5am wake ups - is this just the norm for some babies?

@eldersmith I follow calmandbrightsleepsupport on instagram and they suggest trying ‘stir to sleep’ for this problem. Basically within 4 hours of them falling asleep go in their room and rub them, move them an inch or two, touch their face - aim is to get them to move a little/sigh/yawn. This interrupts their sleep cycle and allows them to start a deeper sleep. They recommend doing this for 5 consecutive nights.

We’ve tried it with our son who was waking up at 5am regularly and it’s pushed his wake time back to between 6:15-7am. They also offer sleep plans including an early wakes one which has more techniques in for 5-6am wakes, which I plan to buy!
 
@eldersmith What works for us is a 2-3-4 hour wake time routine.

Example:
Wake up at 6am.
Sleep no later then 8am.
Wake up at 10am.
Sleep no later then 1pm.
Wake up at 3pm.
Bedtime no later then 7pm.

But our son still wakes up around 5 sometimes unfortunately.. but his sleeps during the day are a little better in quality this way.

Edit: sorry, the formatting is a little off I see.
 
@eldersmith I have tried pretty much everything to push back my early riser’s wake time. Nothing I’ve done has got her to sleep past 5:30. She is 27 months now, been waking between 5-5:30 since 12 months
 
@eldersmith Not sure where you’re located but I’ve noticed that if I don’t use the black out curtains this happens since it’s summer and the sun rises around 5. Since using them I’ve been getting her to sleep until at least 6.
 
@eldersmith My 11mo is the same. Very rarely do I get a 6/630 wake up and that’s usually if he wakes at 4ish to nurse. Most days he is up shortly after 5 and immediately poops 🥴 I try everything but he won’t go back down. I’ve tried earlier bedtimes, later bedtimes, nothing works he is just ready to go at 5.

My first was the same way though.. he eventually slept until 630, sometimes 7. Right before his brother was born he would sleep consistently to 730. I miss those days, now poor kid gets woken by his brother most of the time and joins us by 6am
 
@eldersmith Try pushing that first nap to 2.5 or even 3 hours after your Desired Wake Time (DWT)

At that age you want to move them to 10-11 hours of total wake time but that may be a lil longer at first while you adjust to your DWT

So at 11mo if you want a 7am wake up, try a 3/3/4 wake window schedule: nap 1 at 10am, second nap should be maybe 3hrs after waking from nap 1, so from 2-3pmish, then you’d have bed time around 7pm after a wind down routine.

Also making sure baby is full before bed helps. A big bottle plus a snack maybe 30-45min before bedtime works well for us

This is just a rough estimate and you may want to start easing into it with a 6am DWT to start so your kid isn’t overtired. The 3/3/4 time is based on wake length not nap length
 
@eldersmith I think it’s called earlier rising. I looked it up when my LO was getting up before 7A

Basically babies waking up between 4A-7A are doing so because they’re still learning how to put themselves back to sleep throughout the night, and that part of the night is the hardest because they don’t have the same level of exhaustion that helps them get to sleep in the beginning

You might notice sometimes you wake up during those times (outside of any alarms) but because you know how to put yourself back to sleep you just roll over and go back to sleep

If you don’t want your LO’s schedule to include waking up that early you just help them go back to bed as best you can. Different things work for different babies and not every baby is going to go back to sleep during that time. Like I try to avoid feeding because it reinforces the wake up time, but there have been times my LO needs a bottle, so obviously I’m not going to starve my child so she sleeps in
 
@eldersmith We tried everything and my daughter woke up before 6AM until she was 14 months old or so. I eventually learned to accept it and stopped fighting it. Then one day...poof. Nowadays (she's almost 2) she makes it to 7AM or later like half the time. It's life changing.
 
@eldersmith Our son has always been an early riser. He's just turned 2 and is just now sometimes sleeping until 6. For almost a year, and most of the time even now, his normal wake up is 5:15-5:30. Like you, we tried everything to push his wake up time back. It doesn’t work. We've just accepted it. The fact that he's starting to sometimes wake up later (and also fall asleep later on his own) makes me think he'll eventually have a sane sleep schedule.
 
@eldersmith My baby is 3 months old and wakes up every day at 5am—almost on the dot! He has done this ever since he was born, doesn’t matter what time he goes down to sleep. I’ve just accepted this is life with a baby.
 
@eldersmith We baby proofed her room, did a thin mattress on the floor, we’d feed her and change her, and could crawl/play to her hearts content after her 4:30-5:00 wake ups - but we weren’t getting up.
 
@eldersmith We did the Taking Cara Babies newborn class. She also has one 5-24 months that we haven't done yet. Might be worth joining that to take the class and have the community support! People swear by it haha -- we have yet to put it in action since I'm due at the end of the month 😂
 
@eldersmith Solidarity… 15 month old and we’ve been dealing with this since around 12 months. We’ve tried slowly pushing back bedtime, but we just end up with less sleep cause he still wakes up early. Earlier bedtime and same result.
 

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