early wakings

hi there,


my 7 month old has been sleeping pretty nicely since 3 months, usually a 7pm-7am schedule. in fact, there were times when he even slept beyond that.


then as time went by, he would get up anytime after 6.30am (usually about 6.45am) which was fine for us as he would always be happy to play by himself until we feed him at 7am.


but for the last 4 weeks, our little guy has been getting up anytime after 5am...sometimes he will play and then fall asleep again but most times he will make so much noise it's impossible to ignore him. he is super active even at that time, raring to start the day.


he is not nappng more than 3 hours a day so i am not sure if i should cut down his daytime naps?


anyone with similar experience? i know this could just be a phase, since he's slept past 7am before, i know he can do it..i just can't identify the cause of the early wakings!!

I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago... everyone told me it's normal, and I gave up trying to manipulate my baby's schedule. He STILL gets up at 5:30am... gets his feeding, and then falls asleep again.


I think it's two things.... they fall asleep early the night before, so the next morning, (the older they get) they get hungry.... so some have advised me to give him a small meal of cereal (or add the cereal into the milk) before he sleeps.....


the other thing is their diaper gets SOAKED by that time in the morning..... so I think that's why they can't sleep in.... no matter what I tried to do !

hi mums,


today i got up at 5.55am...silence....until about 6.30am so not too bad.


waffle_HK: my "suitable time" for baby is 6.30am onwards...if he wakes up anytime after that and i can hear him playing happily, i leave him alone. if he doesn't sound too happy, we'll go in to him. but if before 6.30am...i just wait and wait and wait and wait...i feel that sometimes going into the room makes things worse as he gets even more awake!


katetam: i read your previous post...sounds like your baby has always been waking up at 6am but mine actually used to be 7am so i am just curious as to what is causing him to wake up earliuer. i agree with the nappy bit...it's close to bursting every morning..last night we upgraded to L size so hope that helps! and sometimes i wonder if it's a poo thing too....he doesn't wake up with poo but these days poos pretty soon after brekkie so i wonder if the rumblings in the tummy wakes him up...my hubby experiences that all the time! i think one of my friend will give the bottle to her baby when he wakes up (anytime after 6am i think) but leave him alone in the cot and only goes back to him at 7am.


but waffle's post is pretty optimistic..at least i know they might change! seriously, my baby has been a dream as we haven't done night feeds since early on but since i only crash out close to midnight (his bedtime is 7pm, i spend the next few hours on housework, cooking my dinner and his foods for the next few days) i really need those precious 6-7 hours of sleep!!


:)

Funny, I was just thinking of starting a new thread on the same issue. My eight months old is exactly the same. He used to sleep until 6:30 or 7 am, but now he's often awake by 5 or 5:30 am. I bring him to bed when he gets really tired (usually around 7-7:30 pm) and he takes about three naps of 30 minutes max during the day, so I don't think he's getting too much sleep. He just seems so excited to practice his newly developped crawling and cruising skills that he doesn't want to waste his time sleeping. Well, I hope it's just a phase that will pass, since getting up at 5 am is really not my thing...

littlebuddha,


i know exactly how you feel....he is so raring to go, practicing his new found crawling skills! it's very amusing to watch how pleased he is with his new skills but agree, not at 5am in the morning!!!


:)

very interesting sharing waffle...maybe this could be a reason as i suspect he's undergoing a development spurt...for weeks he's been trying to sit up from the crawling position, then recently he managed and then suddenly off he goes, he can crawl...there's no stopping him!

Dragging this old thread back up because this is exactly what is happening to us right now! Bubs has been a beautiful sleeper for 9 months (7-7)and now all of a sudden in the last 3 days he has been screaming his head off earlier and earlier. Started at 6:45am, then 6:30am which was fine, we just started our day earlier. Then he slipped to 6am and this morning it was 5:30am!


Very curious to see if your babies eventually snapped out of the early waking by themselves and if not, how you encouraged them to sleep in a little longer!

My lil bub is 5.5 months old and she has been waking up any time between 4.30 to 5.30am the last few days. Before this, she wakes up between 5.30 to 6.30am. She rolls over and goes into a "crawling position" the moment she wakes up - it is quite hilarious actually. Sure hope she snaps out of this soon!

mayafox,


after 13 months, all i can say is that despite best efforts to stick to a routine, it can sometimes be a hit or a miss.


illness, new milestones - little stuff like that have caused my child to wake up earlier than usual.


for the past few months, we have battled the early wakings and horrors, a few weeks of him not wanting to go to sleep at bedtime (this is the guy who used to conk out before 7pm).


the only thing that i feel worked for us is darkening the room. his room has plain white curtains but i stuck some dark red cloth to them and i feel that has made the difference. now he goes down at 7pm, might chatter and take 10-30 mins to fall asleep (how his day went, overexciting, slow, exhausting...makes a big impact on him). he'll wake up after 6.30am. i think for now, it's as good as it gets for me.


that's just my personal experience. some of my friends are going through the same phase that i did, some NEVER had such issues unless it was a major illness.


i guess the key to remember (as frustrating as it is to see the routine go slightly haywire) is that babies are human beings, as adults we have good nights/bad nights so we can't expect our babies not to.


having said that, you should still stick to a 7pm bedtime and a 7am wake-up time...as in i always believe even if they are not asleep for the entire 12 hours, it wouldn't hurt for them to have some quiet time where they reflect on their day, especially as they get older and do more exciting stuff in the day. i feel once you set that as the bedtime and wake-up time, you should not compromise unless for very good reasons (holidays, special visitors, etc).


HTH!

Thanks, Wheelymate. You are absolutely right -- babies definitely have good and bad days like adults! Today was a pretty trying one for us (he has 4 teeth coming through up top, poor thing), but hey... tomorrow can only get better, right?


I also agree with the importance of routine. Actually think that the only thing that kept me sane right from the beginning was working off some kind of schedule even if he was way off.

Hi Mayafox, 4 teeth, wow his gums must be sore huh?

I am there with Wheelymate, our little man slept 12 hours from very young, but every few months (milestones, growing, teeth etc) he would refuse his routine and challenge. We would take a deep breath, be a little flexible, give him generous Pamol when he was teething to ease the uncomfortable pain for him. We helped him and us both all knowing that regardless of what was happening in his world, he could rely on his routine. He didnt always like it, but then I don't always like going to work....go figure.

You are doing great, just remember trust your intuition, no one knows your little person better than you!

Take care, reward both of you for your successes, you deserve it (especially after a long night.)