How did/do you handle 4:45am wake ups!?!?!

CIO took care of our 12-3am wake ups...but we're stumped on how to handle the 4:45-5:15am wake ups Joe keeps throwing at us. .

It's too close to wake up time to CIO. Our ideal wake up time is 6:30, I figure I shouldn't complain about anything past 5:45...but then one day it's 5:15...then 4:45 . We can't take it anymore and are at a loss as to how to improve our situation. We've tried letting him cry up to 40 minutes (then it's practically wake up time and pointless), we've tried feeding him (not hungry).

We've been stretching him to get to morning nap...should we give the nap early? If we do, then we have to wake up Nick just to keep a schedule. If we don't, is this teaching him to stay awake too long too early (and drop to 1 nap before he should be).

Ugh...just when you think everything is going great, they go and evolve!

Mods, can you link to 1-5? (Now that we're 10 mos. I wonder if there may be more folks in that forum who've lived through/treated this issue?) Thx

 

CIO took care of our 12-3am wake ups...but we're stumped on how to handle the 4:45-5:15am wake ups Joe keeps throwing at us. .

It's too close to wake up time to CIO. Our ideal wake up time is 6:30, I figure I shouldn't complain about anything past 5:45...but then one day it's 5:15...then 4:45 . We can't take it anymore and are at a loss as to how to improve our situation. We've tried letting him cry up to 40 minutes (then it's practically wake up time and pointless), we've tried feeding him (not hungry).

We've been stretching him to get to morning nap...should we give the nap early? If we do, then we have to wake up Nick just to keep a schedule. If we don't, is this teaching him to stay awake too long too early (and drop to 1 nap before he should be).

Ugh...just when you think everything is going great, they go and evolve!

Mods, can you link to 1-5? (Now that we're 10 mos. I wonder if there may be more folks in that forum who've lived through/treated this issue?) Thx

 

My babies kept waking up at 6am to 6:30 for several weeks. They were then thrown off by our long road trip and started waking up around 5:30am or so. We temporarily fixed this on our trip by giving DS a binky, which he always woke up for and patting DD on the butt to get her to go back to sleep with minimal noise for the other people in the house.

When we got back home, we decided to just let them cry if they woke up before 7am (my preferred wake time). We also decided to break the binky habit at the same time. It took several days, but each day they did better than the previous day. DS actually sleeps better now without the binky than before. Now - less than 2 weeks later, they are actually sleeping in anywhere from 7:20 to 7:45. DS usually wakes up first, talks to himself for about 20 min and then wakes up DD.

I recommend leaving them in their cribs until you decide it is time to start the day. It should only take a few days to make it a habit.

 

Someone posted a while ago going in and rocking them back to sleep... If my babies ever have a early morning wake up I definitely let them be awake for a little bit to see if they'll just go back to sleep on their own, but if not I will just snuggle and rock them for a minute and they always go back to sleep. I don't ever try feeding them because I really don't want to have to feed every morning at 4:45, but they rocking back to sleep has worked for us-

 

I went through this phase for a while as well. It really sucks!! I was crabby and moody and not in the mood to play with them. I know it wasn't their fault but I'm just not an early morning person. finally, I decided that I will not take them out of their crib until 6:30 at the earliest. Sometimes I would go and put a few toys in their crib and let them play and often times, they would actually fall back to sleep. I still stick to this (unless I know they are sick or something) and I don't even really put toys anymore. I have one toy attatched to the crib and a dolly. It's really only one of my dds that continues to wakes up but she has learned to wait for me and doesn't seem to get upset so, I sleep. It's amazing how that one extra hour of sleep can be the difference between a happy mama and a crabby one.

 

Depending on how vocal they are, I will either let them fuss it out, or I will give them a small bottle of water. I do not talk to them, cuddle them, or let them out of the crib. Usually it is a mini-phase that passes in a few weeks preceeding a milestone, like walking, crawling etc...

 

We went through this for a little while with Cooper. He would wake up around 4:30/5am and I wanted to keep close to his schedule so I gave him water with a splash of juice to hold him over until his scheduled feeding time. I didn't talk to him, turn on the light or anything. After the water/juice I would rock him for about 5 mins and put him back in the crib. Sometimes he would cry for a couple minutes but usually just went back to sleep. If he started doing this a few nights in a row I started back doing dreamfeeds for 2-3 nights and then it would stop. I think he was just going through a growth spurt and maybe hungry earlier so the dreamfeed topped him off before I went to bed(much better than a 4am wake up call). If he wakes after 5:30 I let him babble/fuss until 6:30(which is when the babble starts turning to some loud fussing). I want him to get used to 6:30/7am wake up and hoping he will just start sleeping longer. Of course I don't sleep very much when he's babbling b/c of the monitor but at least I'm in my bed

His brother Eli is a jewel! I have to wake him up most every morning and earlier than he might like some mornings b/c I want to keep them on the same schedule.

 

I was afraid this would be the consensus. Fuss it out sounds fine...but we'd have to do something more like, "Scream it out".

I just reread some of Ferber and I wonder if my boys are getting too much daytime sleep? We get two 2-hr naps. Ferber says kids older than 6 mos shouldn't need more than 3 hours of total daytime sleep.

Also, we're putting them to bed at 7:45/8pm and they are waking up from their last nap at 4/4:30. Last nap too late? Bedtime too late?

 

Matthew used to do this also. It would drive me nuts. I think I basically let him cry most of the time. I've found with him, it's his personality. He's an early riser. And it's better for him to cry a while in his crib, then wake up early and be crabby all day. Most of the time, it would only last a couple of weeks until I was just about ready to pull my hair out, then he would start sleeping a little later.

Crystal

 

We found that the earlier we put them to bed, the later they slept in the morning - I don't know how that works, but it did. They can't handle being up much later than 6:30 at night. I also set a time that was the earliest I wanted to get them out of the crib (6:30) and I wouldn't get them before that, now when they wake earlier they either play in the crib or go back to sleep. FWIW - that was the last bottle for us to drop, but we slowly stretched them longer and longer, starting with a five minute delay 4:45 one week, 4:50 the next, then 4:55...doing it that little seemed to help as well.

 

quote:
Originally posted by SweetpeaG:
I was afraid this would be the consensus. Fuss it out sounds fine...but we'd have to do something more like, "Scream it out".

I just reread some of Ferber and I wonder if my boys are getting too much daytime sleep? We get two 2-hr naps. Ferber says kids older than 6 mos shouldn't need more than 3 hours of total daytime sleep.

Also, we're putting them to bed at 7:45/8pm and they are waking up from their last nap at 4/4:30. Last nap too late? Bedtime too late?

I don't know anything about Ferber's book but I've read Weissbluth's. According to him, from what I understand, older infants tend to go to bed earlier, around 6:00. I think you hit it on the nose by stating that they're waking up too late from their last nap. Maybe wake them earlier, or put them down earlier and let them go for about 1-1.5 hours and possibly consider an earlier bedtime. He says the earlier bedtime creates more sleep. I know I don't have older infants, they're 3 months of age, but Weissbluth has been pretty effective for us. I thought to pass some of his wisdom on. HTH!

 

Am I getting my girls out of their cribs too early?? I get up at 5:00, so if they are awake I just get them up and start our day. Should I make them sleep longer? Of course, it really frustrates me when they wake up earlier than 5:00, because my body is not ready for that!! They usually don't cry - they just 'talk' to themselves...oh and more than once they've been standing up looking at each other.