arghhh early waking!

[Belle]

Slightly related to a recent thread by another forumite - am having a nightmare with sleep & my 16.5 mth old at the moment. Having got over a bout of random night wakings he now sleeps through-ish but is waking earlier and earlier. Like most babies he does go through phases of this but this morning was 4.30am, that really is NOT morning! He wakes up crying - is clearly not ready to get up as such - but it's just that after trying everything to get him back to sleep (calpol/nurofen for potential teething pain, drink of water, cuddles, lullaby, leaving him to cry for a bit) he generally does the opposite and is fully awake after half an hour or so. It's killing me - am terrible with no sleep. Am sure we're in some kind of vicious circle as it does then have a knock on effect on naps etc - but have tried every which combination of naps (lenght/time of etc) and nothing seems to make any difference. I know it's light out but we're just back from Scotland where we had much longer light and he slept longer there...

Not really asking for ideas as know it's prob one of those things - but anyone else in this particular hell at the moment? If so how do you cope?!

[curlykaren]

will a bottle of milk not send him back to sleep? He may be having a growth spurt and be hungry?

[Belle]

Don't think so - he's not mad for milk at the best of times - and when I offer him the cup (admittedly with water bu the doesn't realise that) - he slaps it away! He sounds very very distressed - but no temp, no illness that I can discern (fine during day) - can't be nightmares so repeatedly I don't think plus the fact he doesn't go back to sleep (normally would if wakes with bad dream in middle of night). argh.

[randomv]

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but maybe try putting him down 15-30 mins earlier than usual? My LO wakes early (6am) if he's had too much sleep during the day but even earlier (4.45-5.15) if he's not had enough and goes to bed over tired.

[Nik]

Have you got a black out blind? Maybe waking up with the light.

My daughter was and we got a black out blind you stick over the window, think it was from baa baa blinds and it stopped early waking.

[duchessofdulwich]

out LO has been waking up at 4am think its thirst/hunger though. she will go backto sleep after a feed

[GinaG3]

Snap, my daughter is exactly the same age, and wakes up at the dreaded 4am hour. It takes sometimes an hour to get her back to sleep, then she is up again at around 7.30am. I have the problem where if I put her to bed over tired she sleeps really badly, I also do dinner at around 6.30ish and she is sleeping a lot better now. Eating later and not being over tired for bed solved it for me.

[Belle]

will def try dinner later and play around with bedtime times. Annoyingly he won't go back to sleep even if waking that early, not even after an hour and a half - so we have to give up. BUT good tip re blackout blind - we have one that's not great but also have the baa baa blind for holidays etc so stuck that up and he slept till 6.50! which could also be because had slightly less daytime sleep yest...who knows! it's endless speculation really isn't it?!

[crystal7]

Belle I feel your pain. E (16months) only started sleeping through around 2 months ago but the downside is she wakes up between 4.30 and 6. Mostly around 5.15. It's particularly painful when it's one of the days I work. E was having 2,1 hour naps a day at around 9 and 2. A friend suggested that a long morning nap can result in early waking as they come to expect to catch up on sleep...I've cut it back to 20-30 min at 9 then she's ready to go down after lunch at 1ish for an hour and a half. Things have improved a bit (i think/touch wood etc). Want to phase out the morning nap but can't face being under house arrest every morning at the moment- getting out and about is the only way I cope with the tiredness!

[Belle]

Thanks Crystal7! Those starts must be horrendous on work days, I really find them a killer. We're hovering between 2 and 1 naps (2 naps on days where he wakes really early as 5am-1pm is a long stretch to be awake for) - and I totally found the same thing: cutting down/out morning nap seems to have an effect on early waking. I did read that in Gina Ford a while back but couldn't get my head around why and your friend's explanation makes total sense. I was/am quite in two minds about the change in naps - there's def no doubt that the classic 1-3 nap seems to sort out a lot of our problems but it also ties us down, have found though that sometimes you do just make do with a shorter one in the buggy to enable a trip out and about, then earlier bedtime or whatever. Sorry - waffling, have been offline all weekend so now have forum motormouth!