Author Topic: Advice for early waking  (Read 1511 times)

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Offline kal

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Advice for early waking
« on: August 31, 2005, 14:36:16 pm »
We were having issue with night waking but they seems to have gottne better and how DS goes down about 7pm and then we give him a DF at 1030p but he's now gone from waking at about 6am to getting up a 5am, at first he'll just talk to himself in the crib but then gets bored and starts to cry, I try not to go in till 6am but when he gets upset I usually go in and try to get him back to sleep with no success. So I'm thinking he might be getting up because he wants to eat but I'm not positive since he is just awake and not really crying the whole time but won't go back to sleep.
I've been waiting till 6am to feed him because I'm afraid if I start feeding him at 5am he'll get used to that and continue to get up at that time and also because if I feed him at 5am and he does go back to sleep then I'll need to wake him at 630a to get him ready for the day to go to my sisters. This is also causing an issue with his napping since he's up so early he has to go down for his first nap of the day at around 700 or 730am so he's not overtired!! I think this is way to early since he refuses to take more then two naps a day and if he goes down again at 1100am then he's usually up from about 1pm-7pm which means he's really grumpy!! Anyway, any advice or suggestions?? Do you think maybe its just a phase and will pass?? Thanks!!

Offline Carmela's Mom

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Advice for early waking
« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2005, 16:10:02 pm »
Is it possible you can put him down at 6:30 for a week and see if it that helps him sleep later?  Then you can gradually go back to 7 if you need to.  I would try that (or even 6:00) and see how it goes.

My DD was a 4:00 waker forever...then eventually it went to 5.  She outgrew it eventually (at a year) but even now we go through long spells of the 5 a.m. wakings.



Offline Aarismom

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Advice for early waking
« Reply #2 on: August 31, 2005, 16:17:05 pm »
Heh, sounds like something we're going through.

I've been doing the same thing. If mine wakes before 6 am I just leave her in the crib...she's usually cooing/fussing anyway, but 9/10 times she just goes back to sleep. But ours has also been doing the 45 min nap thing lately. And yeah, when she gets up that early and doesn't fall back to sleep, she's usually back in bed for her first nap between 7 and 7:30.

Our solution is to put her to bed even earlier for awhile, and see how that works.  We put her to bed between 6 and 7 before...the other night we put her to bed at 5:45, and she slept straight through until 7 am...and we had to WAKE her up at 7 am in order to get a good ~9 am nap in. In total, she slept 18 (!!) hours yesterday, something she hasn't done for a few months. Last night wasn't so successful, as she woke up at 7 after we put her to bed the same time and didn't fall back to sleep until 8 (a habit we've been working on getting her to break, as she's been doing this every other night or so, however, she was overtired when she went to bed). However, she still got up at 6 am, no earlier. BUT, she's on her second nap of more than an hour right now. So, our solution is working so far. We may move her back up to her 6/7 pm bedtime in a week or so, we're just trying to get her more rested at night again (12 or more hours).

Biologically speaking, if you don't get a good solid afternoon nap in, or your lo is not taking a catnap or solid nap somewhere between 3 and 5 (when they're supposed to be getting 3 naps a day), then it's a really good idea to get them to bed for the night earlier than usual so they're not drastically overtired by bedtime and won't/can't sleep well...but usually no earlier than 5:30 or so to get them rested well that night, although I've heard of other babies going to bed at 5 pm. If your lo is between 9 and 12 months, you still want to get them to bed late afternoon/early evening until they are old enough to start playing with their sleep schedules a little bit, as they can handle it.

This is generally speaking of course. Most follow the early to bed, later to rise rule though, but there are certainly exceptions!

Hope this helps a little! Don't be afraid to experiment with his bedtime a little bit, especially if you're going to put him to bed earlier. That may solve your problem. The more rested they are, the better/longer they sleep.

*HUGS*
Sonya =P


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April 26, 2005

lil'monkey

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Advice for early waking
« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2005, 16:59:24 pm »
Hi kal

DD does this to me every month or so doing the 5 am wake up &  babbling away.   I've tried feeding her, wake to sleep, pat/shh, no pu/pd (dd hates it and I haven't the heart to hear her scream so much), ignoring her if she isn't crying, etc.  Since dd does this periodically, here's my stragegy to combat this. 

Day 1:  Ignore her till wake up time (6:30 am) or whenever she gets really upset and starts hollering for me ( usually after 45 min).  I feed her as close to her usual time as possible and watch her like a hawk to determine first naptime.  I then try to extend it by 15 min in a dark room before I let her sleep.  I do this for nap 2 as well and then have an early bedtime 45-60 min early.   Of course I try not to get her overtired or sleep won't come easily.

Day 2:  Do wake to sleep an hr before.  When she stirs, I lay a firm hand on her.  I try not to let her see me as she will wake up if she does.  I hang a sheet on the outside of the crib's railings to block her view.   If she wakes up early again, I do the above again.

I continue to do this till she wakes at a decent hour again, which takes about 4-5 days.  I've found that dd would do this at every milestones.  Ironically, we are going through it right now. :roll:   She just learned how to stand on her own and string two sounds together.  HTH

Offline dkjokisch

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Advice for early waking
« Reply #4 on: August 31, 2005, 17:02:25 pm »
We were experiencing the same thing with dd (7.5mos old), and 5am is way too early.  We tried moving her bedtime up by an hour (7:30pm to 6:30pm), but we didn't have much success with that.  However, I think she had gotten used to eating at that hour.  She would lay awake for 30-40 minutes, then start getting really wound up.  Dh tried resettling her numerous times but with no success, and since I was dealing with supply issues at the time, there was a chance she was truly hungry.

However, this week we have been trying wake-to-sleep, and it seems to be helping.  We have tried to keep her bedtime constant, and dh has been going in and stirring her at 4am.  Today was day 3.  Monday, she got up at 6am, Tuesday at 6:45am, and today at 6am.  We're going to keep at it.
Deborah
#3 EDD 07/18/09
B 04/14/07 (ds)
M 01/13/05 (dd)

Offline kal

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Advice for early waking
« Reply #5 on: August 31, 2005, 17:38:55 pm »
Thanks for all the advice, maybe I'll try putting him down earlier tonight and seeing what happens with that. I guess I'm just so scared that he'll wake up at 3am and be ready to start his day....ahhh!

We've been having a really hard time with naps so I'm sure that has something to do with all this. Thanks Again!