Waking at 5am. Please help.

[Kayzr]

DS2 is 7mo and sort of sleeping through. He normally goes to bed with us at 10pm because he is still in our room.

He wakes at 5am every morning. One of us me usually gets up with him where he tends to ignore a bottle or some food in favour of playing with his toys.

Is there anyway of getting him to sleep to half 6 maybe even 7?

Thanks.

Have you tried a blackout blind? It could be the sun coming up waking him.

Yeah we have blackout curtains. I can't sleep without them.

10pm is quite late to go to bed, have you tried putting him to bed earlier? Sounds mad but it might have an impact.

Only way I got my ds to sleep more during the night is by cutting down his daytime naps by 1/2 and then putting to bed at 7.

Wake him again just before you go to bed for BF or bottle. I think I just did 2 hours during the day which was hell at 1st but after 3 days he made it to 6.30. (although he is still a bit rubbish sometimes like when we have not done enough during the day!)

He doesn't nap during the day. He has 30 minutes if I am lucky. Whenever we put him to bed earlier he wakes at 10 when we go to bed and then normally wakes about half 4 instead of 5.

Will give it another go but not holding out much hope.

A 7mth old should not be going to bed at 10pm with no naps during the day. He is so overtired. You need to be consistent with a routine. It really does work.

I also have a 7mth old DS. He goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps until between 6 and 7am. He then has 1.5-2 hour nap in the morning and a 2 hour nap at approx 1pm. Although restricting, I would rather put up with this and get a full nights sleep. I think good naps during the day are crucial to a good nights sleep. He has slept through every night from 14 weeks!

Kayzr, you might like to read this old thread, as it sounded interesting to me when we were having trouble with DS waking early, though I don't think we had to try the 'wake to sleep' technique in the end.

Naps vary from child to child - I think it IS helpful if they get sleep in the day as then they are not overtired at night, so can wind down easier. I never managed to get DS to nap easily (still can't, he fights it) but taking him out in the buggy worked for me, after a short while pushing him round (or hanging round the chiller section in local supermarket, buzz of freezers seemed to do the trick). At 7mo I think he had about 1 hour morning, and 1 hour in afternoon, and I think we got him to bed around 7.30 or 8. I also found with daytime naps that his first 20-30 mins were sound sleep, then there came a point when he would wake up if disturbed - if it was quiet, or continuous noise (eg radio) he'd then sleep on for another half hour. Perhaps the short naps are being interrupted at that point? Also DS woke at around 10pm when we went to bed, but as I was bf that's when I gave him a feed. He dropped that feed nearer 12mo I think (hazy on details now...). He didn't sleep through until nearer 18mo as he regularly woke around 2 or 3pm for feed too, purely out of habit - I should have just sent DH to settle him but it seemed just as easy to feed him .

We also got the 'No Cry Sleep Solution' book, you could see if you have it in local library or get 2nd hand copy off eBay... Good luck!