4 am everyday

[Petramama]

Hello!

I am the mother of a beautiful son named Anthony. He is almost 10 months old and since he was only 3 months he has been able to fall asleep on his own and has been on a good routine.

He used to have a pacifier but i took it away at 7 months since it was doing more damage than any helping or soothing.

He always fall asleep after a little bit of fussing and sometimes crying but nothing crazy, but if for some reason he would get upset due to phases, teething or sickness I would always go in and calm him down by either patting his back or sing and rarely i would pick up and put down (re flux baby) and then leave and he would fall asleep.

He has been on solids since 4 months old so i believe he is eating well.

Our schedule looks like this:

6 am - wake and 210 ml formula

7.30 - breakfast 1.5 dl baby porridge

9 - sleep 1 to 1 and a half hour

10.30 - wake up

11 - solids (homemade) a big bowl + water + 2/3 corn puffs (takes around 15/20 min)

12.30 - 90 grams fruit puré  (this is given a bit after lunch because of his re flux he cant eat it directly after his lunch)

1/1.30 - sleep for 1 to 1 and a half hour

2.30/3 - wake up 210 ml formula

5.30 - dinner 1.5 dl porridge

6 - bath and getting ready for bed

6.30 sleep!

And then it starts wake up crying at 9 but falls back to sleep when i turn him to the side.

Wakes at 11 but falls back to sleep when i turn him to the side.

Wakes at 1.45 the same. And this is how it has been since i can remember.

And then we have the 4 am wake up which consists of pooping so have to change diaper, of course in silence and darkens and then put back to bed and here he starts crying and quiets when i calm him down but as soon as i step away from his bed he starts crying and crying and this is go we keep it up until 6 am and that's when I take him out of bed and start the day.

You can imagine how tired he is because he has been up since for but i dint change the schedule more than 30 min because this is not a pattern I want him to follow and then adapt the schedule for a 4 am wake up.

For a few days he started sleeping from 6.30/6.45 all the way to 4 am then wake up and he would do that bec i would stay up until 11 pm and turn him to the side whenever he would start moving and put his blanket back on so i would be there before anything annoyed him but that cant be a solution.

I'm exhausted, I cant do anything social because he wont fall back to sleep with anyone but me so my mom cant babysit so me and my husband can go out and my almost 3 year old is waking up because her brother is screaming (playing, talking, crying) so she is grumpy and tired. I even tried giving him another bottle at 6.30 pm before putting to sleep to eliminate him being hungry but it didn't make a difference and he has now started waking up 3 or 4 times again after sleeping 10h without waking. Please help, do i need to change schedule? Activity consists of going to the grocery store, playtime, visits, going on walks, playing with his sister, well anything! What am i doing wrong?

Sorry for the Long post but i wanted to be as detailed as possible so that maybe u can see something i cant.

Thank you in advance!

[creations]

Hi there
I feel for you having those 4am WUs!

Two things come to mind:
1. At this age LOs can handle a longer A time, if your routine stays on a planned 3 hr A time (6am to 9am) then he is likely to continue to wake early as he could be naturally extending his own A time by waking early and not settling back to sleep.
To change this you can plan a different routine where you shift the entire day, moving all meal times and naps to move the day on resulting in almost the same routine but with everything 2 hrs later ie:
WU 6 (not 4)
nap 11am - 12.30pm (yes 11am, this is 2hr later than the 9am you currently put him down but the same length A time)
nap 3.30pm - 5pm
BT 8.30pm

This means the same length night sleep, same length naps and basically the same A times.  You would need to work out where the milk and solids meals and snacks come to fit around the nap times for example a good snack (with milk or water) around 10.30 before the 11am nap and then lunch at 12.30 hen he wakes from nap.

If you decide to shift the routine like this then you can write down the end routine similar to that above including all your E times, and then write out how to get there by starting with your current routine (4am WU) and shifting the routine by 15 mins each day for 8 days.  At the end of the 8 days you should have shifted by 2hrs.  It may take LO a while longer to settle into the routine so you might need to help with sleeps and keep watching the clock to keep things moving forward.

2. The other option is that at 10 months LOs can show sings of needing to reduce day sleep as they begin the transition towards 1 nap instead of 2.  The nap is not dropped all in one go but instead one of the naps is reduced little by  little.  For instance moving the start time of nap 1 later by 15 mins but waking him at the same time reduces the length of that nap whilst keeping nap 2 and BT at the same time.  This can help to encourage a little longer night sleep and help improve morning WU time.
After some improvement to WU time and night sleep your LO might adapt and need another reduction in the nap length...eventually you drop a nap.  During this time you might also need to move the second nap a bit earlier.  Often this ends up being around 11.30 or 12 noon for one long nap.
LOs all drop the nap in different ways, some do better with a short am nap and long pm nap, some with the opposite.  My own DS liked a really long morning A time followed by a good 2 hr nap so I kept that in place and he dropped the second nap, and needed an early BT to help him make it through the day.

There are some FAQs which help with the 2-1 transition if you feel this is the route you need to take.

It could be that you could go with option 1 above shifting the day and then look at option 2 too.

hope this helps some.

[Katet]

And then we have the 4 am wake up which consists of pooping so have to change diaper

When I read your routine & saw the Porridge late in the day, it was a red flag to me for one possible reason for night waking, as it fills up the tummy but doesn't give as many calories as milk does & also the fibre content for a baby can be a lot, esp if twice a day. I'd probably swap it for some protein & veg in the evening, at 10mo you can pretty much givea modified version of family meal & it's good to have food they can chew on to develop jaw strength for talking, rather than mushy food.

I agree with Creations, I'd definitely look at cutting one of the naps shorter as even with the night wakings, it's a lot of 'down time'

[Petramama]

First of all, thank you so much for your reply and for trying to help i really appreciate it.  Second, i am sorry for the late reply. I do agree that it might be so that I have to extend the A time and when trying to do so before he became soooo tired and kept fussing and crying because he was so tired that is why I reduced it back to 3h instead of 3.5-4h but I am going to put him on a 4h A time and then slowly extend it so that he doesn't get over tired. Also, I do have one concern, I'm not really happy about moving BT that late since his sister who is 3 goes to bed at 7.30 which gives me time to take care of all the things I did not have time for during the day. How can I do this but still keep the 7 BT?

I'm so tired i am not even able to think about how i am supposed to get it to work but bec he is waking so early (4) I cant keep him up more than 8.30-9 before i have to put him to nap.

maybe when he actually wakes up at 6 I could then extend A time or to be honest I am confused how I am supposed to get 2 naps in there if I extend the A time and still get him to bed at 7, it seems like we have to start with the 1 nap per day and set it after lunch and that's it?

I'm just nervous he will be over tired and i will have a fussy baby all day but even that seems wetter than waking up at 4.

Also, thank u Katet, I will start feeding him solids at 5.30 then give him a bottle at 7 and hopefully it will keep him satisfied.

Again thank you for the help and please let me know what you think about what I wrote and if any suggestions comes to mind regarding schedule please I am more than happy for all the help I can get so that I can start and hopefully see a difference.

[creations]

I'm so tired i am not even able to think about how i am supposed to get it to work but bec he is waking so early (4) I cant keep him up more than 8.30-9 before i have to put him to nap.

I know you are tired. I think we have all had times we we just felt so exhausted we didn't know what to do with ourselves. Hugs.
Please look again at my previous reply as I have explained how you get to the new routine by shifting across 8 days (the option 1 above).

How can I do this but still keep the 7 BT?

Honestly I think you need to let go of this temporarily.  As LOs grow their A times and sleep needs change and sometimes we need to just accept the slightly earlier than we'd like morning or the slightly later than we'd like evening, they are all phases and it isn't really so long before the needs change again.  Personally I rather a routine where I lose a bit of Y time in the evening if it meant a full night sleep, a decent WU time in the morning and a couple of naps I *know* LO will take so that I can have a predictable break.  Being very focused on BT staying at 7pm may mean disturbed/short naps, disturbed nights and early wake ups.  I know what I'd choose.
Don't forget that the suggested routine has 2 full naps. Once you've moved to the routine and shifted BW and WU time you can look at reducing one nap, which means BT will start to be moved a little earlier too.  Eventually it will return to the 7pm you want...and then in all likelihood when your LO drops a nap (not yet!) he will need EBT (early BT) and you could even be putting him down for the night at 6pm.

it seems like we have to start with the 1 nap per day and set it after lunch and that's it?

I would not advise this.
Many people have difficulties with the transition from 2 naps to 1 nap and a rapid sudden routine change is unlikely to work in your favour.  It can take many months between a LO showing signs of needing slightly less day sleep (one nap a bit shorter) and actually having the ability and being ready to move fully to just one nap.  Even when they are ready for one nap it can be a very tricky phase of transition.