Nightlight? Too early am wake up----- sleep problems again!

[Jen in Chicago]

Dr Weisbluth says no (we kind of follow this, but I am a pushover when it comes to CIO). We took it out and were in a good sleeping groove. The last 4 days he has been waking for the day between 4:30 and 5:00.

He has been going down between 6:30-7:00 regularly for a long time now, and he is TIRED at that time. He wakes around 11/12 and drinks 8 oz (the only 8 oz bottle he will drink a day, all other feedings are 3-6 oz). The wake ups the last few days start happy, then 15 min. later the crying starts and we go in. We try to feed him in hopes that he will go right back to sleep, but he pushes away the bottle and babbles to us. If we put him in the crib he will scream until we get him out (45 mins. this am and I caved in.) I tried putting him down around 7:30 one night, and he was up at 4:00 for the day! He will take 2 naps during the day, totaling 1.5-3 hours. He naps better at daycare then home right now (it was the other way around.)

DH is traveling this week and I work f-t. Something has to give. I am already almost in tears in fear of what the week will hold.

[sntm]

did you try an earlier bedtime, a la Weissbluth? i work ft also, so i know that earlier than 6:30 is nearly impossible, but maybe try it on a weekend?
bringing him into your bed might work also, if you catch him quickly enough. i can sometimes convince jack to sleep another 2 hours that way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03

[Jen in Chicago]

I am going to try earlier, we'll see if I can do it. Tonight I will have a small window to feed dinner, bathe and bedtime routine. I can not figure out what changed things recently, and why this has happened for a few days now.

I'm a zombie!

[bnme]

My DS is also a very early-to-bed kind of kid. He used to go down at 6pm, but was waking at 5am or earlier so I tried later. And all he did was wake earlier!! He have now settled in at 630 pm and he seems to be doing better.

It must be so hard for you since you work! I am at home, and thank god becuase I was working for a while and I didn't get home until 7pm, I would have never seen him.

I really have no advice, just wanted to say I'm in a similar boat and I am looking forward to Daylight savings time!
;)

Oh, and he started to go to bed so early around 8 months when he was also napping 2x a day. Then he would sleep till 6 am. Now he is almost 14 months and naps only 1x a day. I tried the later bedtime in the past month or so because his wake time started getting earlier and earlier.

[Jen in Chicago]

Thank you!

I am going to try to get him down this week earlier, and if that does not work try later 6:45/7:00 next week. It kills me b/c I get so little time with him, but I am not enjoying the early hours like I guess I should. 6:00 I have come to terms with, before that is HARD!

[bnme]

Oh, I forgot to add that I made the shift to later gradually --like 10 minutes per night. I tried going from 6-7 in one night and that was a mess but by doing it 10 minutes a night we worked our way up to 7.
Good luck!

[C99]

If you figure it out, please let me know. Nathaniel has been waking up every morning for the past week at 4:21 a.m. on the nose. It's killing us! (and not related to anything weird like ear infection, etc.) I also read in Weissbluth to try an earlier bedtime, but the kid already goes to bed at 6:30 p.m. and sometimes 6 p.m. (like tonight); how much earlier can we make it?? This morning, we just let him cry until he either fell asleep or we reached an acceptable waking hour (6 a.m.). We've tried everything else, including feeding him and doing the Burton White "go to sleep" verbal reminder, but I think that both of these methods just piss him off more.

[Mom to Brandon and 2 cats]

No advice here - but I feel your pain. My DS used to sleep through the night around 6 months. Then at 6.5 months, something happened and now he's back to waking up 2x per night (10:30/11:00 and 3:30/4:00). I'm not sure what's happening. For awhile, I thought it was because he was constipated. But now his system is clear...

I'm also nursing everytime he wakes up, but his diapers are so soaked in the morning - makes me wonder if he's really hungry. He goes down at 7:00 to 7:30 at night, so I don't think we're keeping him up too late.

all I know is that I'm TIRED. yawn.

--Jennifer

[Gayletmomto4]

Okay, this is going to sound odd but hang in there with me. When my oldest was a toddler ( a few months older than yours) he went through this stage of waking every morning at 5:15am. I thought I would loose my mind until I noticed a few short sentences in the Ferber book about the early morning waking being some sort of mix up of his circadian rhythms that had to do with his morning nap. I tried backing up the a.m. nap gradually (15 mins. a day)to a later start and after a few days it worked!

Anyway, I don't know how scientific it is but it might be worth a try. Sending you lots of good sleep vibes!

HTH