4:12 a.m

T

thechurchofgod

New member
Every, single day. My son pops up at 4:12 a.m. I'm going to lose my freaking mind from exhaustion (and so is he), so I'm here to beg for help with the last shred of my sanity barely intact.

Here are the details:
22 months, has his teeth except his molars. Has been sleep trained since 12 months using the method where you check in every 5, 10, 15 minutes in increasing frequency, which stopped his waking from midnight to 3 am (aka the hardest 6 months of my life). When we check in on him, we don't take him out of the crib, but we may pat, shush, help him get his stuffed animal, help him get comfortable. Wakes around 4am, naps noon-2pm, bed at 7pm.

Since daylight savings ended (started? Whatever) in November, my son went from a miserable 5 am waking to a miserable 4 am waking. It's like his body never wanted to get on board with the new time. The upcoming hop forward or backwards or whatever will help. But I truly don't understand what to do. We've worked with a sleep coach for the better part of a year and she has not been able to resolve the issue.

Here is what we have tried:
Earlier bedtime, later bedtime, earlier nap, later nap (at this point we have tried every wake window adjustment possible with our schedules), adding stuffed animal, trying a light based alarm (red, bed. Green, up), going in to comfort based on the increasing interval approach, letting him cry on and off for an hour+ in the hopes he'll go back to sleep on his own, going in to comfort more regularly in the hopes that will help him settle quicker, talking to him about staying in bed until light goes from red to green.

In the depths of our exhaustion and despair, we brought him in to bed with us when he wouldn't stop waking at 4. He would fall back asleep, sometimes until 6.30-7. He seemed so much happier and better rested. We were OK with this. We did this for several weeks.

But then. He started waking earlier. And standing and screaming, demanding us. Knowing he would get to be in bed with us. So when this started happening at 10pm and we got stressed at the idea of having to go to bed so he could sleep, we re-trained him.

But here we are again. 4:12 am. So this is my last ditch effort, I'm so tired, please offer any advice or guidance or suggestion or ANYTHING I can do to make this better because I am so goddamn tired.
 
@thechurchofgod I am right there with you with my little sleep terrorist. He’ll be two in a few weeks and he’s been waking before 5am and waking multiple times through the night and I am about to go insane. Following along to see if you have any success since I feel like we’ve tried everything, too.
 
@thechurchofgod Something nobody yet mentioned. Do you have a space in his room for you to join him to make him sleep further? A floor mattress or something.

Like...he wakes at 4:12am, you come to his room and sleep with him until 6am and then start the day. Be very boring and do not let him play or interact with you. No hatch light, pitch dark room that he cannot see his hand in front of his face and white noise in a good volume.

With this, you MAYBE will teach him that it isn't time to wake up and that is his sleep environment. More important, you'll help him to create the habit of sleeping until 6am and after you've done that one part, you can move to a different approach if he continues to wake up (as in not coming to pick him up until 6am no matter what for 5 days in a row).

For the duration of this experiment I would cap his nap at 1 hour and make sure he's as tired as possible by bedtime.
 
@trivalee So our sleep coach suggested this but we've been hesitant. She said that this may be a VERY long term process. Pretty much said it could be until he moves into a proper bed, which we are not ready for (moved our daughter into one after 3 and that felt right). Have you had success with this method over a shorter period? Hesitant to try something that has us sleeping in his room for six months ... but may soon get to that point.
 
@thechurchofgod Oh I don't think it would be a six months thing. Most likely a few weeks only but I have only done this with a younger baby and when she started to get used to the later wake up time we stopped using the floor bed and let her fall asleep on her own in her own bed.
 
@thechurchofgod Holy cow maybe the color blind thing is it!! We actually tested our kid by googling color blind test with animals so that he could point out the horses and ducks etc since he didn’t know numbers yet. Could be worth trying !
 
@lmkuhn76 Just talked to my husband, who is red-green colorblind, who said he can actually distinguish the hatch green and red light colors. So we're going to give it another shot (have only tried the red overnight 1 day, green we have been using for a week+)
 
@thechurchofgod Ok so sounds like you’ve tried just about everything. The only odd thing I can think to try is changing the hatch colors to not red and green in the small chance he’s red-green color deficient. That age may not be ready to understand the ok to wake color features anyway but just a thought I’m throwing out there. My BIL didn’t find out he was red-green color blind until his twenties!

Chiming in with the other comment to do CIO from bedtime until wake up time. Perhaps push it to 4:30, then 4:45 etc gradually to extend the night?

Another few thoughts:

cap nap at 1.5 hrs for a bit to build sleep pressure???

Bedtime snack?

New bedsheets he gets to pick out and get excited about?

Grasping at straws here. I feel your pain. My 20 month old went from getting 13 hours of totally sleep to 10.5-11 hours and I’m going crazy figuring it out. I think it’s a speech mental leap but it doesn’t make it easier.
 
@pisaacwilliams So he sleeps soundly from about 7pm to 4am, we may have to try CIO but are concerned about our 4 year old who sleeps in the room that is next to his and would wake if he cries excessively. May not have a choice though. May try the bedtime snack, or pushing dinner in case hunger is a factor.
 
@thechurchofgod Ugh that’s so hard with the sibling nearby. Maybe add or turn up a sound machine in the older sibling’s room to help for a bit? I’m sorry you’re family is going through this. It’s really frustrating. Hang in there.
 
@thechurchofgod I just wanted to chime in and say that time change broke my baby’s sleep, too. He had just turned one and was sleeping through the night until 5:30ish am-I’m a high school teacher and get up at 4:45 to get ready for work, so 5:30 was totally fine.

After that time change, he started waking up between 3:30 and 4:30. We have tried everything to fix it. Once in a while we’ll get a couple of good nights in a row and think we’ve finally found the answer, and then the ridiculously early wake ups come right back.

Things we’ve tried: earlier bedtime for a month, pushing bedtime later slowly for the next month, capping naps when he was on 2, dropping to one nap, adding a lovey, adding a blanket, running the humidifier, getting rid of the very dim night light, fixing a toilet that was randomly running in case the noise was waking him up, using diaper pads to make sure he wouldn’t leak through because that was a problem for a minute, letting him be to see if he would fall asleep (usually he doesn’t) if he’s not crying…I think that covers it. And nothing has helped.

I’m really hoping the next time change does the trick.
 
@thechurchofgod For us, CIO from bedtime until 5:30 AM worked for us. It worked best when we agreed ahead of time on this. It’s hard when they are crying, but I’d tell myself, “She’s safe, warm, and loved. She’s learning important skills.” It sounds like once you get up with him at the time you’d want to wake up, then not going to your bed with him, so he learns that’s not an option. Consistency with what you decide will be important, so he doesn’t get confused and think that if he cries long and hard enough something will happen.
He’s probably old enough for a hatch clock, where it changes color based on what he can do. That might help.
Good luck! Lack of sleep is torture, and listening to your little one cry can be really hard too.
 
@ephai Thanks! Actually the hatch is the one we have and we're working on it with him. We did the green for up for a week or so, but yesterday tried the red on dim at night (recommended by the sleep coach) and when we woke at 4am he just stared at it instead of going back to sleep (or at least trying). So not sure how to use it I guess? Should it be tucked away so he can't stare? It was on the dimmest setting and didn't illuminate anything, but it is visible from his bed. I'm wondering also if he's color blind ... my hubby and brother are both color blind and if that's the case it could be very confusing since I know my husband can't tell the difference between the red and the green.
 
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