5 am wakeups are not acceptable!

Our 7 MO girls consistently wake up at 5:00 am, although we have been following the HSHHC (Weissbluth) advice and not going to them until 6:00 am. But sometimes they will really start screaming and flailing!

They go to sleep at 7:00 pm and have 3 naps a day, for a total of about 3.5 hours. They can't really last more than about 2 hours between naps.

Any advice on getting them to sleep longer??

 

Why don't you try setting an alarm and going in at 5:30. 5:30 is better than 5, and maybe they won't get so upset if they're only awake for 30 minutes. I had the same problem with my girls the first year. The only other potential solution I see would be putting them to bed earlier. 7 pm is a late bedtime for 7 month olds. Maybe if you tried moving it up to 6:30 they would sleep later. I know it sounds crazy, but to this day if I put mine to bed too late they wake up too early.

During the first year, whatever time my girls woke up, I added 12 hours and that was bed time. So if you are getting them out of their cribs at 6 am then I'd make bed time 6 pm.

 

I completely agree with Amy. 12 hrs per nite is standard, the first year, I think.

So, I put mine down at 6 pm and they woke at 6a or actually usually 6:30 am. The earlier you put them down, the later they'll sleep. Mine didn't go to bed as late as 7 until they were over 2 yrs old.

GL!

 

I think that is the million dollar question in the First Year after getting them to STTN. Then they get up early. Honestly, you can try anything and everything and I think you will find that they will just have to mature a bit to sleep longer. I do agree with trying to get them to bed a bit earlier. However, we did the 5am wake up for about 3 months. :faint:

 

We did it until after they turned 1, about 6 months.

 

Normally I'm trying to put my guys down at 7:30 but last night I had a meeting (they are nursing) so I thought we'd do 7... they usually get up at 5:30 (UGH!) but this morning: 6:15! I used to do 7pm, but when DH got his job I slowly pushed them back to 7:30. Guess they still need 7. Sigh. I'm not a huge fan of the go to bed so early thing, but I guess I have to accept it- they need it. :unknw:

 

My first DS was always an early riser, and still is to this day. However, he started waking up earlier and earlier (like in the 4am hour!) so we finally had to do cry-it-out. It actually worked, which I was a little surprised at. Once he turned 3 we got him a clock and now he knows when he can get up.

 

One of our girls does the 5 am wake up almost every day, sometimes it's 5:30. I've learned that if I wake up and feed her a quick bottle before she wakes up her sis or gets too upset herself that she'll fall back asleep and sleep then till 8:30 or so. If I let it go too long then they both wake up and are pretty much cranky babies for the whole morning. Our girls are 10 mos and this has been going on since they were around 7 mpnths. It sucks but I think I can almost do it in my sleep now. Good luck!! Oh and we all go to bed around 9 at night. My hubby gets home from work between 5-6 and I can't stand the idea of him only being able to see them for a while so we've done this schedule for a while now.

 

I know that HSHHC recommends putting babies to bed earlier if they are waking too early, but that didn't work for us. Our boys went through a period where they were waking at 5am, and then 4:30am for several weeks. It was maddening! And during that time we tried moving their bedtime earlier to 6:30pm (didn't work) and then 6:00pm (didn't work either), but they still woke up around 5am give or take. The only thing that helped for us was to put them to bed later. Currently we put them to bed around 7:30pm, but I don't think our boys have ever slept more than 10 hours at night, which means we are still usually up between 5:30am and 6:00am I am actually going to try and move their bedtime to 8pm soon and see if they sleep a little later. I asked the pedi about all of this during their 1 year WBV and she said to put them to bed later. I said "But lots of people swear that putting them to bed earlier is the key, and some books preach that." She said that it sounds like our boys only ever sleep about 10 hours, and they will probably still sleep those 10 hours regardless of what time they go to bed (unless they are way too tired and stimulated) so if we want them to sleep later we should try putting them to bed later. So as you can see there are different schools of thought on this, and you will probably just have to play around with their bedtimes to find the one that works best for your babies. And once you find the "perfect bedtime", enjoy it because fall daylight savings time will come along and royally screw things up :lol: GL!

 

It's a good thread! I am currently having the same problem with one of the boys. He is an early riser and so far nothing works. We are putting them to bed at 6.30 pm. They are set on this anyways. But Peanut is up at the wee hours. If I get him out of bed at first peep and let him sleep with us for another hour or so, I get to stay in bed until 5-5.15. Otherwise I am up at 4.30 with too babies. One, who slept enough and ready to go, and another who is cranky because brother woke him before 6-6.30.

I think I'll try what Vtlakey is suggesting.

 

Honestly my suggestion is just to ride it out. I know its probably not a popular one but I thought it was more stressful to try to mold them to what I wanted compared to just going with the flow. My boys got up at 4:30 for weeks andif I let them cry then it was even harder to settle them down and eventually started getting up later and later. Now they go to bed between 7 -7:30 and don't wake up till 9am which took a long time to get to but eventually we did. They didn't start sleeping through the night till at least 11 months but not all the time till after 12 months.
Best of luck.

 

I agree! I have noticed that if I go with the flow and do what seems to be best for my boys, things get better and change as they get older and I'm less stressed. There are so many changes in this first year - it's like trying to change a moving target!! If they are up really early, sometimes we'll let them watch a little baby einstein in their bouncy chairs and we'll half nap next to them on the couch. I can't wait to be able to sleep later (and thru the night)!

 

I have to agree with vtlakey. If I want my boys to sleep later, they go to bed later. If I move it earlier, they wake up earlier. Initially they slept 6 hour stretches, then 8, then 10, then 12.. heck now it's 13-14 hours! They go to bed at 9pm and are up between 10am & 11am. Some days I have to get them up at 11:30am! It's great for most days because I can get up before them and get some things done around the house. If I need to get them up earlier for anything, they are fine with it. They just nap a little longer during the daytime (usually a long morning nap). On their normal 9pm bedtime, 11am wake up time, they nap 3 times a day for about 45mins-1hour.

I never tried to set their bedtime. It just kind of happened for us and since we're late people, it works great for us!

I hope you find something that works!

 

These two sum up my opinion. Putting them to bed earlier never worked for us with any of our babies, although it's certainly worth a try. Mostly I just suffered through the early wakeups for a few months & as they matured they started to sleep longer.

 

My only question is could they be too hungry to make it later? At that age mine would play and babble in their crib when they woke up unless they were hungry and then they would scream. We did a 7 PM bedtime but did a dreamfeed at 10-11 PM until they were 8 or 9 months old. With that, they would sleep till 7 AM.

 

I too found that my girls sleep longer if their bedtime is later. We tried moving their bedtime to about 7-7:30pm for a week but it was mayhem - they fussed forever before falling asleep and were getting up earlier. So I just don't fight it anymore. They now have their last bottle at 7:30pm and go down for the night at 8-8:30pm and sleep until 7-7:30am. Sometimes they wake up at around 5-5:30am and cry for a little bit but then go right back to sleep until at least 7am. It's very rare that they're up at 5:30am for good but it does happen so you may want to try just "riding it out" as busymomof3 and others suggest. Or you could try throwing a few toys in the crib when they wake up that early and see if that will occupy them until a more reasonable hour. Best of luck!

 

I am so relieved that other people are struggling with this issue as well! One of my daughters has been up at 5am for the past 2-3 months...it is so frustrating but she goes to bed at 7 and sleeps through till 5 so i really cant complain...i just wish she could to stretch it a little to maybe 6...guess we will just have to wait it out!

 

I was going to ask the hungry question too. My girls won't take any bottle bigger than 6oz at a time, and with solids meals, they usually only get 4 bottles during the day. While they are in bed by 8pm or so, I find that if I don't squeeze in a dreamfeed at ~10pm or ~11pm, they are awake by 5am. With the dreamfeed, they will usually sleep until 6 or 6:30am. Might be worth a shot!

 

i never knew babies shoul go to sleep that early---mine go to bed after their 9:00 btl and here latley they have been getting back up btwn 230and 330 to eat agin and then any where btwn 530 and 700 to eat again then up for the day around 9...should i reallly be putting them to bed earlier so they willl start STTN? but what about when i go back to work-- i cant be a stay at home mom like i would loveeeee to do--so iwont be getting home til 530 or so and dh 6, so if they went to bed that early we would never get to spend time with them. we are working on trying to get them to STTN they are 2 months old...

 

Your babies may do fine on a shifted schedule but most babies get overtired and don't sleep as well if they stay up past 7 or so. They are young though so you will be seeing more of their sleep needs emerge in the next 1-2 months. Working is hard because you don't get much time with them, but if you keep them up later then you will run into problems the next morning if you have to get them up, feed them and get them to a babysitter. Eventually they will be able to handle being awake longer. I work and I would basically get home from work, feed them, play with them for a couple minutes, and put them to bed. I just used weekends as catchup time! As for STTN, at 2 months very few babies can and nothing you do will make it happen. About 4 months is the earliest a term baby's brain is ready for a longer sleep cycle.

 

I am coming around to think that riding it out might be the best thing to do. Our girls get their last bottle around 615/630pm and then are usually in bed by 7. We have tried our hardest to get them to stay up a bit longer in hopes that this will make them sleep longer in the morning, but no such luck. We just end up with super cranky babies.

Ours go to sleep at 7 and wake with super wet diapers and for a feed btw 4-5 am then back down till about 7-8ish. We have tried to put them back to sleep after a diaper change at 4/5 but their is no way they are going down without something to eat, which is fair enough because I'm usually starving at that time in the morning, so I can only imagine what their little tummies feel like. They always go back to sleep after that bottle. From what I have been told, this is considered to be a continuation of night sleep.

We stopped doing the dream feed about 10 days ago and it has not impacted anything. With the dream feed, they were still waking at 4/5 for a bottle, so we just dropped it and upped their day bottles by an ounce.

I know I need to start waking them in the morning at the same time each day so we can have a consistent schedule each day (which would help my sanity and perhaps encourage longer sleep at night), but after 5 months of total sleep depervation, I'm so selfish that I just can't get out of bed until they want to....maybe I will get the will power to start tomorrow . Some days I get up at 645 and others its 730....I just need to pick a time and stick with it. I guess 7 seems reasonable....


This is def. a good thread and its great to see what has worked for others. There might be a solution that will work for one of us too...

 

This is a great thread! I had heard that sleep begets sleep, and have tried to get mine to sleep LONG hours at night, but it just isn't in the cards for these two! My son sleeps longer and better than my daughter. My daughter WAS going to bed at 7:00 pm every night and waking at 4:30-5:00 am and then back down at 8:00 am until 10:00 am. BUT, we moved their bedtime until 8:00-8:30, and now she sleeps until 6:00 AM!!