed early. Unfortunately, she woke every 2 hours from about 11:00. We did try everything, including cc, but she was able to scream for 3 hours at a stretch, for a week at a time, so eventually we just gave up in the interests of retaining our sanity (and that of our older child). She eventually dropped the 5:00am start at about 12 months (when she started walking) but the bad sleeping went on til she was 2.5, and she still regularly wakes up. On the plus side, she is a very bright, if difficult, child who knows her own mind and is very strong willed. The main problem I found with the sleeping is that it does make them irritable (as well as yourself). She is much happier when she has had a full nights sleep (and so are we). We do find now that she needs 11 hours sleep a night (she is 3.5), so goes to bed about 7:30 & wakes 6:30ish. Hope the other methods work out for you, but if they don't just take a deep breath & keep telling yourself it doesn't last forever.

I know I keep wittering on about this, but are those of you with children waking early using blackout blinds. We have had such success with this. Our little boy was regularly waking at 5am and not going back to sleep but by eliminating all the light in his room (and I really do mean all - not even a chink coming through) we have solved the problem. It took him a few days after we put up the blind to break the habit i.e. he woke at 5 and moaned and mumbled for a good half an hour the first couple of days, but now he is regularly sleeping though to 7am.
The room really does have to be extremely dark though. We had blackout blinds up before the breakthrough but they were not effective enough - too much light was creeping around them. The room would now pass a World War II "warden check".
I really do believe that some children are very sensitive to light. Possibly they are light sleepers anyway and when they rise to a light period of sleep, as is very common at 5am, if they open their eyes and see light, they find it impossible to go back to sleep. Even some adults find it difficult to sleep late in the summer because of light entering the room early!