EARLY WIDE AWAKE CLUB!! WANT SUPPORT? JOIN US!

[~tess~]

oh why didn't we have this post back when my kids did this!

i just want to let you all know this will pass. my son was a 4-5am waker for YEARS.  i did a lot of things to help it, but in the end he needed to outgrow it.  he now sleeps later than anyone in the family!(8am!)

my daughter also woke early(5-6am) until recently.  now she can sleep until 7am, but it has to be on a short nap day. she just needs less sleep than the average kid!  she goes to bed at 8pm, but then is up at 6am.  i can keep her in bed until 7am.....but found short naps were key to getting her to wake up at 7am......luckily she naturally hates sleep and rarely naps more than an hour!

the point is......after years of waking at 4-5am i can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  the good part is...my kids went to bed early.  Under a year if they woke at 5am, bedtime was 5pm(yes, this worked, both slept 12 hours when i did this!).  after a year they had a 7:30pm bedtime and would wake closer to 6am.  not my personally preference, but it's better than 5am!  but dh and I got plenty of alone time in the evenings all these years!!!

my kids are 4 1/2 and 3 now and only my youngest gets up at 6am and now it's not every day.....maybe 2 times a week.  so hang in  there.  i know it's hard to see the end at this stage, but wanted to assure you that it will come.  my kids were the worst sleepers(i was a sleep mod years back!) and now they are great sleepers.  it will come.  just keep at it!

[Carys' mom]

tess-

I'm trying so hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel you talk about...it's hard though after another night wakeup (1:30am) and early morning (woke at 5:15am).  How did you make it with the lack of sleep? My dd is 18 months old now, and I thought she'd be sleeping later by now. Maybe someday...

[andibig]

Carys mum
with you on that one we had months and months of DD waking at 5am. i had to go to bed a 9pm just so i could myself enough sleep to face the next day .
now she does wake after 6.30 which is still considered early by some of the mums in our local toddler group but for us it is a lie in

[sslowbliss]

if my little one wakes at 6 am, i count my blessings. lol. im at a loss, dont even know where to start. sephira is 8 mos old, and has never slept through the night. she wakes up to nurse every two hours all night, and is up for good at 4 am. ive tried moving her bedtime later, but keeping her up past 8:30 pm is a battle. ive tried waking her from her naps a bit early during the day, and this helped, but only if i religously wake her from every nap all day. then shes up at 6. waking her early from naps is a chore though, she cries and gets fussy. im not sure what to do. my man needs his sleep, and we live in a tiny studio, so if shes up, were all up. any ideas?

mare

[sofiasmommy]

Hey Rina

Poor Zara! Not good that she is not getting better!

This is a great thread! I am sooooooooooo glad that there are others out there whose baby is such an early riser! All my friends have babies that sleep until after 7 and take nice 2 -3 hour naps serval times a day! Sofia is just NOT the sleeper!!!!

[~tess~]

melanie...I drank soda or coffee first thing in the morning!  I also napped when the kids napped.  When my youngest was a  baby I would let my older one watch a video while she slept so i could lay on the couch and kinda doze off!  It was enough to recharge me.  and go to bed early! 

at 18 months i was 40 weeks pregnant, moving cross country and my son's sleep was off due to time change of moving....it was not good.  my son was up at 6am in a few days of moving, lol.  some kids are very in tune with the sun.  My kids also take a lot of adjusting to the time changes for daylight savings time.  even now i start a week ahead and know it will be 2 weeks of crazy times.  obviously spring ahead is better, lol.  but one year instead of being an hour later my son decided to just get up 2 hours earlier!!!! 

it's hard, but rest when you can, invest in coffee or soda, oh and exercise!!!  if you can get out and walk....it gets your body energized!

[andibig]

sslowbliss

love you DDs name. its beautiful..
not sure if we can help you but us ladies are up for a challenge. can we see your routine?
there was a post on BW about a lady who had the same problem with their LO nursing all night and she managed to break the habit. i'll see if i can find it for you-might take a little while know!
andrea

[andibig]

can'y find the specific post but the ladies name on the site is SEAFLOWER. i'm sure she wouldn't mind if you PM her.
HTH

[Prissy122]

Logans Mom,
  My Ds is the same age as yours...he usually wakes around 6.30. I have been trying to move to one nap but he is sooo crabby if i don't give him a little nap in the morning...it's usually around 9.30-10.00 but i don't let him sleep more then 20mins. This seems to work perfect for us cause when he wakes he is in a better mood and still goes down for his pm nap no problem around 12.45/1.00. This nap is almost always 2hrs. I have tried one nap but i find he has to go down to early for it and is way to tired by bed......Maybe 20min is to short for your ds but i would definitely try to limit his am nap. Hope this helps you a bit.
 Priscilla

[crazycanuck]

Prissy122

thanks for your response......I pushed him back to 9:15 today for his first nap (my dh let him sleep too long even though i told him 1hr max) grr......
Anyhow - so the idea we are aiming for here is to get him to bed at 9:30 -10:00 for his first nap - make it a bit later......maybe what we will do is do the first one at 9:30 as you suggested and then try for the second around 1:30ish.......something has to work - I feel so bad that he is exhausted everyday at bedtime.......but he just won't sleep

for today example

he was up at 5:30
then he went down for his am nap at 9:15
slept for 1hr45mins (darn hubby)
then I just gave him his bottle at 2:15 and put him down - he was yawning rubbing his eyes and getting dreary in my arms - but usually as soon as I finish the bottle he doesn't like to be held and squirms around....so I put him in his crib with his sleep sheep and blanky and he is still up fussing - he hasn't started a full tilt cry yet but i know its coming.......he has been up since 10:45am, so 4hrs, and he only slept 10.5 last night.......
i don't know it's so frustrating
i am angry with my hubby though - I have had to go through fussy crying afternoons all this week and he couldn't follow one simple instruction and he doesn't care because he is not the one sitting here listening to it now..... >:(god that angers me
oh well - he'll care when logan is still doing and he is the one that has to sit and listen to it

thanks for the help I will keep you posted

Sarah

P.S- he is escalating already!

[Prissy122]

Sarah,
 Those darn Dh's just don't get it do they!! I found that once Ds was on a short am nap he went down way easier for his pm nap and early wakings improved, so i hope it works for you as well!! Good luck!!
Priscilla

[andibig]

Sarah
God DHs can be so annoying. me and DH share the childcare as we work opposite shifts. i've posted DDs routine on the fridge which shows him that her am nap should be no longer than 30mins. but he put her down for 1hr 15mins.Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
so i had to cut her pm nap down (fortunately DD pretty good with her naps regardless of length).but for gods sake 1 simple task

[sslowbliss]

heres our usual schedule, though it moves around a bit. also, she wont take a bottle, just flat out refuses, and though i breast feed as often as shell take it, and feed her as much solids as shell take, she hasnt gained hardly any weight the last three months.


4 or 4:30 am wakes up, i feed her, then she plays quietly or fusses in bed

6 am  breast feeding again

8 am solid feeding, 4 oz. of cereal, and 2 oz. of fruit

10 or 10:30 am naps sometime around here

12 pm wakes, brestfeeding

2 pm solid feeding, 4 oz. of cereal, 2 oz. of vegetables

3:30 or 4 pm she naps

5 pm she wakes

5:30 pm breast feeding

8 pm solid feeding, 4 oz. of cereal, 2 oz. of meat or pasta

8:30 falls asleep

from this point on she is breast fed on demand every 2 sometimes 3 hours.

any ideas?

[rinajack]

Slowbliss.  I think there are probably several issues at work with your schedule.  At the age your baby is, you should probably be able to get her to sleep through the night, or at the very least only feed once.  She probably won't take more in the day because she is filling up at night.  And she is probably so tired during the day because she is up feeding so much at night.

I think you should copy your schedule that you have posted here, and put it in the sleep area - it will stand out for people so see there you have some useful ideas.  My dd is only 5mo, so I am prob not best person to help you.

I think maybe your daughter is snacking, and that is messing up her daytime meals  and her sleep. I think if you fix that, and she eats properly during the day, maybe she will gain more weight - although remember when they start moving around the weight gain slows considerably.  Re the no weight gain, have you seen the Dr?

[Carys' mom]

tess -

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I do drink soda  . However, I'm trying to lose weight at the moment, so having it every day is probably not going to be the best for me. I think exercise will help me. I haven't been able to the past couple of weeks because of tendonitis in my knees. But my knees are feeling better now, so I'll be getting back to it. Okay, off of that tangent  .

This morning was I think the worst so far in a while. My dd decided to wake up for the day at 4:30am this time.  I kept her in her room until 5:45am trying to get her back to sleep. I played her nap music CD and laid by her crib. I could tell she was trying to sleep, the poor thing, but just couldn't. I'm 99% sure it's because of her teeth coming in. She also had a night waking at 11-something. Thank goodness my dh worked from home today. He let me get a couple hours of sleep this morning after I was up with dd for a couple hours.

Yikes - your experience when your ds was 18 mo sounds like something I definitely am glad I'm not going through! Oh, and I'm trying not to think about the upcoming time change  .