How can I extend their sleep in the AM - before I go INSANE!

My little Nathan thinks it's a great idea to wake up most mornings between 5-5:30am. Some days it's as early as 4:30am. If he is up at 4:30, SOMETIMES I can get him back to sleep, but by the time he doses back off the other kids are awake and it doesn't matter.

Any ideas? He goes to sleep pretty consistently at 7pm. I am at my wits end! Neither one are sleeping through the nite so I don't really get to sleep until 11:30-12 so waking up so early is really messing with my head and I find myself being really grouchy.

Any tricks to extend the AM wake up call would be SO appreciated. Thanks!!

 

My little Nathan thinks it's a great idea to wake up most mornings between 5-5:30am. Some days it's as early as 4:30am. If he is up at 4:30, SOMETIMES I can get him back to sleep, but by the time he doses back off the other kids are awake and it doesn't matter.

Any ideas? He goes to sleep pretty consistently at 7pm. I am at my wits end! Neither one are sleeping through the nite so I don't really get to sleep until 11:30-12 so waking up so early is really messing with my head and I find myself being really grouchy.

Any tricks to extend the AM wake up call would be SO appreciated. Thanks!!

 

Mine always woke about the time DH was getting up for work at that age, which was about 5:30 as well... I just got up with them, brought them into the living room, gave them a bottle, and put them in their swings/bouncers and had the room dark, they usually always went back to sleep in their chairs, and I slept on the couch.

 

I had the same problem for a while. I used the same techniques for a night time feeding. No play, little eye contact, quiet and dark room, no TV. I would just feed them and hold them until they fell back asleep or put them in their swings. It might be a phase. Mine did it for about two weeks, and now they are back to "sleeping in". I definately understand your frustration and being grouchy.

 

My son used to do that and I would just leave him in there till at least 6:30. Many times we both fell back to sleep and got up at 7:00. That's the only way I had read how to train them.....they are up no earlier usually than 6:30 and 6:50 is pretty standard around here. If they wake up NOW (21 mos) at 5:30 they are definitely NOT getting mommy!! WAY to early for me!!!

 

One of my girls has been doing this lately too. She used to sleep pretty regularly until 6:30 or 6:45 - lately she's been ready to get up around 5 or 5:30. I usually go in and check on her to make sure she isn't stuck in a wierd position in the crib, tuck her back in, and then go back to bed and try to sleep a little more. She sometimes cries a little, most of the time she talks herself back to sleep within 10 or 15 minutes. But she doesn't sleep long - she's usually back up by 6:30.

I'm hoping it's a phase and that eventually she goes back to sleeping until 6:30 without waking up.

 

We are also going through this right now too! When they were younger and waking a 4am I would do like the PP stated and take them straight to their swings at the first sound of fussing. I figured out they weren't hungry and just wanted up after a few times of trying to feed them. By getting them to the swing pretty quick(still dark room) they would go back to sleep w/i a few minutes. They started to learn to just sleep in a bit longer. Now what I do is just leave them alone unless they are crying and then I go in. Most of the time they will go back to sleep on their own after talking a bit. I do find myself having to turn off the baby monitor in my room so I can sleep w/o the babble b/c if they really start to cry I can hear it w/o the monitor. I read somewhere like the pp that by leaving them if they are only talking is supposed to train them to just start sleeping instead? I heard Eli on the monitor at 4am babbling and beating his crib rails with his paci, he kept dragging the pace across the rails. As cute as that is it wasn't so cute at 4am so I turned off the monitor

 

I do the same thing that a lot of the PP said. I leave my boys no matter what in their cribs until 7:00 am. A lot of the times they donn't wake until 7:30 anyways, but if they're up before, I leave them. Then they don't get used to rising so early. If he's not screaming or crying I wouldn't even bother him.