Confused about Tracy's advice on early morning waking

[melbatarseh]

I've read both of Tracy's books now, and I'm confused about what she says to do when the baby wakes at 5 AM and you don't want to start the day until 7 AM.  In some places in the book she seems to be saying use PU/PD or shh/pat (depending on age of child) to put baby back to sleep.  In other places in the book she talks about feeding and putting baby right back to sleep, then waking baby at 7 AM. 

I think she expects a child who is not on solids yet to sleep at least 6 or 7 hours at a stretch, but not necessarily more than that.  So if you feed at 7 PM, DF at 11 PM, then baby sleeps 6 or 7 hours, that is waking at 5 or 6 AM.  But Tracy indicates that you start the day at 7 AM, so what are you doing for 1 or 2 hours in the wee hours of the morning? 

Melanie

[mattandcindy]

I think the first thing you need to do is determine if it is a matter of hunger or just waking out of habit.
Abigail woke at 5am for a while, but she was a little younger than your little one. I would feed her, put her back down but then get her back up at 7am. It kind of sucked sometimes because I would put her back down as late as 6:15am and I knew if I didn't wake her up she would probably sleep until 9am but I really wanted to work on 7am being her wake up time. She slowly stretched it out to where she didn't get up at 5am anymore and stretched it til 7am.
If is is not hunger but just habit then pu/pd or wake to sleep I think would be your best bet. I am not an expert on that so I can't help you there! Good Luck!

[Adee]

I was reading through this area and saw that someone is having the same issues as I am. My daughter is 4 1\2 months old. She was sleeping from 8PM to about 4 or 5AM, but we figured that at this age she really didn't need to be waking up at these hours, so we started doing the dream feeds as recomended in the book.

The first night she woke up at 7AM which we thought we striked a homerun, but now she is still waking up at 4 or 5am screaming for food. After doing the pacifier a few times, I broke down last night and gave her a bottle. She ate only 3 Oz. and went back to sleep and woke up again at 7AM.

We are not sure what to do and how do we determine if she is waking up out of hunger or habbit? Has anyone else experienced any of thse symptoms?

[Glynis]

I don't think a small one not on solids could last a whole night on a regular basis.  I would feed & put him back down again.  But then, I'm not a stickler for starting the day at the exact same time every day.  Our schedule is too up & down for that to be reasonable.

[Mommy in Moose Jaw]

We had exactly the same problem.  DD is now 5 months, 1 week old.  When we started this, morning was 6 - 7 am, with some shush pat or pu/pd until 7 am.  I knew she wasn't hungry as she simply woke up cooing and babbling.  Then suddenly it was more common to wake up at 5 and have 2 hours of wailing until 7, alternated with days of sleeping straight until 7.  I was VERY frustrated.  At that point I chalked it up to developing a consistent bed and wake time as prior to EASY dd used to go to bed at 9-10 and get up around the same time and now with more consistent sleep, she was getting more solid night sleep than she was used to with the earlier bedtime.  Mornings were very early until fairly recently when dd suddenly seemed VERY ready for solids (needed more food frequently during the day and was napping shorter as a result) so I increased my milk supply and added solids, and mornings have steadily improved since then.

Prior to that I had also tried wake to sleep but that never really worked.  Supportive sleep like at naps didn't work that well either -- I'd be at cribside from 4:45 until 6:00 and her eyes would just pop open anyways!

Since starting solids, she has woken a couple of times at 5:00 am with a very distinct cough-cough of hunger.  I fed her and she took a full feed and went right back to sleep until 7 at least! 

I just kept thinking to stick with the same response (don't let her out of her crib until 7 even if it means 2 hours of shush/pat) and eventually it will work itself out.  Some days are better than others but I think basically it is working.

Good luck!