Early wakings getting worse and worse- really at a loss

[nursekat]

Oof, I suffered from insomnia, too, Brooke.  Not fun. 

Overtiredness is tricky, which is also why I suggested putting him down earlier and earlier to try to get those morning wakeups later.  Try to keep the day 12hrs max (or shorter if he's looking tired) - many mums have put their LOs down at 5:30 for the night to beat the early morning wakings.

Also go check out the early wide awake club - there are LOTS of moms in there that have dealt with this and, like Brooke, might have some ideas.  The more eyes you have looking at your situation, the more ideas you might get! 

[SallyDom]

I seem to remember reading on here that someone did w2s before she went to sleep (at 11pm or whatever) with the thoughts that it would still disturb the baby's sleep pattern.

It might be worth a try if the thought of setting an alarm for 3.30am is a nightmare! I know I always think that tonight will be the night Dom'll sleep past 7am (sorry that sounds really bad when you're fighting 5am) and wouldn't look forward to setting an alarm for really early.

HTH
Sal
x

[jmosery]

BROOKE- thanks

their was one week that he actually stayed up longer and I thought the cat nap was gone, but nope, then it came back. this was about a month ago. i honestly with naps watch his cues. He WILL NOT go down for a nap unless he's tired. if I read his cues wrong and i take him up to nap, he's get hysterical right when i put him down in his crib and we just know now, oops, read the cues wrong. go down for 10-15 min. and try again. when he is tired, he really goes right out so easily. when we read him wrong and really think he's tired and do ssh.pat for naps or something and he's not really tired, he naps terribly. so i don't think he's going down too soon

as for sleeping too long. some days like this morning, he slept an hour and twenty min. for his first nap, an hour for his second nap and then an hour and a half. we then had a party to go to and he fell asleep on the way home at 5:30. let me tell you, i put him to bed at 8:30 tonight

i'm hoping he sleeps till 7. he got more day sleep than usual. an hour more but we also put him to bed two hours later.

so i'm praying this is the break we needed. if he sleep till 7am tomorrow or even 6:30, i'm going to try and put him down later tomorrow night and see if we can start a new routine.

lets hope. i'll let you knwo how tomorrow goes

thanks for your help. really

jaime

[xfionax]

Just wanted to say I've got my fingers crossed for you. I'm pregnant too and dealing with problems in your LO's routine is horrible when you are already so tired from the new LO taking up all your energy. We've been doing PU/PD to get our LO to go to sleep independently all this holiday and it has worn me out. But we got there in the end and so will you with these horrible early wake ups.

I really hope the later time works. Big hugs to you 

[texasmom]

Yes, let me know.  I do hope it worked. 

For me it was trial and error.  But I haven't cracked the code or anything.  We had 5 days of after 5 wakings, but the past two have been awful. 

[jmosery]

hey ladies

NO SUCH LUCK. thank you everyone for your advice. well he woke up 4:30, talked to him self for a little, cried a little, i didn't go in. it wasn't a come get me cry, kind of like i want to come out, but not really. he went back to bed but was up for the day at 5:40. better than 5am, but come on. hehehe

guess the late night last night did nothing. oh well

ok, going to try earlier bed time tonight depending on how tired he is of course.

if he woke up at 5:40, what time do you think i should aim for 6-6:30?? usually he's been going down between 6:30 and 7 and waking at 5 or 5:30

again thanks

i posted on the early wake up club. they all suggest earlier bed times. so since it seems the overall concensus, i'll give it a go

jaime

[texasmom]

I'd aim for b/w 6 and 6:15, but I think it depends on naps, how much sleep he needs, etc...  I pretty much know that Collin needs 14.25 hours, so I base bedtime on that. 

The days Collin wakes at 5:30ish, I aim for this...
5:30 wake
8:15 - 9:30 nap 1
12:30-2:00 nap 2
6:00 asleep

It's not ideal, but I'm still trying to figure out the nap thing since he seems to be dropping the catnap. 

HTH!

Brooke

[xfionax]

My LO is happiest with 12hrs at night and two 1.5hr day naps, so 15hrs. If she doesn't get her full naps, I add on whatever she missed to nighttime sleep. Usually an early night would mean asleep by 6pm instead of 7pm but if she has a really disturbed day and only slept 30 mins am and 30 mins pm, I start bedtime routine at 4.30pm and have her in bed by 5pm. I know this sounds REALLY early but she is a girl who likes a lot of sleep (like her mum!).

[chell]

Hi Jaime, sorry hear about your difficulties at the moment. I just wanted to add a few things which may be useful.

You say that your lo often wakes around 4 am - did you used to feed him at that time in the past?

It sounds really good that you are so tuned into his cues.

Looking at your routine, he has between 3.5 and 4.5 hours of naps a day. For a lo of 6 months, and I am just working on averages here, naps should be between 2.5 - 3hours during the day. At night sleep should be about 11-12 hours. It may be that he is making up for lost sleep at night (through early wakings) by having extra sleep during the day.

The other thing which I noticed, is that his first nap is quite early - I guess this is because he is up early. But sometimes what happens, is that the final part of the night time sleep cycle becomes separated appearing as the early morning nap, which should really be part of his night time sleep. You can gradually push this forward, increasing his awake time very slowly. It may help.

Some babies just have an early sleep phase, which means they always wake early no matter what you try. It's not that common, and it is good to try everything first, to make sure. Like others have said, the best way to deal with this is to adjust bedtimes so that they are earlier. Eventually they will grow out of it (as I have found with my lo).

HTH a bit  

[texasmom]

Chell,
What you posted speaks to me too.  I've been trying to help Jaime since I've been having these early wakings since early November. 

Sorry to cut in...  but would you mind answering a question for me?  My LO woke at 4:30 this morning - done for the night b/c he went to bed at 5:20.  So his first nap was at 7:30.  Would that be considered an extended night's sleep?  I'm thinking not, but I wanted to make sure.  I know this is going to become part of our routine unless I do something different (I started a thread in Night Wakings).  I guess I just wondered how to push it back.  I've thought of these things:  Let him go to sleep at 4:30/5:00 pm, but wake him up after 30-45 min, then put him to bed at 6:30.  (I hate waking him.)  Don't know if that will work or just make it worse.  OR, after he gets on a good solid routine of waking at 4:30, 2 naps, bedtime at 5:00, then take a day and postpone everything an hour.  OR try pushing it back in 15 min increments.  I'd really like to get him to sleep till 6:00 if possible.  But I'm hanging in there with 5:30.  4:30 is hard. 

Thank you,
Brooke

[jmosery]

CHELL- thanks. i didn't realize that on the naps. i thought that they were supposed to sleep 4 hours. i'm sure thats it. if he's sleeping so much during the day, he's not going to sleep at night. Yesterday from being in the car so much, he slept 5 hours total during the day. no wonder he only slept 9 hours at night. its a total of 14 hours.

This morning, he actually didn't go down to sleep till after 9 when i went to work. he was wide awake and happy when i left at ten to 9.

if he still needs that cat nap, should i make sure his other two naps are no longer than an hour and a half?

he used to eat at 4am a while ago, over a month and then he stopped waking then. they just now are creeping back in. but i never feed him. i actually don't even go in to him because he just falls back asleep. i don't think he's hungry because when i go to feed him at 6 which i don't even try anymore, he just doesn't eat. this morning he didn't finish his 6:30 bottle. ate 6-7 ounces instead of teh full 8. you would think he's be hungry. but he did eat later last night at 8:15 so maybe thats why. he can definetly go 12 hours.

BROOKE- your little one can stay up from 2pm to 6pm? mikey would have a hard time with that i think. he's younger too. he's be tired by 4:30-4:45 and I would put him down for 30 min. and then sleep around 6:30-7.

XFIONAX- thanks for your input. my LO seems to be sleeping about 14-14.5 hours a day total. so I guess if he gets two 1.5 naps and one .5 naps, then i'll expect him to sleep about 10 hours at night. i just don't think he's ready to drop that cat nap, but maybe he is. if I put him down an hour earlier than i have been, than i can probably hold him off from that cat nap. i'm going to have to try it out

his days have been varying so much.

i'm going to try the early bed time tonight and see how it goes. i'm also going to watch his daytime sleep today and see what happens.

thanks again everyone i really appreciate it

jaime

[texasmom]

No, it didn't work out well.  He got overtired.  I guess I should have tried a catnap later.  I'm not sure what to do. 

[jmosery]

BROOKE- don't you wish they would just come with a manual i hate that too. it happens often with us. where he gets tired close to bed time or what shoudl be his bed time but then i have to extend the bedtime because I have to put him down for a catnap. gets soo confusing

[texasmom]

Yes, I really do!!!  I had the problem with the catnap for sooo long.  I hope he is ready to drop it and that I've not pushed it.  But today I want to do one and see if I can extend bedtime, but I don't know if it will work, and I don't want to have the same problem as yesterday.  So I don't know what to do b/c if I want to shoot for one, I want to try to put him down early for his next nap.    

It's good talking with ya, anyway!! 

[texasmom]

Ok, I'm not usually quite THIS neurotic - on the BW website all day long, but I'm obesessing over this early waking!! 

I had a thought...  I wonder if I let him sleep an hour for his next nap, would he THEN take a catnap so I could push back bedtime?  Just thinking outloud!!