Starting the day at 5am

[bubbles28]

Hi, my 10mth old DS has just decided that he wants to start the day at 5am.
He wakes up and is full of beans and wants to play.
I have tried to put him back to sleep by putting his music on but he just cries untill I get him out of the cot.
I am so tired at this time so the last 2 mornings I have put him in bed with us in the hope that he might go back to sleep. He did sleep one of the times and the other time he just wanted to play. I don't want to get in the habbit of letting him sleep in our bed, not that i'm against co-sleeping, it's more of a safety issue.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get my DS to start the day a little later? :confused:
Thankyou

[drewid]

If you can figure it out, please let the rest of us know! It seems a lot of the Qld bubbas are up at the crack of dawn.

I learnt a long time ago to stop fighting it, and just get on with it! Its easier. Just go to bed a bit earlier at night and learn the love the morning!

[Jaileth]

Don't know if it'll help, but what about a black out blind in his room? One that lets absolutly no light through (unless it's open that is :) )

I have no idea how well this works, but Kaz Cooke swears by it :D

If you do go through with it, Spotlight stores have some really great curtian material that is pretty reasonable. Alot of it is the 'hang and cut' sort (if you aren't into sewing)

[tickle]

I think no matter what, if air can get in so can a little bit of light. It is so dark in the bedroom but he seems to always know the sun is up. But hey, you can only try!!! ;)
I have resigned myself to the fact that it comes with the territory. :rolleyes:
My DS will get up at 5 half the time and the other half he gets up at 6.
I just count myself lucky as there are some mums on here whose kids get up at 4:30am!! :eek:

[melfunction]

I just count myself lucky as there are some mums on here whose kids get up at 4:30am!! :eek:


I am one of these mums except K gets up anywhere between 3am and 4.30am :eek:

Happy days :p

[Supermum]

I have no idea how well this works, but Kaz Cooke swears by it :D
Well Kaz doesn't have my two! They have always got up with the sun even though we had curtains made for their rooms with three pass blackout material. Their rooms are pitch black.

5am is actually a late start for us :o

We have tried putting them to bed later but all this makes for is grumpy children the next day.

Good luck and let me know what the answer is when you find it .. PLEASE!

[Foxy]

If only we had daylight saving like the more civilised part of the country!!

My DS wakes around 5:30am regardless of what time he goes to bed. :confused:

I agree that morning sleeps in the "big bed" are a thing of the past, he just tries to climb over us and over the edge.......

I have put a couple of safe soft toys in his cot and he seems happy to play with these (and 8 dummies) for about 30-45 mins in his cot, so while I know he's awake, I can just lie in listening and relaxing - and I have been known to fall back asleep!


Hope some toys work for you. :)

[BIANCA-mummy of 2]

I have actually posted a thread about how my Mum says its ridiculous how our kids these days get up sooo early and that we let them rule this made me angry I have the same problem my 1 yr olds up at 4.30 and my 3 yr old around 6-7 wish I could help too but its just part of our mummy hood I have been going bed earlier to or if your really drained try and go and have a granny nap when you put bubs down for the next sleep. ;)

[Shazbutt]

Yup, tired the blackout blinds here too, don't work. Mac is up with the birds EVERY morning...she's also just started to wake up at about 1 am and start screaming to come sleep with me (after a couple of nights being scared of thunder & sleeping with me). Last night she screamed for an hour, the night before it was 4 hours straight!! I had to get bubs out of the room and in bed with me so she didn't wake her, and just had to shut the door and let her go for it...sounds mean, but no way was i giving in to her....thats what started it....

Let me know if anyone else has the answers!!

[lukaelmo]

Hey Bubbles,

I have an idea that might help you..or it might completely backfire and make things worse!

Instead of letting your man wake up at 5am, how about you getting up and waking him at 4am, fully waking him and then settling him back down to sleep. This is a technique used by Tracy Hogg in her book The Baby Whisperer called "wake to sleep". I have never tried it, but the idea is to break his little habit of waking at a regular and inappropriate time.

My little man gets up naturally at 4am for a feed and I do it really quietly and then settle him back down and he will go through 'till 7am. Like this I don't even mind getting up at 4 because I know that after I feed him I can go straight back to sleep. The wake to sleep method doesn't say to feed them though, that is just what I do.

I like the ideas of the blackout blinds too. A friend of mine does this and her little man sleeps from 7 - 7 grrrrrrr!

Good luck!

[JanetF]

What time are you putting your child to bed? My son has only wanted to get up at 5-6am when I've put him in bed around 7pm which I did briefly in a misguided attempt to lengthen his sleep periods. No way could I get up like that every day! He has always just gone to bed when tired, not to a routine, and for about a year now he's gone to bed when I do around 10pm. He gets up about 9-9.30am which works much better for us! He also gets to see more of his dad who gets home about 6pm than if we imposed an early bedtime on him. It also means that we can go out to dinner, have friends over or go visiting and shopping at night without having an overtired child. Kids only tend to be in bed about 12 hours so if you want to get up later, massage their bedtime to be a little later. We also have blinds but I didn't found they made much difference. Good luck!

[bubbles28]

Hi everyone, thanks for your ideas.
Hi lukaelmo, I don't know if I have the guts to try that one! It sounds interesting though. Is it an ongoing thing to wake them at 4am or do you stop waking after awhile?
Hi Janet, I put my son to bed at 7.30 every night regardless whether he is tired or not. Maybe this is the problem? It's a great idea to get them into a routine to go to sleep later and get up later. We love going out to dinner but have often had to say no due to DS sleep routine and going to bed at 7.30. Hoe do you start the routine? Do I just keep him up late one night?

[Nickster]

Hi bubbles,

My DD is like your son, but she has decided lately that her wake-up time is 4.30am! :eek: This has been going on for about 2 months now, DH seems to think that it has something to do with our diurnal clock - ie. because it gets light earlier, regardles of whether they have blacked-out bedrooms, therefore they wake earlier.
I've had advice (?) to just leave her there to cry and eventually she will fall back asleep. :confused: What a joke!
My plan is to slowly put her sleeping times back and hopefully she will therefore wake later. I know Supermum said it didn't work for her, but I've got to give it a go. Live and learn, huh?
I went to Pinky Mckay's website (there are forums there too), and it is recommended that you do it slowly - eg. put bub to bed 15 minutes later than the usual bedtime for about a week, then the next week increase it by another 15 minutes, and then bub should slowly start waking up a little later in another couple of weeks.
That's the theory, anyway! Pinky said to do it "gradually and with love". Nice quote, hey!
I'll just see how I go.
If it doesn't work, I guess I'll just resign myself to early bedtimes until she hits her teenage years and has to be dragged out of bed in the morning. :rolleyes:
Hope this helps you!

[Rell]

Yes I'm another QLDer with early risers. My 2 are up between 3.30 and 5am every morning. We have blockout blinds in both rooms but does not help at all, they just seem to know when the sun is up. Putting them to bed latter might work with some kids but not mine. The other night DS was up to 10pm but he still woke up at 4.45am.
Like others have said I have just learnt to accept it.

[tickle]

The putting to bed later doesn't work with my DS either. He has gone to bed at 6, 7, 9 or even 10:30pm and still gets up at 5.
He sleeps through so I can't complain!
E :)

[lukaelmo]

Hey Bubbles,

Yeah, in theory I can see how this idea might work, but in practise there is no way I would drag myself out of bed at 4am to wake up my sleeping baby :0!

I think you are only supposed to do it once or twice, just to break their sleeping pattern and trying to form a new one. So I guess you wake them up at 4am (if they get up at 5am) and then pop them back down. Theoretically because they got up at 4 then they will not get up at 5 and will sleep a bit longer.

The more I try to explain it the worse it sounds.

So I have a better idea.

After very smugly saying that my little man gets up at 4 for a feed and then sleeps 'till 7, he has now decided to join forces with your little man and wake up bright and cheerful at 5am.

I lie in bed and make lots of getting-up-noises-but-I-am-oh-so-exhausted. Just enough to wake up little dude's dad.

I then offer to get up, but with a tired performance that is worthy of a summer bay or neighbours performed logie winning scene.

So Neill gets up and takes little dude out for a stroll to get the paper.

So little dude is still getting up at 5am, but I am not :)

Problemo solved.

good luck

[tickle]

LOL Alison, at least yours gets the hint!
Mine acts dumb and pretends to keep sleeping. :rolleyes:

[bubbles28]

Hi Nickster, I let my DS cry the other morning in the hope that he would fall back to sleep. I was really frustrated and wasn't going to get him out of the cot at 4am. He cried and grizzled on and off for about 45mins then eventually fell asleep and slept untill 7am. Lets see if it will work next time though!

Hi Alison, I get hubby to do the same thing on the weekends. He gets up early anyway aso he doesn't mind to much. Even if I can't fall back asleep at least I'm resting(in BED)!

[JanetF]

You can massage their bedtime slowly in any direction say 15 mins a week. There isn't a reason for 7.30pm being a magical rule for bedtime LOL. Put your kid to bed when he's tired, and see what happens ;) We never have sleep problems or perhaps I don't perceive normal sleep patterns as a problem :)

[Nickster]

Hey bubbles,
good on you for getting your little one to sleep until 7am. I think I tried that once or twice (out of desperation, because cc has never worked for us) - but she soon cottoned on, and now will scream and shriek when she wakes until I get her up, and to be honest, I hate hearing her cry and it's just not worth leaving her there.

Hmm...where am I at...well, we've put her bedtime back to 6.45pm (although because I worked last night, hubby put her to bed and couldn't get her to sleep until 7.15pm), and the first morning she woke at 4.30am, but this morning she woke at 5am. So maybe it's working - fingers crossed and not expecting any miracles.

I just have to make sure I go to bed early - which is fine with me, because there's nothing worth watching on TV right now, but I tend to read a lot and lose track of time!

Good on you Alison for getting your hubby to take over!
Mine does whenever he can - about 2 - 3 times per week, we try and take turns.
Looking forward to more updates, girls! :)
Fingers crossed for a big sleep in on Friday..... :rolleyes: :D :p

[Bronte'sMum]

Hi everone

I'm joining this thread a little late but thought I would offer commiserations (!) and a couple of thoughts to see what people think. Our DD has like clockwork gotten up at 5.15 for about three months now and Dh and I have been slowly getting more and more exhausted , though we take it in shifts to respond. We tried the later bed time - no difference, trying to settle her again - she just laughed and thought it was a huge game and feeding her more at night to see if she could hang on just a bit longer for her mroning bottle.

For a while now we've been putting toys and books in her cot late at night for her to play with when she first wakes up. This has bought us another 20-30 mins while she quietly plays to herself. Bliss!

But one thing i am interested in trying is adjusting her morning sleep. i read in PP magazine a theory that if the first morning sleep is gently delayed by 15 min increments, this will lead to a later wake up time the next morning. For a variety of reasons DD hasn't gotten to her morning sleep until 9.30 thae last two mornings and lo and behold she has slept in until 6.20 - we feel like we've won lotto!

Has anyone else tried this? We are going to keep experimenting to see if it makes a difference.

Bronte's Mum

[Supermum]

You can massage their bedtime slowly in any direction say 15 mins a week. There isn't a reason for 7.30pm being a magical rule for bedtime LOL. Put your kid to bed when he's tired, and see what happens ;) We never have sleep problems or perhaps I don't perceive normal sleep patterns as a problem :)
I can see how this would work ... as most changes, whether introduced to a baby, child or adult are accepted if introduced incrementally.

There is a reason for 7:30pm being a magical rule for bedtime in our house as my husband is a student and I work full time and we are out of the house at 6:30 every morning. Children need sleep.

So for some, routine is a necessity. I also think the inherent temperament of your child makes a difference. If you have a cool, placid child, then I would imagine they would go with the flow and sleep would follow. Our son has a spirited temperament, is highly energised and copes much better in a routined environment ... this includes going to bed at the same time most nights.

[Nickster]

I have an update.

I am being cautiously optimistic, and tomorrow morning may well prove me wrong, but this morning Libby slept until 6.10am!!!!Yippee!

A girlfriend of mine came over for dinner last night, and delivered an early Xmas present to Libby (Elmo's bathtime playset - very well received). So with all the excitement, and then sitting at the table with Mummy and Daddy and Auntie Sonia, she didn't go to bed until 8.30pm (and then only because she was demanding it).
We are going to try and put her to bed at 8pm tonight, and see if the miracle re-occurs. After about 2 months of 4 - 4.30 am starts, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. I only hope it is not the headlights of an oncoming train.

:D :D :D

How is everyone else going with their little earlybirds?

[Nickster]

Another update - c'mon girls, I'm starting to feel a bit like Tom Hanks in "Castaway" - re: sleeping later.

We put Libby to bed at 8pm last night, and she slept until 5.30am! (she woke 3 times, but was easy enough to get back to sleep, so that's no problemo!).

I had a moment of guilt, thinking that maybe I shouldn't have altered her bedtime, but then thought about it seriously, and realised that she was happy enough to stay up with me and DH, she got to sit at the dinner table with us and sample some steak and salad. Then some apple pie! She was laughing and giggling, so obviously she's still a happy baby!

To have her wake at 5.30am is absolute BLISS compared to the 4.30am starts.

How are you going, bubbles28?

[bubbles28]

Hi Nicole, thats great news. I'm sure that extra hour helps.
Last night DS was really bad! He woke up during the night about 6 times! I had to resettle him every time. THe last time he woke was at about 4am and then he didn't wake this morning untill 8.15, yes 8.15! I think he was so tired from waking so many times during the night and so was mummy!
However the two nights before that he slept right through the night. THis was the first time ever in his whole life(10 1/2mths) that he has slept through. I put him to bed a little later and he slept from 8 untill 6.30, I was rapt!

[drewid]

My little ray of sunshine has been sleeping in a bit lately too.

We have been out a lot the last week cos DH has been on holidays, and as a consequence, Andrew often didn't get as many day sleeps as he would usually, plus was going to bed later. He is usually in bed by 7.30 but the last week it has pushed up to 8 or even 9. He has been sleeping til at least 6, and today it was even 7! DH and I very impressed this mornign cos we had a very late night, so it was lovely to have a little sleep in!

I think keeping them up later (as long as they are happy) is awesome - Andrew loves to join in with our dinners now and will eat anything we eat.

Its great having him up with us - makes him seem like less of a baby and more of a person, if you know what I mean? :)

[Nickster]

Good news, girls, thanks for sharing!

DH loved getting to spend another hour or so with his "little princess", so the later bedtime is a definite bonus. Tonight we are going to look at some Xmas lights, which we could never have done with her original bedtime.

Everyone's happy!

bubbles, could it be teething - the 6 time waking thing? it was with Libby.

[bubbles28]

Hi nickster,
I thought it might have been. But my Ds who is 10mths already has 8 teeth so surely he can't be getting any more!
I think somtimes he just wakes and wants to play and doesn't know how to resettle himself back to sleep.
We will see how we go tonight, fingers crossed!
Anyway hubby said he would get up now because he is on holidays. I told him I was on holidays too so I won't be getting up during the night!

[Nickster]

Hi bubbles,

The teething thing is a mystery. I remember looking in Libby's mouth at 11months after a few nights of waking about 6 times (her, that is, not me! he he), and seeing 4 little pearly sprouts ready to pop through her gums - to make a grand total of 11 all before her first birthday! You just don't know what to put it down to sometimes, though!

Big bonus points to your DH for getting up to him through the night!:)

A new update - last night, we put Libby to bed at 8pm (well, give or take 10 minutes) and she woke a couple of times, but finally got up at 5.50am!

I'm so excited!:D :D :D

I think we've finally beaten the 4.30am wakings - don't they say if bub does something 3 times in a row that you can then call it a habit?

Fingers and toes are still firmly crossed that it continues.

How is everyone else going with the early mornings?

[melfunction]

I have an update too!!!

My treasure has slept through until 5.30am nearly every day this week (except Tuesday, but who's counting)!!!!!!!! YAY, I don't feel like a zombie...I worked out he wanted more food :o and I think this has helped a lot.

When he wakes, he is just playing in his cot now, so I don't have to feed him straight away. OMG, it has made such a difference especially since I have almost been a singe mum this week.

I'm bouncing off walls!!!!!!!:D

[bubbles28]

Hi nickster, oh really. Maybe it is teething. Now to come to think of it DS has been dribbling heaps and chewing on things. Bad mum I am for not realising that it could be teething.
Thats excellant news about Libby, I hope she continues with the sleep ins (5.50am:rolleyes: )

[Nickster]

Kaidensmum, that is fantastic news, I am so jealous! I DREAM of Libby sleeping through, but know that probably won't happen until she's about 15!
When you say he wanted more food, do you mean you gave him a bigger dinner or just more generally throughout the day? (I'm so nosy :p )

bubbles, I've done the same thing re: teething and not realised until afterwards that it was teething. Sleep deprivation does that to you - don't be too hard on yourself!

Another update - the 4.30am waking has been conquered. I would like a special trophy (or at least a nice cuppa) PLOISE!
Granted, we have had a couple of big days, Xmas and Boxing Day spent with heaps of rellies in various locations, but last night Libby went to bed at 7.30ish pm and woke once, I REPEAT ONCE, at 3.30am, and then finally at 6.30am! I can't believe it!

*can I add a little disclaimer here as well, saying that I understand it is perfectly normal for babies to wake several times through the night and that is in fact the reality I have been dealing with for the past year, and continue to expect dealing with for at least the next few years!
It's just nice to not start the day at 4.30am!:D

[Foxy]

Just thought I'd share some Xmas success. :)

With all the outings, excitment, visitors etc over the last week, DS has not been going to bed until around 8:30pm and not waking at all until at least 6am!!

In the past it has been bed at 6:30pm and waking around 5 - 5:30am, and a later bedtime still meant a 5am wake-up. This has put DH & I in such a good mood, we don't even know oursleves!

Hope something similar has happened for all the sleep deprived mums out there!