Support and Chat thread for moms of early waking toddlers

[debo620]

Thanks Emma,
today so far,

Noah woke at 5:30am, in crib til 6:30
refused to sleep at 10:30
bed at 11:40----but he is jumping around and crying, so this is usally a sign of a not so good nap. I doubt very much that it will last even 1.5hrs---so thats our dilemma.

[Layla]

Lisa - sorry I haven't replied sooner. How are things going?

I haven't tried W2S because although she is fairly consistent with wake ups it is never the exact same time for a long period, she might do say 3 days at 4am and then change to 4.15 or something.  Do you think that matters?

Usually w2s is for habitual waking so around the same time... you could try to stir her around 3am to see if she will go beyond 4ish. I haven't really done w2s properly... that is 3 consecutive mornings in a row but it seems to work for some so might be worth a try

When she has woken at night I haven't fed her, I have gone in and comforted her and most times ended up staying in with her, which tbh I think might have made it worse because I think now she is crying out to see where I am and might be thinking she needs me in there now to sleep!!  Hope not.  She did wake again last night and we did a bit more like wi/wo I think (though I need to read exactly how to do that properly I think).  It still took her a long time to go off to sleep but at least I wasn't in the room the whole time.

I would probably continue with wi/wo rather than staying with her (as long as she doesn't have severe SA or is ill or something) cause that teaches her to get herself back to sleep when she wakes at night!

I think it may be that she DOES only need 10 hours at night as she has only slept 11 hours about twice in her life and 12 hrs once only!!!  DD1 used to sleep 13 hrs when she was a baby - what bliss!  Anyway, I could live with it if putting her to bed a bit later made an impact but because the 7pm bedtime didn't help she just got by on 9 hours instead, I didn't think I should carry on with that.  What do you think?

If you would have put her to bed at 6pm consistently and then do 7pm just to see if she will sleep in, then more than likely she woulnd't sleep in & wake up at the same time or maybe even earlier. I think if you are going to try a later bedtime you probably need to have her afternoon nap end a little later as well so that she is not awake for too long before bedtime. You could certainly try 15-20mins later bedtime every 4 days or so to see if she will wake later. Move the mealtimes as well...

Should I wake her after 45 mins (seen some of the other posts) and then try for another nap 3 hrs later?

You could try shortening her morning nap to see if she will sleep in.... its hard to say though cause if she's already waking up so early, I can't imagine you wanting to wake her up from naps! If it were me, I would try for a week to shorten the morning nap to see if it made a difference

Pitkin - yeah, our nights did go down as well at around that age. They were no more than 11hrs... more like 10.5-11hrs & 1.5hr nap. I also pushed the morning nap to 12pm. Good to hear on the later wake up.... I would probably try it for a few more days to see what happens 

Aleesa - how's the 45min morning nap going?

Deb - I also had to push from 5.30am to 12pm & yes, she was a little cranky but just make sure the last hour before nap is pretty low key & because a few days later she was sleeping till 6am again it was ok... To be honest I wouldn't do any more catnaps in the morning. I don't think its necessary...  . Maybe you could just do consistent morning nap at 11.30-1.30pm with 7pm bedtime & then push the nap out to 11:45 & then 12pm. Maybe every 3-4 days so he doesn't get really overtired

Clare - yay again to the sleep training & great to hear on the 12hr nights!!!

Us - well everything was going really well with no naps for all week last week. 12hr nights & occasionally 11.5 as my wonderful neighbour wakes her up when he goes to work. Then on saturday my DH took her out for a drive to his parents house... she didn't sleep all the way there but fell asleep on the way back home at 1.30pm. When they got home it was 2pm & I woke her up to protect bedtime. Put her down at 7pm, she fell asleep straight away but woke up at 5am . She started calling out for me & I went to her to tell her its still night time, everyone is sleep & she needs to wait until mummy is done sleeping! The poor girl tried really hard to stay quiet... and at 6am I got her out. Thankfully & miraculously she didn't wake her sister up with all the singing she was doing for that hour & Jasmine got up at 6.30am . But I was very WTH about her waking so early.... this girl really confuses me when she naps! I hate it when she naps & I hate it when she doesn't. So back to no naps this week to allow her body to make up for the sleep at night

[Aly Mac]

Hi Layla - how confusing with your lo....who would have thought sleep would be so tiresome! for us!!

L has had 3 days of 45min AM nap and still only 1hr PM nap,,,but am going to keep at it.  I'm sticking to your suggested times and 4hrs after A time for bed. do you think i need to change the pm nap?  she is tired at this time and she's not fussing at either nap time - goes down easily.  i figure I'll just keep doing it to see what happens.  she has been waking around 5.50 for me, (cept this morning where she woke at 4.30 as she had a crap nap yesterday and she's getting OT by bedtime.) so not too bad, but I can see she is tired in the afternoon with so little day sleep.

thanks for enquiring, and if you have any other thoughts for me, (or anyone else for that matter) I'm all ears!!!

[LisaM]

Layla - thanks for coming back to me again.

Will consider W2S although have to say when she does wake in the night, it hardly ever makes any difference to wake up time.  I mean you would expect that she would sleep in later because lost a couple of hours but she normally will still wake around the same time!

When we did the later bedtimes most days her pm naps were later because I was really trying ahrd to get her to go back off in the mornings because she'd only had 9 hrs sleep at night.  It worked the first few days after her milk but then she stopped going back off.  Anyway, part of the problem of getting to a later bedtime now is that she is really fighting the pm naps again.  Anytime after 1.30pm she will not want to go to sleep and will probably only have about 30 mins.  Its so frustrating and confusing.  How does she know that its 2pm not 1pm, if the amount of A time is the same I don't know how she seems to know its later in the day!??  Also, somedays if she has slept say til 2.30 I still go for 6pm bedtime instead of 4 hrs to 6.30pm because I figure she must always be OT so perhaps best to get more sleep at the beginning of the night cos if she goes bed at 6.30pm she will still wake as early as ever!

We have still been getting NW's.  Last night was almost identical to Friday night which was she woke at 2.30am and stayed awake til 4ish.  She only slept another hours til 5am today so she only had about 9hrs total sleep again.  I hate it so much, I really want to try and do the best for her but we just don't seem to ever make any progress at all, infact things are worse now because at least she used to sleep from 6-4ish so got 10 hrs most nights with no breaks in between.  I hope its cos shes teething that she is waking I will be glad when her teeth come through so I can see if thats whats been bothering her, she definitely has 2 bottom molars on their way and is troubled by them in the daytime too.

You are right about never wanting to wake the poor soul from a nap....I almost did it on Friday morning because was thinking would have a real problem for the pm one but I went in and she looked so content asleep I left her, she only slept about another 10 mins after that anyway.

Anyway, sorry for all the moaning....unfortunately due to lack of sleep etc it has beome a bit of an obsession for me, its pretty much taken over my life!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that over Xmas we will start trying to phase out the bottle, I know she always woke at that time before but of course that has now probably made it worse so better work on that.

thanks again - I hope your lo gets back to normal nights sleep asap.

[Layla]

Lisa - moan all you want. Thats what we are here for!!! Teething might have alot to do with it... the night wakings, that is. Could you try some meds? Jasmine was too waking up earlier than usual and we had some night wakings around that age because she was teething like crazy... molars & eye teeth are the worst!

It could also be that she is getting ready for the 2-1 swtich, & it would make sense that that she fighting her afternoon nap. I would probably keep at shortening the morning nap to 45mins (still try to keep it to 8.30-9am) so that she is more ready for the afternoon nap.

Massive hugs to you. I can't even begin to imagine waking up that early.... I know you've had this going on for a long time. I really hope we can help you sort something out!!!

[Pitkin2]

Hi

Well last night it was in bed at 7pm and this morning wake- up was 6.05 am so much better.

Deb - how old is your LO?  Max is 20 months almost so can hold out until 12 now.

But as Layla said we do quiet things from 11 - have lunch then before today's sleep I took him up to my room and read him a story for 5 mins before sleep.  He still moaned a bit when he was in cot but went off in a minute.

Emma

PS No-one tells you it gets harder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[debo620]

well yesterday:
woke 5:30
nap 11:55-1:30---woke on his own
bed at 6:30---asleep by 7

I actually heard him awake briefly a few times in the night, kicking his crib etc. but he woke this morning at 6am.
 
Stacy, I think you know me to well. It must be all these months of helping me with Noah' sleep. f course I am driving myself nuts, but I always have...I do think he is happy after a 2hr nap but he is not so happy after a 10hr night to be honest. So I guess we sort of go back and forth trying to fugure out what combination is better for him. I am not expecting 13hrs, but I think 12.5 would really be great. I don't want him up before 6

so I figure
sleep 7:30-6
nap 11:45-1:45

or sleep 7-6
nap 11:45/12-1:30

now just to get there!

If he has a 2hr nap today, I am going to try for asleep by 7:30, with an extra long windown and quiet time reading books before bed.

[binxyboo]

I hate 6 o' clock in the morning 

Why oh why is he starting this now???

Whine over 

[debo620]

LOL Stacy---asleep aside---I need you! I want to make back ribs but I can't remember how you do it. anyway, posted on another thread too, just trying to get your attention LOL!

[Pitkin2]

Hi

My LO was back to 5.30 am wake up this am!

So far, it's this every other day - which is bit better but still hard.

I need some light at the end of this tunnel - do nights extend as day sleep shortens??   Am I aiming to cut to a hour day sleep by 2 years old?

Emma

[Layla]

Emma, I don't think you are looking to cut to 1hr. We only cut to 1hr 3 months ago! I would give it about a week & see what happens.

[Pitkin2]

Hi

Ok - I've been reading other post on solving early wake-ups.

I may try and push nap time back slightly by 15-20 mins and see what happens.  I can then extend bedtime by the same.   He's got lots of energy in the morning and when I put him down at 12 sometimes he doesn't seem tired.

Emma

[LisaM]

Yesterday was not good as Grace did not take her 2nd nap for the first time ever.  She was happy babbling away for ages and in the end was in her cot for just over an hour but I had to get her up as I needed to pick up dd1 from preschool so couldn't leave her to try any longer.  Anyway, when I went up she had had a poo so I am hoping thats why she couldn't sleep and not that she is gonna start never sleeping in the afternoons anymore.  It meant that she had been up since 9.30am - I put her to bed at 5.30pm and although we heard her moan a few times in the night she slept til about 3.30 (her 10 hrs!) and we gave her a bottle at 3.50 (I know I am not supposed to do this but she was getting to the point of crying and of course she expects it now!) and she then went back off until 6.10!!! That for her is a miracle she normally only has a very short amount of sleep if she ever goes back off at all so I guess not having the nap made her want a bit extra. 

Would be great if she did that everyday as 6am to us is just heaven!

[Aly Mac]

well the ew have stopped but that's only because of the nw!! ugh!!  I know it's only teething though and just have to ride it out. I'm still sticking to the *plan* and is going well. the last 2days I have gotten 1.5hr pm nap.  both were a little later than planned as it took her a while to settle, but think that's because of getting up a little later.

good sleep in vibes for everyone!

[rinajack]

YAY Aly.  We are heading off for a week from the morning, and will no doubt be back to super early wakes AND NW when we return - nothing like a trip away to create two OT babies LOL (Although Hugh handles OT remarkably well, and Zara not at all )