Help! 5am wake ups!

[chanashleigh]

Morning everyone,

I am a bit of a stress ball at the moment and I need some advice please! I am not sure if I am in the right thread but I was not sure where to write to be honest. My DD is 9.5 months old and for the last 3 weeks she has been waking up 5:30am or earlier. The last 3 mornings its been 5am or a bit before and I am banging my head against a brick wall!

I would love to talk to some people who have had this and got through it...please tell me there is light at the end of the tunnel!

These early morning wake ups are making easy hard for me and then she is back in bed by 6pm and its like a viscious (sorry for bad spelling) cycle.

I have tried patting her, sitting with her, even giving her a bottle and see if she will go back to sleep. I can see she is still so tired but no she just wants to play but gets tired quite quickly. It makes it hard because she dropped her catnap allooonnggg time ago and trying to get her to do that is hard. ANyway if I do give her a catnap and she goes to bed at 7pm, she still seems to wake up early! FYI she sleeps great through the night, last night I did not have to get up to her at all and its never more than twice. This is how her routine looks at the moment...

Awake: 5:00am
Bottle: 5:30am
Solids: 6:15ish (have been having some trouble with this the past week...I think she is too tired and does seem interested)
Bed: 7:30ish (Sometimes 8 as she fights a little I think due to being a bit overtired but sleeps 1.5 hrs)

Wake 9:00am
Bottle: 9:30am
Solids: 10:30ish (this is supposed to be lunch for goodness sake!)
Bed: 12:00 - 1:00pm (its taking me a long time to get her to sleep lately so sometimes awake for up to 4 hours and very overtired. Have tried putting her to sleep after 2:45 mins but still not luck. She will sleep anywhere from 30 mins - 1.5 hours depending on overtiredness)

Wake: 2ish
Dinner: 4:15ish
Bottle: 5:15ish
Bed:5:30-6pm

I am really not sure what to do. I would be happy to try something different but I am not sure what. Is it possible that its habit waking up this early? I thought I might try W2S and see what happens. I certainly don't think I could be much worse off to be honest. I think that I am going to have to give her bottle as soon as she wakes up because by the time solids comes around I think she is over it and tired. Not sure about this? Things are really all over the place. I posted the other day about that but at the moment I would really like to see if I can do anything about the early wake up.

Last night DD was asleep at 6:45pm. I know this is late but things were on in the arvo etc etc. She woke up once between this time and 5am. So it does not seem to matter what time she is going to bed...I also thought she might be waking out of hunger but this morning after 45 minutes I thought I had better feed her otherwise routine will be more out of wack. She does not wake crying just talking.

Any ideas Mums? Thanks in advance, I would love to hear your suggestions or stories....

[vadensmommy]

I realize my dd is younger than yours, but we have battled early wake ups at times ourselves.  If you don't go get her and feed her in the morning what happens?  I know for ourselves, if dd wakes early and is content - I don't do anything.  And there have been many mornings where she will talk herself back to sleep for a while longer which is always great.  Doesn't necessarily mean that I will go back to sleep too (I'm usually too awake listening to her babble), but I do at least get a little longer to bum around in the bed and rest.  And if we've had a long streak of early wake ups and she starts to go back to sleep - within a week or less she'll be sleeping through that early wake up. 

There is a support thread for moms of early risers:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=104138.0

OK so I just went in and looked at the support thread and it is empty - maybe you can start something

I hope that helps.  It can be SO frustrating when you end up having a late night, and you know that you'll be up early the next morning.  Good luck and I hope you get some answers and some sleep!!

[chanashleigh]

Thanks for listening! DD just talks and babbles if I don't go in there, she rarely crys. After about 30-40 minutes she will start to grizzle as I suppose she is getting hungry. I have certainly tried to help her drift back off because she still yawns and looks tired. Especially this morning, she woke just before 5am, I ended getting her just after 5:30 and putting her in my bed to have her bottle and she drank it with her eyes closed haha. But not too longer after she just wants to get up and play. Everything is pretty good as far as the rest of her routine goes but instead being a 7am-7pm day its a 5am-5pm day. I really don't like it! I would really love to get back to even 6am...they were the good old days......

[momtonb&ab]

Hey there!

I know my twins are a lot younger then your DD (they are six 1/2 months) but my little guy was doing the 5 am wake, and it sounds a lot like you and vadensmommy describe.  After a lot of reading (both BW and BW Solves all your problems) and poking around online I discovered two things.   If I let him talk (like vadensmommy describes) and don't get up and feed him, he will go back to sleep for a little while. Now, I am usually awake for the day by the end of it so I wasn't satisfied that I had to live with that.   I started reading more, and discovered that I was putting him to bed too late (almost 8pm) and he was overtired (also obvious in his nap patterns and general behaviour).  So, I decided to try to resolve the overtiredness by cutting out all activities/adventures out of the house for a week (I hated doing that, because getting out is my salvation, but it was more important to have a happy baby and a rested mommy and babies).  We focused on ferverent EASY, really stuck to a schedule rather than just a structured routine.  By the end of the week, not only was he back to being a happy rested and sweet little boy, but he resolved the 5 am wake up on his own.  It slowly got shorter, and then, after 4 or 5 days of consistently not going to him unless he cried (which he didn't), he just started sleeping until 7 again.   So far, we've been sleeping 7pm to 7am for 3 weeks now and all seems well.   With overtired resolved, we went back to our structured routine and slowly reintroduced our daily excursions/outings, but now with a lot more respect for what a missed nap and consequent overtired may mean.

I have to say that I also thought he was hungry when he started doing the 5 am wake again, and I fed him, but it turns out that even his seemingly 'hungry' sounds weren't really hunger at that time of day, more a ploy to get my attention .... I did up his late-day calories for a few days just to be sure, but he didn't really need it once we resolved overtired.

Good luck, overtired is a hard cycle to resolve, but if you can do it, you will eventually get to 6to6 or 7to7

Cheers. 
.cb.

[chanashleigh]

thanks momtonb&ab, I will certainly watch out for that. I really tried today and I think she was a bit overtired tonight as she was awake for just over 4 hours but I don't think she was too bad. She rarely crys and handles it pretty well but I am going to give that a go and see if it improves at all. I really don't know what else to try!

Its hard because if I leave her too long in her cot and she does not fall back asleep (she never does) then my routine gets a little off track because of giving her her bottle much later and after a good break she is not really interested in her breakfast as she is getting too tired. If you LO's were on solids how did you handle the early mornings? If she has her bottle at 5:30, even 5:45 it seems too early to give her cereal before 7am if you know what I mean!!!

Thanks again

[vadensmommy]

I know exactly what you mean about working out solids and bottles. 
DD was up at 5:15 this am - yikes, and I think its a combination of teething and OT.  DD DEFINITELY wakes earlier when OT.  She too is a happy baby and A times that are too long doesn't seem to affect her mood - but then these early wakings crop up which makes Mommy OT! 

At her age her A times are probably 3hrs or more correct?  So that should theoretically give you plenty of time to work in a bottle and solids even if you wait an hour after she wakes to give her a bottle.  Many babies take a bottle and do solids an hour after bottle.  My dd needs longer to digest, and we do closer to two hours between bottle and solids.  But with a 3hr A time, it actually works better for us NOT to feed her bottle immediately after waking -helps her sleep better for her naps because she is fuller. 

I would try leaving her until she actually makes the "MOMMY, I NEED YOU!" type cries, and see if she can work it out herself.  Many mornings dd will talk to herself for 30-45min before falling back to sleep.  With you going into her when she isn't calling for you, you may be enforcing this early A time - woohoo, mommy heard me talking and came to PLAY, must be time to get up because mommy is here!!

I do my best to have a very firm first E - I try not to feed dd before 6:30am, no matter what time she wakes up and no matter how long she has been awake.  If she seems ravenous, I will feed her, but often she won't take it.  This morning I gave in and went ahead and fed her in hopes of her going back to sleep after some Motrin for the teething.  No luck, AND she didn't eat nearly as well as she usually does because she wasn't that hungry yet. 

Hope some of this helps, and good luck to you!!

[chanashleigh]

My DD was up at 5:15am too, she slept well and its about 15-20 mins later than the last 3 mornings. I am trying really hard with not getting her overtired and it has been pretty good today and yesterday so fingers crossed, thanks to you both for the suggestion!

Her A time in the morning is only 2.5 hours, I can't get too much more at the moment as she becomes quite overtired and hard to settle so I am working with this time for now. She sleeps for 1.15 mins or 1.5 hrs which is good. Her next A time seems to be 3 - 3.5 hours. Yesterday it was 3, today it was 3 1/4 and she has been asleep for an hour so she is having some good sleeps which is great. Just means early bed time unfortunately but hey I guess thats what happens with the early wake ups.

I do agree about trying to leave her but the mornings I go to work is hard, I have to travel 40 mins where her baby sitter (MIL) is and it just would not work if she never went back to sleep. Would be overdue for bed by the time we got there... Plus she gets excited when she gets there and they never put her to bed at the right time as much as I try to tell them! (Very frustrating).  Sometimes if I am late she falls asleep in the car and then they get her all excited when I get there instead of putting her straigt to bed!  If this is working for us though I will make it very clear what I am trying to do they should work with me! Anyway I will just see what happens.

I fed her this morning at 5:45am but gave her 2 ounces less and then tried breakfast almost an later and she did ok. I might try not feeding her before 6am no matter what time she wakes up and see what happens. I just don't want her to eat breakfast when she is starting to get tired because she just pushes it away.

she just woke up....damn! Very early bed time!

[momtonb&ab]

Hey again!

I agree with vadensmommy that going in before it is a truly I NEED YOU MOMMY cry can sometimes make it worse because they are just rested enough to think maybe it is play time.  I avoid going in at all costs after 4 am unless absolutely necessary, and now 95% of the time he eventually goes back to sleep.

As to the solids/milk, because I have twins I only do meal times as solids/milk together, there just isn't enough time to separate them, and because i started that way, they seem to eat well.   So our day for eating looks like this:

7:45 am cereal/fruit
8:00 am milk (6 oz)
11:45 am veggies
12:00 pm milk (6oz)
3:45 pm veggies & 1 fruit
4:00 pm milk (6oz)
6:45-7pm milk (7-8 oz)

Hope this helps you a bit.  It is a lot easier when solids and milk are done together, and our pediatrician doesn't see any contraindications for doing it this way.   I never ever do an early morning feed of just milk, always only cereal and milk at 7:45 am.   

.cb.

[vadensmommy]

I also understand about going to work and trying to solve these early am wake ups.  My plan is to always be ready (minus clothing - if I get dressed it ensures she will puke up her entire bottle just to see if I have another clean and wrinkle free set of clothes (and bra and underwear too typically) ready for work) before she wakes for the morning.  Too many mornings she is crying before my alarm ever goes off, or wakes up happy, but starts to get fussy and crying while I am in the shower and there is shampoo in my hair!!

So far, setting a really firm first E time of the day has helped us.  If nothing else, it has helped my sanity in not feeling rushed to get to dd to get a bottle in her.  She is old enough that waiting a little bit to get her food is not going to kill her.  There will come a day very soon where there will be no bottles, and she will have to wait more than 10min after waking to eat a real breakfast.  So I would still say even on days where you work that I would leave her to babble to herself, and only go to her if she is really crying.  If she is happy and needs the extra sleep - she'll go back to sleep.  If not, then maybe she will catnap on the way to grandma's house once she's been fed and buckled in, and even if she doesn't go straight back to sleep when she gets there, maybe she's gotten what she needs. 

Also, I hate to say it, but you may just have a morning person on your hands!    Sorry 
If dd went to bed at the right time (6:30-7ish) and wakes at 5:30, she rarely wakes happy.  She is almost always grumpy and  fussing, and I then KNOW that she didn't get enough rest, but she isn't probably going to go back to sleep either.  But then like this morning she woke at 6:45 and just coooed and played, I knew she had gotten her rest.  So with your dd being happy that early, makes me thing she may just be an early riser.  But for your sake I hope not.

[Layla]

Hi there... I am sorry I don't have time to read all the posts but I read your 1st one so here are my thoughts...

Jasmine went through a spell of waking up between 5-5.30am & I must say I was ripping my hair out by week 2 of these ridiculously early wake ups & was at a total loss!!!

My 1st suggestion to you would be TO NOT ADJUST HER MORNING NAP TO HER WAKE UP TIME. Soooo hard ..... I know to keep them up but by putting her down early for the morning nap, readjusting her meal times, afternoon nap & bedtime its all reinforcing the 5am wake ups cause like you said she's now on a 5-5 schedule rather than 7-7. I would keep the earlier bedtime until this is all sorted (so 5.30pm) so that she can get a full night's rest & should be easier to push in the morning. At her age, she "should" be able to do 3hrs A time so I would start by keeping her up until AT LEAST 8am. Ideally you want the morning nap to be at 9am & I can understand that 4hrs A time seems almost impossible right now but it is... & you just have to be really careful & do it in small increments. Start by adding 10-15mins to her moring A time... take her out of the house if you have to. Provide her with LOTS of stimulation & once you are closer to nap time do a super long windown cause she will no doubt be really tired. Extend her A time by doing a longer windown routine.... so rather than keeping her awake for 2.75hrs & 15mins for windown, keep her up for 2.5hrs & do 30mins windown.... or at least really quiet things down before she is down for a nap. So for the 1st few days do morning nap 7:45am & then 8am, then 8:15/8:30/8:45 until you are finally at 9am. I didn't have the patience to add anything less than 30mins & there were a few weeks when Jasmine was awake from 5.30am until 9am (until her morning wake up time re-adjusted).... but i would say its better to do it slowly to avoid her getting totally pooped & fight sleep altogether.

Because she will be overtired in the morning, you might have to put her down for her pm nap at 3hrs & bedtime about 3.5hrs from the pm nap ended. If the pm nap is short then do an earlier bedtime.

This is what I did & within about 2 weeks she started waking up b/n 6-6.30am.

Let me know if you have any q's
Layla

[catonss]

Can I jump in here too?  B/c we have a similar situation w/ our 9.5 month old.  Maybe it's an age thing? 

First, if you have a habitual early morning wake up, TRY WAKE TO SLEEP!!!  I have been SO hoping for a habitual wakeup (we've had this before, did wake to sleep, and it resolved it)...but these last few weeks for us have been VERY random.  Sometimes waking and not going back to sleep around 5 or so...sometimes more like 4 am and awake for an hour, then back to sleep for another hour...sometimes, like last night waking b/t 3-4.  And sometimes sleeping though - you just never know!  And naps are just as random. 

I would agree with those who've said try to keep the first E time consistent...and try to not go to them until they are really starting to give a good cry (usually she just babbles for the first long while, and cries closer to 6:30, which is when i try to hold off to feed her).  I was going in far to much i realized, and her cry is far less desperate in general now that i've taken myself out of the picture.  PLUS, i'm able to sort through things better, as to why she's crying, when i take "does she wonder if i'm going to help her?" out of the equation.  And I have NEVER been able to help her go back to sleep, in spite of trying.  With my first dd i was able to - i think this one is more spirited - when she's awake, she's awake (especially after a short nap, forget trying to get her back)....w/ early mornings, she's likely to go back if it's b/f 5:30, but not w/ my help - she only ever has when i've left her completely alone.

Layla, i'm interested in what you said about trying to keep the first naptime consistent (you've helped me sort through things so much w/ my 2 year old, maybe you can help with this one too!  You're a gift!)  I don't know if i've heard this advice from others...and yet, looking back, i guess that's what i did with my first dd - more than i am with this one anyway.  I remember having pretty set naptimes (and she struggled less, but was also more of an angel/textbook baby - so i had that advantage).  With this one, I've been going more on the length of A time as to when to put her down.  A few months back, i heard a good rule of thumb is 2 hrs A b/f 1st nap, 3 b/f 2nd nap, and 4 b/f night.  THis worked for a while, but i'm starting to wonder if 2 hrs isn't enough A time b/f 1st nap anymore.  She still gets tired at that time, and i've tried stretching it w/out much luck.  but i'm sure she can do it, i just need to stick w/ it.  Just so hard when she's in an overtired state half the time!  And "funny" thing is, i've been continuing to put her down early to avoid ot - but she's still messed up and overtired from bad naps.  maybe what i'm so hoping to avoid is what i'm causing (b/c her naps are getting messed up) - and she really needs to stay awake longer??  (make sense?)

So i guess i'm wondering too about if it's better to stick to an actual schedule in spite of awake times, or length of naps...or is it better to have nap times begin according to when the last sleep period ended......??  Probably a little of both....but again, maybe i have been too flexible in my routine, and maybe she needs some better set times to get her rhythm going.  Eat times are more set - I try to stick to the 7, 11, 4, 7 (although we're usually a half hour earlier).....

thanks!  Let's keep talking here about this.....

[vadensmommy]

That really is interesting information about setting the first nap time.  I am going to have to keep this in mind especially when early wake ups rear their ugly heads again.  So glad you ladies are out there with all this fabulous information, and I'm not even the one that start this post

[Layla]

Hey Sarah.... had NO idea you had another dd (I must have missed it in one of your posts). I just assumed that your avatar is of your 2.5yo

Whenever "fixing" REALLY early wake ups, I always look at the timing of the morning nap. If its at 7am then thats not really a morning nap imo & the body learns to wake up earlier since the day is shifted. You can teach the body to be hungry & tired at set times of the day & if you've consistently been putting your dd down for a nap 2hrs after the wake up time then she's going to be "tired" although thats not to say it is the "best" time to put her down. I could fall asleep iin the morning or in late evening but that nap is not going to be as restorative to me as if I were to take it in the middle of the day (of course if you are sleep deprived or a mum with a newborn you should get the chance to sleep any old time you get )

At 9 months she should be able to last 3 hrs in the morning... can you tell me what her days have been like in the last couple of days?

[chanashleigh]

Hi ladies, thanks so much for all your thoughts and thanks Layla I agree its very interesting about setting the first nap time and it makes sense about teaching the body to be hungry and tired at set times of the day. I must admit that I had similar thoughts to you catonoss about putting DD to sleep based on her A time and avoiding the overtiredness. Last week I was putting her down @ 7:30am after a 5am wake up and I agree thats jsut ridiculous for a morning nap time. The last 2 mornings she slept to 5:45am and I fed her within 15, 20 mins because of getting ready for work but this morning she woke @ 4:50am and I just left her. I really don't think she went back to sleep but neither did I and I did not have to go and into her until 6am which is when she started her "I am hungry Mum" cry! I do agree that she "should" be able to stay awake longer so I am going do as you suggested Layla and make her morning nap at least 8am and try to increment every few days to get that set time to 9am. This morning was a bit of a mess as she struggled a bit and was asleep by 7:55am which is what I am trying to get to, so much for the increment ! Her windown was long though, I made sure it was quite time and playing....I am not sure if I am as patient either to use 15 min increments but from what I understand about what you said that her little body will just get used to it?

I am not sure how to go about the set meal/bottle times in the morning??? I think I would like it to be 6:30am as this works well for me when I have to go to work which is 3 days out of 7 at the moment. But maybe this won't work once she can start sleeping a little longer in the morning? Is it a bad thing to say no earlier than 6:30am but if she were to wake @ 6 or even 6:15 then she would be having her bottle almost after she wakes? Do you understand what I mean? I know I don't eat breakfast the same time every morning it really depends on when I wake up! I would love to know anyones thoughts on this?

 

[chanashleigh]

Hello again....today has been ok but I have a feeling that I let DD sleep too long in the morning, she slept 1.5 hours. Should I be waking her at 1hr even though I am trying extend her A time (and she is a little overtired). The pm nap was short, she was awake for about 3 1/4  hrs but it was a little struggle to get her to sleep so I think I was a bit late and should have put her to bed earlier. She only slept for 45 mins and could not get her back to sleep so she was awake @ 1.30pm (and not as super happy as she can be either!)...so I guess in bed no later than 5pm...god that seems early and I just know that means another early wake up but I will stick with it so I can push her morning A time. I know you said put her to bed even earlier if she has a short pm nap but 4:30pm.....