6 month old wants the day to start at 4am

[jumpyjan]

DS is 6 months - nearly 7 and on 3 meals a day plus 3 bottles. We have just managed to get him off the dream feed by settling him back to sleep without a feed but he is waking at 4am and won't go back to sleep. We bring him into our bed for a bit then give him a bottle but he will rarely drop off to sleep and as a result is shattered by about 8.30/9.00.

Its a real pain as he will then be fast asleep in his cot mid morning when we want to get out and about.

Is there anything we can do to make him sleep longer?

if he started the waking at 4am when you dropped the dream feed, then just start it back up again - see if it makes a difference?

katechristie - sorry I did not make it very clear but he woke at about this time when he was having a dream feed aswell so this has not affected things. I have been giving him a feed at 4/5 ish for a long time now but was thinking that now he is on 3 meals a day he should be sleeping in for a bit longer. I seem to remember DD would sleep until 7ish at this point.

oh, that's no good then! sorry. How about his day naps? you say he's napping early as a result of the early waking, but does he nap well the rest of the day as well? could he be having too much sleep in the day? (altho I know this can work in reverse as well, not enough can disrupt their sleep, but if he's going a long stretch I doubt he's not getting enough). does he wake the same time from his early nap? how many naps does he have in total? - just wondering if you could do something like start waking him up a bit earlier each day from his first nap, see if you can shunt the other one(s) up a bit?

One thing I've read about on here, but don't really know about in detail that others have tried with this kind of problem is to actually wake them up just before they would wake (sounds mad to me) then resettle them and this is somehow supposed to help them then sleep through the next stage. It's called something like wake to sleep I think - but lots more people on here know about it so if it sounds like something you'd be prepared to try I'm sure you could get some good advice, or have a quick look in the archives.

katechristie - thanks for the message. Funnily enough (fingers crossed) it does seem to be sorting itself out over the last couple of days without us doing anything. He woke at 6 yesterday and 6.30 this morning so really pleased. I can handle 6 oclock and dont mind getting up then its just 4/5 that is a bit too early for me!

oh brill, lucky you, long may it continue. DS was dreadful sleeper, would wake every hour or so, and DD is a bit similar, she wakes 10pm-ish and 1am-ish, but the hell is she also wants to get up betweem 5-6am, frequent night waking or early riser, but please, not both!!!