Early wakings - are there some threads already?

[catty47]

Amongst other non-sleeping issues, we've hit a definite 5.15-5.30am waking pattern with our 15 month old!  I know we may just have to accept it, but I wondered if there are any threads on early waking I can check?  Can't see a heading anywhere...

[imsmum]

There's a "Wide Awake Club"  on the General Sleep Board.

[Florencia]

There are a lot of early birds around this forum too. It's just a matter of browsing around the pages and you'll find lots of threads related to this (ones that had to live with it, but some of them really encouraging and with lots of helpful tips you might want to try). I'm awful with links but i'll do a quick search for you and hopefully can direct you to them.

Meantime, and if you're looking for specific advice on your case, why don't you post your case (wouldn't hurt to adress the other sleep issues you say your facing, who knows?  we could work them out!) and what a typical day looks like and see if we can come up with some ideas for you.

I know that early bedtime has worked wonders for many early birds here. The rationale behind this sometimes early wakings are due to overtiredness so by providing an earlier than usual bedtime, you give their little bodies the oportunity to catch up on lost sleep and as strange as it sounds, that pushes them to sleep deeper and for longer periods. Might worth to try that one! the worst you can get is extra evening time for you, in case the early mornings don't stop.

Good luck!

[Carmela's Mom]

When Carmela is waking early, almost always it helps to put her to bed early.  Now putting her to bed early works for the short term.  Once she catches up, I have to push it back again.  Show us your schedule and maybe we can help???

[catty47]

Thanks everyone.
Florencia - answer in more detail to your post!

15 month old Isla has never been a good sleeper - I am an expert in pu/pud, wi/wo, nap extending, habitual waking solving, bedtime routines, EASY, and almost every sleep strategy there is, including some non-baby whisperer ones!  The first piece of accidental parenting was a boob prop error, which I had to correct at 4 months.  It took 3 days for naps and bedtimes too, and I solved the problem - Isla was able to go to sleep on her own. 

But ever since then, and I wish I'd kept a diary of it all, but Isla has always had night wakings.  So much so that it has always been hard to tell whether the reason might be hunger, thirst, too hot, too cold, wet, in pain, teething, tummy ache, noise, light etc etc.  And when it's hard to tell what the problem is, inevitably more AC occurs!  Some habitual wakings I successfully dealt with.  But then something else would kick in!

She is getting better, but of course we're in the realm of molars coming through now, which I know don't always come through within 3 days of teething signs, so I'm partly just accepting that we might continue with the disturbed nights for a while now till they're through.  However, we seem to have fallen into the 5.30 wakings, just as she seems to be settling down.

Her routine now is:
5.30 - wake-up (happy and chatty, usually shouting Daddy!)
6am - breakfast
9am - milk and possibly more breakfast (she has first meal with her father in the mornings before he goes to work, then enjoys eating cereal with me practising using a spoon)
10.30/12 - (depending on morning's activities or how long I can keep her going!) Nap
This is ideally 2 hours, but we've had some 1.5 hour lapses over the last 2 weeks.
Mid afternoon - milk and snack
5.30 - tea
6 - bath
6.30 - milk and storytime
7 - bedtime

I should point out a few things:
- We have had some very hot weather here in the UK (in case you're in the US) and a lot of very hot cross babies!  Some nights her room has probably been over 30 degrees
- I had to move Isla onto 1 nap because we had some major regression with all her sleeping a couple of months ago - she completely forgot how to go to sleep and was screaming at every sleep, including bedtime and naps.  She was also cutting into night sleep with two big naps, so I spent a (tough) 6 weeks moving her onto one, which has helped get her back on track for going to bed properly.
- I have taken her to see a cranial osteopath recently, which seems to be helping, but no magic cure yet!
- I am 35 weeks pregnant
- She is learning lots of new words - she is even talking in her sleep!

Any advice or things which jump out at you?  I am trying really hard to get her sleeping established before Baby #2 comes along in 5 weeks!

x x x
Catherine and Isla

[powderdeb]

I've just gone through an early waking cycle with my 22 month old.  I posted earlier ("which to try first...") today but this might help you too.  It's been super hot here in Seattle and I think that does contribute to waking early! 

We haven't tried wake-to-sleep yet, because moving her bedtime up earlier (to like 7:15) has helped a lot. 

The other thing we have done is agreed NOT to go in to her bedroom until 6:30 AM (she was waking as early as 5:40 AM), as long as she's just making a little noise, not super upset.  I read somewhere (maybe here) that when you respond to their cries at a certain time they get programmed that that time is the "wake up" time.  Plus, we keep it very dark in her room (black out curtains), so when we open the door she sees how light it is and that cues her to be awake. 

Most of the time if she still wakes early (maybe 2 days a week now) she'll actually go back to sleep if we ignore her, and gets another 20 minutes-45 minutes.  I guess she's doing her own "wake-to-sleep" method.  And we now no longer feel like we HAVE to go to her the second she's awake, we know that she will entertain herself or go back to sleep.  We never thought she would, but she has surprised us!  Also, we no longer feel guilty or bad about doing it, which helps US go back to sleep, too!

The only time we have broken this new "rule" is when she woke up at 5:50 and called out for "Water!!"  It was super hot and we thought we shouldn't ignore that one!

[Florencia]

Hi Catty, sorry it took me the weekend to reply... lots of busy activities to do!!!!!....

So, by looking at your typical schedule i would put money on overtiredness. Isla's doing a 7+ hour awake stretch for night time, and most of the time night wakings are linked to overtiredness. She's too young to do such a long awake stretch (even if she doesn't seem tired). Some lo's are like the Energizer bunny and don't rub eyes or get cranky when tired, more like the opposite, they get all wound up and maniac and you think they're not tired and let them go for long stretches. Then you pay it with overtiredness which shows up in the form of night wakings (they are so tired that are not able to relax and go into deep sleep phases and hence the wakes). Same happens with the early mornings. There's something magic into the 9.5-10 hour night sleep mark and many moms around here seem to be stuck into that mark. Once you're able to break it, you can go for 10.5 hours or more, which sounds like just half an hour but it's the difference between rested babies and moms and happy households LOL.

It looks to me that Isla is missing 30 mins (maybe more) of sleep in the day. Since she's waking at 530 am i don't think pushing the nap forward would help (that would only make her more tired) but if you manage to push it in slow increments, like 15 mins or so, that would make her afternoon awake time shorter. That an early bedtime should provide her enough opportunities to catch up on lost sleep and hopefully get past the awful 10 hour sleep mark. On days she wakes at 12 (or before) from her nap, bedtime should be no later than 6 pm. The idea is to have her awake on periods no longer than 6 hours to prevent overtiredness.

Another thing comes to my mind since you say she's always had night wakings issues. Is/was she a refluxer? sometimes they get the clearance from reflux but the heartburn keeps going and that also is a buster for solid night sleep. You might want to check with her ped that one. The right prescription would solve that as magic.

Teething molars yep you're in for a 2 month+ battle. But again, checking with your ped the right dosage of meds for that (sometimes they have to be upped or combined to really kick in). I faced the early morning issues when ds was teething the one year molars and ped explained me that the pain prevents them from deep sleep. You have to make sure she's not in pain in order to get the proper rest.

HTH and keep us posted on your progress!

[catty47]

Thanks to both Powerdeb and Florencia for your tips!

I will work out a schedule and do some tweaking.  Ironically of course these last three days she has woken at more reasonable times - this morning at 6.30.  (Seemed like a lie-in!)  Thanks for the 6 hour rule tip - I'll try and stick to that. 

No, there was no reflux with Isla.  The cranial osteopath seems to have helped - she is much calmer and is definitely sleeping more deeply, so with that and a much more strict night-time-isn't-milk-time rule I think we are getting there.  Also the weather has cooled a little (not for long I don't think - we're in for more heat in August) so I will try to really tackle it all while the going is good.

Interestingly she is not waking with the tooth pain, it's all in her sleep - she is poking her fingers in her mouth and rubbing her face and crying, so I'm pretty sure it's pain, but she takes medicine from the syringe in her sleep and a slurp of water and so maybe the fact that she's not actually waking is helping her sleep later in the mornings - she's actually getting more deep sleep.  It would make sense anyway.

She woke from her nap at 12.45 so I will aim for 6.45 bedtime tonight.  I'd better get going with her tea!

I'll keep you all posted and thanks again for the tips

x x x
Catherine