5 week old super early morning wake time

[Barefootmomma09]

I'm not sure what is going on. My LO has started waking at 4-4:30 in the morning and wont really go back to sleep until 6:30-7. He will sometimes go to sleep during that time for 15-30 minutes, but it's rough, squirmy sleep. Then he will finally fall into a deep sleep, and would sleep for 4-6 hours straight if I let him. I always have to wake him from that first nap and work hard to keep him away so I can nurse him and get his day sorted out. Typical day looks like this:

4:00 - wake - I leave him swaddled, nurse and shh/pat trying to get him to stay asleep.
6:30 - deep sleep
8:30 - wake - I wake him usually after 2 hours
9:30 - start nap routine
9:50 - sleep
12:00 - wake - I wake him again because he gets into a super deep sleep
1:00 - start nap routine
1:20 - sleep
3:30 - wake - I'm usually the one that wakes him, sometimes he wakes on his own
4:30 - start nap routine
4:50 - sleep
6:00 - wake - I feed him, then immediately start our bed routine
7:00 - sleep for the night - sometimes he will stay asleep until waking to feed at midnight or 1am, other times he sleep for 20-30 minutes and then is up fighting sleep for an hour or two before finally sleeping.

Help! What is going on with his nights? Days are pretty easy, he falls and stays asleep pretty easily. Nights are a totally different beast. I don't think he can handle a longer A time, which is what my first thought was with the super early mornings.

[Martini~]

He probably is mixing his day and night Honey. If I am correct he is getting 7h+ sleep a day and this is a lot. I would work towards establishing a routine with a bit longer A and shorter sleep. At 5-6weeks his A may go towards 1:15 or 1:20 and he should be getting roughly 3x1:45=5:15 plus one catnap 40min so max 6h of sleep. It means more than an hour less than now. Do it gradually.

What I would do:
- I would wake him at 7am
- work towards awake time 1:15 but gradually
- wake for feeds at 3h mark from previous feeds so 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm
- when he goes to sleep at around 5:00-5:15pm wake him after around 45min try to have a short A and than around 6:15/30 start a bedtime routine and feed around 7pm so he may settle to sleep

Would it be possible for you?

Try also making his room light during my day, maybe resign from swaddle for last nap of the day but in the contrary make great conditions in the early morning- dark room, good swaddle, feed him if needed.

[Barefootmomma09]

His A times are usually between 1:15 and 1:20. So his naps should be less than 2 hours? For some reason I remember reading that as long as they weren't longer than 3 hours it wouldn't affect his night.

If he wakes at 4 and wont go back to sleep does that count as the start of his day? Or do I wake him back up at 7 no matter when he goes back to sleep?

[Martini~]

There are different things which affect night sleep but in general total overall sleep is important and also total A during 24h is important. If you count 8:30am as your start of the day and put him down at 7pm - your day is 10.5h and you have only 4x A times so 3x1:20 and 1x1:00. Secondly Tracy's advice and mine also would be to wake him for feed every 3h during day. It naturally makes them eat more calories during day but also it makes naps shorter so overall sleep is going down very slowly when your baby is ready. 2h nap is fine in terms of sample nap length. But if every nap is so long - sometimes it's overall too much for a baby.

Sleep needs are changing in first weeks very quickly. Usually during first 3 weeks babies are sleeping 24/7 literally if they can:). After 2-3 weeks, they usually start to need some little A times either to have a good nap or to sleep nicely at night. You are going nicely for A and have no problems with naps, but he is probably trying to say to you - a bit more mummy:).

What I would do is to wake him around 7 am, no matter how much he slept before. Try to make his first A the same length as next ones so 1:15 - but you may start from much shorter one and push him to 1:15-1:20. If you work in 3h cycles and keep 1:15-1:20 A, his maximum nap length is 1:40-1:45. If one nap is shorter (like my DS from 3wo was doing 45min as a first nap), the next one is totally ok to be a longer one. Other way round is to push his BT to 8:30 rather than 7pm so it would mean that 7pm is not his final night routine but another catnap and put him down for a night later. If I am correct sometimes you have this problem with him that he is refusing BT when it is at 7pm. However I would rather go into 7-7 routine as this is much more natural for babies as it works with cyrcadian rhytm.