Please help...He wakes at 5!

[jojo2324]

*I just posted this over on 411, but it doesn't get a lot of traffic and most of the questions there involve much younger babies...Please help if you can!!!*

DS was pretty sick for a couple of weeks, so was napping a lot (4+ hours), going to bed really early (6-6:30), and waking up at his normal time (6:30-7). Now that he's better, naps are hit or miss. Yesterday, he napped for about 2 hours, with two different naps, and those were difficult to get. The day before that, he napped for 3 hours in a row, readily. He shows signs of tiredness around 6, and I'd been putting him to bed at 6:30. These past few days, I've been pushing it to 7:30-8.

It's not helping. He's been waking up at 5 every morning this week. I can't calm him down (he's never been a happy waker). Sometimes he's pooped...This is brand new to me, as he never even did this when he was a newborn. He had bad diarrhea while he was sick, so I change him (obviously) and slather him with cream because his diaper rash is pretty bad and easily irritated. But there's no way he's going back to sleep after that. Other times, he's not poopy, but HUNGRY. He does the sign for eat/food and makes his food noise. The ped did say that when he regained his appetite, he would want to eat anything and everything. (He lost about 4 lbs in 3 weeks.)

But at 5 am?!?! To add insult to injury, (which is completely irrational, but it's not even 6 am yet and I AM pregnant :P), he is soooooo whiny. This morning he threw a fit when I brought him downstairs because he wanted to play with his markers. I tried to get some food down in front of him as fast as possible, but he didn't want me to let him go. It's bad enough I'm waking up before the freaking rooster next door (yes, really), but for him to be all whiny and crying like that REALLY grates my nerves.

What do I do??? Last night I put him to bed at 8, and he was still up at 5. Makes me think I should move back to the 6-6:30 bedtime just so he gets a few additional hours of sleep. Do you think this is because of the weight loss/eating?

I'm sorry...I'm sure I sound really crabby and snively right now. Last night I couldn't fall asleep before 2 for some reason, and all I could think was, "Oh, only 3 more hours before I need to be awake again!" Luckily, DH and I switch off on days, but this morning it was my turn. I am NOT a morning person, and I feel guilty because I am neither patient nor nice. :(

[newbelly2002]

oh Hon, wish I had some good advice. Vent away, you have every right in the world. Maybe it's teeth? G-man should be due for his eye teeth soon and that seems to be a loooong process. I know for Dante it's coming in waves. Drooling, early waking, night waking gets bad for a week, then receeds only to come back a few weeks later. And since you're going to be taking over all of the BF with the arrival of little miss, then I think DH should take over ALL of the AM's until her arrival. It's only fair, right? :)

It's a long shot, but Dante is much happier in the AM since I put his "baby signs" book into the crib with him. Stuffed animals weren't doing it, but he takes the book out and "studies" it which buys us about 20 minutes of AM time before he gets bored. It also seems to help his mood. I started this out of desperation when he was doing his farmer Jack 5:30 wake up a few months back.

Thinking of you....

Paula
Mama to Dante, 8/1/02

[bnme]

Joanne
Wish I had some advice, but I was actually thinking about posting my similar problem - DS has started waking at 430!!! He also goes to bed at 6-630 and it always seems to me when I put him to bed later he wakes up earlier!! I don't force the early bedtime, it just seems that that's when he is ready and he goes to sleep so quickly at that time.

IS there anyway to "influence" a later wake-up??? I am interested in hearing advice from others. I don't know if I should "refuse" to get him up so early or keep trying a later bedtime and trying to get him to take his afternoon nap.

One thing that has happened over here is that DS naps from about 10-12, but has stopped taking his afternoon nap. He seems well rested and goes to sleep w/o problems for bedtime and morning nap. Its just the ungodly-hour wake-up thats killing me. Oh, another thing that I think may be contributing to our prolem is that when he wakes so early I camp out on the couch with him -with a bottle and cartoons if he isn't content just cuddleing. Could it be that he is waking earlier and earlier just for "cuddle time"?

Well, if it makes you feel any better I will be thinking of you in the wee hours.

[Sarah1]

I was going to post about this this morning--we've had a major breakthrough here with this very issue.

Until this week, DD would wake up around 5:45-6 AM (granted, MUCH better than 5 AM, but still on the early side). She would take her first nap about 8:45-9, her second nap about 1:30, and go down for the night about 6:30, sometimes closer to 6. I had come to accept that she was just an early riser, and having her go to bed at 6:00 was actually kind of nice sometimes, so I just tried to focus on the positive!

On Monday, on a fluke, she didn't go down for her morning nap until about 10:30 (about an hour and a half later than normal). That pushed her PM nap to about 3 (she slept 'til about 4:15), and she didn't go to bed until a little after 7. Well, the next morning she slept until 6:45!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. So, Tuesday, same thing--put her down for her morning nap later, about 10:15. That's pushed everything back, and as a result she has slept later every morning this week. On Wednesday she woke up at 6:30, on Thursday 6:55, and this morning it's 7:05 AM and she is STILL ASLEEP!! Miracle of miracles!!!!!!!

In the past, I had tried just putting her to bed later in an effort to get her to sleep later, but that never worked. Sometimes she woke up even earlier as a result. However, this moving the naps up really seems to shift her entire schedule, and I had actually read in one of my many sleep books (this from Ferber) that moving up the naps is the first thing to do if you're trying to shift their schedule around.

Hope this helps! It really worked for us...it's only been 4 nights, but so far so good. Good luck Joanne. Let me know how it goes.

[Karenn]

We're in the early riser club along with you! It had been better for the last couple weeks, but then I realized that Colin had an ear infection and now that that's gone, he's back to waking at the crack of dawn. One thing that has helped around here is making sure that he eats as much as possible before bedtime. With Colin, I've noticed that he really does seem to wake up hungry so I try to push dinner a little later, and if he doesn't eat much at dinner or eats it too early, I'll offer a before bed snack.

I've also had good luck with the later naptime. If I put him down later he'll sleep longer during the day, and whenever he sleeps longer during the day, he'll sleep longer at night too.

I don't know many people who are cheerful at 5am. And I've discovered, it doesn't matter how early I go to bed, 5am is STILL 5am and it's just not possible to wake up that early and feel rested!

Good luck!