Morning wakefulness

Molly, 2 months old, does this after 5 a.m., which iss a little better, but I don't know how to fix it. She won't eat enough to hold her very long. Good luck & let us all know if you find a solution.

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Joey did the same thing. At the time his crib was in our bedroom. My husband would scoop him up and he would lay in bed with us and fall back asleep. We did that for a month of so. We didnt want it to become a bad habit, so we moved the crib out of our room into his own room and the waking stopped.
Now I am proud to say at almost 2 years old he sleeps from 9:30pm -8:30am without waking.

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So many of your posts about Nolan give me flashbacks. My Oliver is a few months ahead but the sound very similar. Over time Oliver started doing better after his 3 or 3:30 wake up. It took about a month but more nights than not he's skipping right over that waking and sleeping until 6, sometimes later.

I'm a new woman too!

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Hi,

I sympathise with those sleapless nights! The first thing to remeber is that it will be better. I dont know how old you baby is. But as my little girl who is now 9 months has been sleeping well from 7- 6:30/7am sinze she was 3 months here are a few tips that I got from a firend that has worked well.However, kids are different so I guess there are no fixed miracle cures...

1) make sure your baby gets around 3 - 3 1/2 hours of sleep between 7am and bedtime around 7-8pm up to 1 year old
2) make sure she/he gets enough milk during the day so he/she doesnt wake up hungry...the amount depend on age of baby, but I recommend having a structured schedule of feedign durign the day - at least if baby is more than 3 months old.
3) if baby wakes up during the night - try to give some cooled boild water in a bottle...it settles the baby, but as water is not as tasty as milk they will soon stop to wake up looking for food.
4) if this doesnt work try controlled crying...after a few nights most babies wil normally settle without waking you up

I would alos advice you, if possible, to have your baby in a separate room...both you and baby will sleep better

ALL the best of luck

Hilde

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My son did the same thing--same times. Believe it or not regulating naps and moving the bedtime EARLIER will work. Apparently, "sleep begets sleep" to quote Dr. Weissbluth,author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child. After moving my son's bedtime to 6:30 p.m. from 7:30 he quit waking at those times. It has to be done gradually. Regular naps are also the key to sleeping well at night. I highly recommend the book because he thoroughly explains the biology of infants at each age and how sleep differs. Really, it works without a lot of crying. Good luck.

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I disagree with Hilde--I find that my 12-week-old and I sleep better in the same bed. I can respond to her needs faster than she can realize she's hungry, so she barely wakes up. And since I don't have to get out of bed, I don't become so awake that I can't fall asleep easily. Also, this way she never has to cry unnecessarily and develop a sense of mistrust from not having her needs met promptly during the day AND night.

Anyway, she also wakes up like Nolan. It starts around 5 or 6, but there are several wake-ups and short feedings between 1-hour chunks of sleep. I like it; it makes for slow, liesurely mornings.

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Unfortunately, there is no magic trick for sleep issues. It is a long process. But, persistence does eventually pay off.

I had morning problems with both my children. What worked for us was putting a cd-alarm clock in their rooms set to go off at a certain time. We then told them that they couldn't get up until the music went off. Nolan might be too young for this trick now. Around 18 months children's ability to understand things jumps tremendously.

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I guess because I don't read every blog, I don't know how old Nolan is, but here is what my daughter did. At 6 months I sleep trained her to sleep on her own (the whole cry for five minutes and then for ten and so on) and she learned it in about two nights.

Once I was sure that she had THAT down pack at about 7 months I did the SAME to get her to STAY asleep. She was sleeping through the night at 8 months. Now she was still waking at 7 AM, but going down between 8 and 10 PM, which was no big deal.

When she turned a year old I decided in order to get us a little extra sleep (I work the morning/evening shift at work while my fiance work overnight) I would leave her to her own devices and the ONLY time I turn the TV on to get her to "leave me alone" (for lack of better terms).

When my fiance gets home at 7 AM he changes her diaper, gives her a cup of water, a SMALL snack (usually a few Cherrios or Goldfish) or even sometimes I make a smoothie the night before and she gets that instead of a snack and water. We turn on Sesame Street and she watches that, while we get a little cuddle time or another hour of sleep.

We all share a room so we find nothing wrong with it personally and I have found myself to be very lucky that my daughter goes to bed about 9 or 10 PM and doesn't wake us up until about 9 or 10 AM (with the exception of wanting a new diaper) and lately most mornings she doesn't want the TV, she just plays with her stuffed animals and jabbers away.

Before she was sleep trained she was like clockwork (well kinda, starting around 2 months) she would go to bed between 8 and 10 and would wake between 12 and 2 for a feeding (depending on what time she went to bed) and then wake again between 6 and 7 AM to be up for the morning. Until she was two months old it was just all over the place!

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My oldest did it. For the first month of his life, he slept through the day and stayed awake all night. Then he started sleeping at night more and more, by the time he was 6 mos old he happily slept thru the night. Then suddenly he started falling asleep earlier and earlier in the evening (and we couldn't make him stay awake) and getting up earlier and earlier in the morning, first at 6AM, then at 5, 4 and finally at around 3AM every day. I think maybe he got confused because it was winter and it was dark all day, pretty much. Then at 10 mos old it all suddenly stopped and he started sleeping thru the night again. I was afraid that same thing would happen with my second, but it never did. No advice, because no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't change his schedule. I hope it gets better for you soon!

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Have you considered going out somewhere fun a couple of nights. I know a disruption around here usually leads to a new sleep schedule... of course it could be a better schedule, but it could also be worse.

Brenda
http://preoptimism.blogdrive.com/

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Sounds weird, but putting my kids to bed earlier always made them sleep later.

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