EWs - 30 minutes earlier every day

[smother]

Please help!! DS has been an early riser for about a month now and my attempts to fix it all seem to make it worse. We are up at 4:15 today!!! I first started posting in the nap board for early naps and was adviced to increase his A times. I have done that but the naps are only a good length about 50% of the time. However, I can deal with that much more than these early wakings

He is 1 week shy of 8 months now and does 3hr A times to 3hr 10 minutes. His S times vary widely from 40 mins to 2hr+ but I would say 1hr 15 mins is pretty average. I am hoping for 1.5 hrs - 2hrs but increasing his A time does not increase his S time and only makes him overtired.

A week ago I was upset by 5:30 - 6 A times and started trying to fix it but my attemps have backfired. I have tried keeping him awake later by giving him a CN but that only makes him sleep less and then is OT the entire next day. Most recently I have tried following the FAQs on EW (#9) where it says to do a 12 hour day and then you will get a 12 hour night and can slowly shift it to the right 12 hours. This has worked to get him out of his OT stage which I think he was in for almost a month. However, I was doing 12.5 hour days because he seemed to need between 11 and 12 hours so I was hoping not to mke his mornings earlier. We had a few bad days - mostly starting with bad naps that led to an extra nap and a 13-14 hr day. This resulted in our SUPER early mornings. We are going on vacation in a week where we go to a 1 hr earlier time zone and are staying with relatives. I'm sure they won't appreciate a 3 am wake up!! Please help.

Tues   
A: 5:50 – 8:50         
S: 8:50-9:55      
A: 9:55 – 1         
S: 1– 2:30         
A: 2:30 – 6         

Wed   
A: 5:50 – 9         
S: 9-9:55 (woke because of delivery truck and dog barking)         
A: 9:55 – 12:55         
S: 12:55 – 2:15         
A: 2:15 – 4:45         
S: 4:45 - 6

Thurs
A: 5:10 - 8:15
S: 8:15 - 9:30
A: 9:30 - 12:40
S: 12:40 - 3:30 (with a 25 minute awake time towards the beginning where we moved him from the car to crib)
A: 3:30-6:45

Fri
A: 4:45 - 7:45
S: 7:45 - 8:25 (it seems like after 10 hrs at night, a 3 hr A time is too much)
A: 8:25 - 10:40
S: 10:40 - 11:50
A: 11:50 - 1:55
S: 1:55 - 3:10
A: 3:10 - 5:20

Sat
A: 4:15 - ...

I think I need to go back to the CN and later bedtime and then hopefully after a few days of consistently doing this he will wake up later. And if I do this and he gets less than 11 hrs of sleep I will probably not be able to do 3hr A times. Thoughts?!?!

[clazzat]

What have you tried to get him back to sleep at the EWs?  It is one time when it is worth going down the AP route to ensure that he does go back to sleep - as you have discovered, once you start with the EWs and early bedtimes then it can become a cycle that it is difficult to get out of.

[Jiinx]

lo just woke up but wanted to mark my spot to come back...

Does he still take a catnapat 8 months?

[smother]

I have tried bringing him to our bed to get him to sleep in later and that generally works for about an hour. I haven't done it in at least a week because I was warned that he may keep waking early to come to our bed (which at this point sounds a lot better than just getting up). I have tried shh/pat and rocking too but no luck with those. He isn't crying so I don't think PU/PD will do much good.

And no, he doesn't usually take a CN anymore but I have tried giving him one so that he will stay awake later at night. I haven't had much luck with that and it usually makes him wake up even earlier.

A couple developments today - his first tooth came through! And I have been putting him down when he is obviously tired (very fussy and putting his head on the ground) and he has had 2 great naps and is on his 3rd. His first nap was 1hr 50mins and the 2nd one was 1hr 20mins. Could he be going through a growth spurt or something?

[clazzat]

It could be a growth spurt, and he could be exhausted from teething.  I know that my dd2 always woke early with teething, so it's possible that he has been going through that and has had a good catch up sleep today.

If he continues EWing, then it might be worth thinking about getting a mattress to go on the floor in his room - that way you can keep him company (or snuggle with him to get him back to sleep if you are really exhausted), but he won't be getting the 'reward' of coming into mummy and daddy's bed, iyswim?  I think it is quite important to be clear that he is not allowed to get up at 5 though - if he is allowed to start playing that early then it will be worth waking up for, but if waking early just gets him a long time awake in the dark then it won't be so much fun for him.

[babybarr]

FWIW with my DS who was always (and is actually) a bad napper, at around 8mth we went to fairly fixed nap times and this really helped. Obviously you probably want to get him a bit more on track first but wanted to throw that out there. 

[smother]

Thanks All!! We had a little better morning - he woke at 4:45 (which is better than 4:15 and I was able to get him back to sleep. It took a while to get him back to sleep but it gave me some hope for future mornings.

[clazzat]

I think getting him back to sleep is key - they get into the habit of waking at a certain time, so the later you can make that the better!

[Jiinx]

for my lo it's so hard to get her back to bed. Mind you, I put her down at 6:30 and she wakes around 5:30..so I think for her it's more of a start of the day for her.

How'd it go? any luck with the naps and having the bedtime pushed forward?

for us, it was suggested to have set nap times as well. We're risking major OT ..but it's the only way to get our days to stretch forward. Of course..it's hard to stretch a day when it starts at 4:15! gawsh, that is so hard. If you've got 5:30 it's a little easier.

Please keep us posted!

[smother]

We're getting better every day Today he started to stir at 4:30 and I went in there and rested my hand on his back (he sleeps on his tummy most of the time now) and kept his hand away from his paci so he wouldn't start playing with it and really wake up. He continued to stir on and off until 5:30 but never really woke up until then. I just laid on the floor in his room in between his stirring - I never really got back to sleep myself but that's OK because once we fix this we will all be sleeping soundly much later. I am going to continue this for a few days and am very hopeful! I guess I am doing something like HTTJ. Hopefully I will be writing in a few days to say that he is sleeping soundly until 6 or 7.

[babybarr]

Fingers crossed!