Q&A: early rising again and again and again and again

Remember back when waking up was like this every morning? (work safe, but put on your headphones)

Yeah, that was before you had kids. Five (5!) emails in the past two weeks from people whose kids are waking up between 4:30 (shoot me now) and 5:30 every day. I know this is not a new problem, and we've tossed at around a bunch of times in the past, but it does seem to me that it goes in cycles. Three of the five emails I got were from parents of 7-month-olds. And we're having wacky weather all across North America at least (torrential rains, snow in June, or blazing heat waves, depending on where you are on the continent).

I'm going to hypothesize that it's the combo of age (and where your kid is at in the timeline of developmental spurts, growth spurts, physical milestones, and teething), personality, and the change of seasons/weather.

I think there are all sorts of things you can try to stop the early waking. One of them might work*. Or none of them will work.

I think, like anything else having to do with sleep, that one of two things is true:

a) It's a phase, and like all other annoying phases, it'll pass. So you need to figure out how to deal with it until it passes.

b) Your kid is hard-wired to wake up early. In that case, you need to figure out some way to work around that until your kid is old enough that they can wake up early and amuse him/herself and it won't be dangerous.

I think a) is far more likely, although I know some adults who can't seem to sleep past 5:30 no matter what, so it's probably just a personality thing for a certain segment of the population. In any case, it's time-delineated in that you won't have to deal with it forever.

Take some deep breaths, talk to your partner about working out some sort of schedule so neither of you takes the hit all the time (and both of you never take the early-rising hit together), assess exactly how much your kid needs from you in the morning (if your kid wakes up but it just happy playing alone in the crib or bed you don't actually need to be awake for that), and know that the day will come when you'll have to pry your child out of bed in the morning with a crowbar. I hear.

Oh, and just so you know I'm feeling it, too, I was wakened at 5:35 and then 5:50 this week by my younger one. After the second time, I told my older son that they weren't allowed to come out of their room until 7 am except to go to the bathroom. It worked once. I'll keep you posted about any future success.

* The top-rated things readers recommend: black-out shades (that you buy or make from black-out fabric you can buy at fabric stores, or cardboard over the windows at night), changing the temperature of the room, checking to see if there's some sort of noise that happens at that time of day (neighbor starting a car to go to work, loud dog, etc.) that's causing the waking, and bumping bedtime earlier by 30-60 minutes (yes, it's counterintuitive).

Comments

[Shannon]

This is a cute tip somebody told me about recently. It would definitely not work on a 7-month-old, but this guy told me that with their 3-year-old, they taught him to recognize numbers. They gave him a digital clock and said that he was not allowed to get out of bed until he saw a 6 in the hour position. Then they just set the clock back like 45 minutes so he was really getting up at 6:45.

And I can't finish my comment without a vent about my husband, who never gets up before 9:30. Our son gets up at 6:30.

[lucy]

I have a 7 month old who has just started sleeping though and waking at 6am ..so I am not complaining. Its a big change from a month ago when he was waking on the hour and I was developing early on set dementia. Sleeping in a separate room has definitely helped. This morning he woke at 5:15; but he is down for the first nap within an hour. So usually I breast feed him then babyproof our bed so he won't slide off and we sit and play for an hour then go back to sleep together.
But its non negotiable with my boyfriend that the early morning shift rotates. Shannon have you tried bringing your baby into your husband' depositing him on his chest then slinking off to the couch for some more shut eye? Works for me.

[Jac]

I heart blackout shades. That is what solved the two weeks of early waking at our house.

[Moxie]

Shannon, wait--you're on ADs to deal with the PPD and your husband doesn't get up before 9:30?? (If this is a different Shannon then ignore.) That completely enrages me. It is not OK. It is not even remotely OK. It's passive-aggressive gaslighting.

[michelle]

This is a variation of the temperature idea, but I've found that our 8 month old sleeps a little better in a lightweight (think t-shirt material) footed sleeper with more a/c, as opposed to short sleeves w/less a/c. And on his stomach.

Still, he's a 5:45 or 6 a.m. waker...but for some weird reason, there is really a big difference between that and 5:30 for me.

Also- I will say that he sleeps MUCH better now that I night-weaned him from the breast. Even though I was just nursing him a couple minutes in the nighttime, I think he was waking up and having a hard time simmering down again without nursing (even for a few seconds). Now, there is a new rule which is "no nursing in baby's room" which I *think* has helped him sort of disassociate nursing with falling back asleep.

[tricia]

I have a 22-mos-old, and he's always been an early riser, always. moving bedtime earlier never worked for us. very good blackout shades helped, and we even have gone the extra step of covering the crack btwn the shades and the window frame with tinfoil, so that absolutely no light creeps as dawn breaks.

The thing that seemed to help most of all was a good box fan outside his room, set on a high speed. The white noise it produces blocks out the crack-of-dawn birdsong, the loud rainstorms, the paper delivery guy with the bad muffler, etc.

Even with all of this, our *average* wake-up time is 5:30am. As I said, we've always had an early riser. I just try to look at the positives, which is that we're usually the first drop off at daycare (which opens at 7:30) and I'm usually at my desk at work by 7:45.

[caramama]

What has worked for us (when something actually works) is a humidifier for the white noise and cosleeping with the toddler from the early waking on. We try rocking her/walking her (and sometimes nursing her) back to sleep and putting her back in her crib, but it's going into the crib that wakes her back up. If we get her to sleep (or really close) and then bring her into our bed or the twin bed in her room, she will sleep until usually about 6:00 or later. That is good enough for us.

Oh, and we take shifts with the little one, so if she is up during hubby's shift, he will cosleep with her until morning or until he can get her back in her crib. We also take turns sleeping in on weekends. I get up to nurse her both mornings, but then hand her off and go back to sleep on my morning to sleep in. I'm with Moxie 100% on this issue. If you have a partner, you should be sharing the wake ups. That what a partner is. Someone who shares the work.

[Jan]

Random thoughts:

I definitely think it's related to the seasons. It's light by 5 a.m. now (where I am anyway), so the kid wakes up and it looks like daytime. *Huzzah* ... time to get up everyone!!

In fact, I just this morning rescued my normally completely self-sustaining in the morning 4 year old who was in her bed crying because "my clock won't turn into a six" (we use the digital clock method, too -- she may get up at 6 and play quietly, and may wake me at 7). "The sun was up at 5," she informed me.

So blackout or room-darkening shades.

The other thing that I think really makes a difference is consistency. It's easy to say your kid's bedtime is 7 (or whatever), but sometimes if we sit down and actually evaluate, we realize that the exceptions are as common as the rules when it comes to bedtime. Especially as the days get longer and we adults are more inclined to want to be out and about later. We've found a huge payoff in consistency with bed and nap times. I think of it this way: If I keep changing around their sleep times, it's like giving them perma-jet-lag and how can anybody be expected to sleep and be well-rested in that state?

When my younger one went through that phase where he woke every morning around 5 and needed to eat then go back to sleep for an hour or so, I actually made use of it. I can work from home, so I'd just stay up at that hour when he went back to sleep and could get 1.5 - 2 hours of work in before anybody else was up for the day. I was able, for awhile, to cut out a work day completely (5 mornings a week = 1 full 8-hour day) doing that. Too bad I don't have the discipline to do it if some little person whose immediate well-being depends on it to awaken me. heh

[Julie]

My son (18 mo) has ALWAYS gotten up between 4:30 and 5:15. Doesn't matter what time he goes to bed, he is always up well before the crack of dawn. I say it's because I didn't sleep in enough while pregnant (our normal wake-up time is 4:45). We lost our power this week so we went to the grocery store for some supplies and then a restaurant for breakfast. At 5:30. I wanted to hang a sign around his neck saying "He woke up at 4:30 - we'd rather be sleeping!" to quiet the tsk-tskers.

Most days I can handle the early mornings but on days where he went to bed late the night before and wakes up so early that I have absolutely no down-time, those can be quite challenging.

[Monica]

The clock thing kind of works with a three-year-old, except when they announce each minute from about 6:30 till 7:00..."Mom! It's SIX-THREE-SEVEN! It's SIX-THREE-EIGHT!" Not that I would know ;)

[Cathy]

1. Fortunately, this does not happen on a regular basis with us. So or coping mechanism is to put the kid between us and turn on the TV - so that DH and I can sort of snooze, with the Wiggles in the background and the kid mostly stays out of trouble.

2. This seems to happen with the baby (6 mos) when she's working on a project [needs to figure out crawling Right.Now.] or has gotten a tremendous amount of sleep, but it started at 5pm.

[Jill in Atlanta]

We decided to adjust to the morning waker instead of getting him to adjust to us. At a time change everyone else in the country changed their internal clocks- we didn't. We now get up an hour earlier, my husband goes to work an hour earlier, we eat dinner earlier, they go to bed earlier and so do we.

[Jojo]

The first day of summer, the longest day of the year, is June 21st. After that, the days start getting shorter and shorter. I'm thinking that by September the little stinker will allow dh and I to sleep in until 7:00 am again. Please, please, please sleep until 7:00 am again!

[ada]

WOW!! Very timely post. My 9 mo old ususally wakes up sometime between 6:30-7am. But this morning - wide awake and ready to go at 5:30. Ugh ugh ugh!!

He was waking up early on a regular basis until we installed a black out shade. For those of you near an IKEA, they carry very good ones for a very good price.

Another thing we found helpful - bigger diapers at nightime. We've always done cloth during the day and disposable at night. But DS was still leaking through. So we bought a nighttime diaper in the next size up. (He normally wears a zie 3, we buy size 4 nighttime) Super, super absorbant. Will hold that 8oz before bed bottle, plus any 4oz bottle that may be needed during the night.

@shannon - I'm w/ Moxie, regardless of whether you are the shannon w/ the PPD. your husband doesn't get up until 9:30? EVER? He must have non-traditional work-hours?!! But on the weekends? Really? Trade-offs are key to your sanity and your marriage!!!!!

[pnuts mama]

if black out shades are out of your range financially, you could also buy blackout fabric (lining) for ready-made curtains (ones you buy from the store- we actually use tab top fabric shower curtains) and sew the lining to the top of the curtain, just below where it hangs from the rod.

also, i discovered that running the bathroom exhaust fan (right next to our room and pnuts crib) is an awesome white noise maker.

i've been known to turn on pbskids when she wakes up way before i'm ready and let her watch whatever is on in her crib while i get an extra 10-30 minutes. of course, she sleeps in a crib in our room, so that is unusual. and how about a quick primal scream wednesday? our bean will be the 4th person sleeping in the room when he's born as the rooms upstairs *still* aren't ready. i can only imagine how well pnut will be sleeping when he's screaming for food every 2 hours during the night. kill me now.

[mo]

I can't take any credit for this as my husband does the early morning shift weekdays since I head off to work earlier than he does (I'm responsible for the afternoon shift - which I have to say when the boys were infants and I had them by myself during the bewitching hours, I just KNEW I got the "wrong" shift! Now, much happier I have the afternoon shift).

Anyway, the first time the boys started waking up (this is on weekdays when we'd be up anyway) early, he'd make them stay in their crib on their own, giving them a book or two to hold them over. Great thing was it conditioned them that they had to stay in their crib. Slowly, they learned to go back to sleep for another hour and shift out their wake up hour. Definitely might not work on all kids but I know that if I had had the morning shift, I wouldn't have had the willpower to keep them in their cribs and they'd be conditioned that as soon as they woke up at 5/6, etc., they'd get up (which I really think would have more permanently set their wake up time for that early hour). Now they sleep until 7 most mornings (they are 3).

Good luck everyone - I am so not a morning person and the early mornings were so much harder to stomach (and still are) than the middle of the night wakings (when I knew I could still go back to sleep).

[Emily]

We JUST went through this - and so did almost all of the other families in our playgroup. It was really miserable to go to bed and know that you were likely to be seeing the wrong side of 5 (or, on dreadful occasion, 4!) am. Tried blackout shades, moving bedtime earlier, no nap, two naps, more exercise, more food - no luck. In our case, D had been going to bed much earlier than the other 17-18 month olds we knew (6:30) so we eventually just kept him up until 9pm and he finally slept until 6:30. The next night we kept him up until 8:30, and he slept until after 6. He was totally miserable during the days, mind, because he wasn't getting enough sleep, but I decided that I just couldn't do the pre-5am wake up thing anymore, so them were the breaks for him for a little while...we're finally settling into a 7:30-8:00pm bedtime and 6-6:30am wakeup, I think, which would be just about perfect for all of us.

[Victoria]

Sympathy to early early risers - I am so NOT a morning person. Sweetpea was sleeping until 6.30 or so (which I'm coping with), but it in the last days she restarted an old habit of waking up 30 minutes earlier EACH DAY. Yesterday, 6 a.m. Today it was 5.30. Luckily with a warm bottle she went back to sleep for 1.5 hours. I am dreading 5 a.m. tomorrow.

Anyone else with the daily half hour jump? Or are we just our own kind of crazy :-)

[Oz]

I am so glad my 5 am-loving 7-month old is in good company. With my husband's work schedule, I'm often alone for morning duty and sleeping until 6 am sound heavenly.

Alas, we have no IKEA around here. The supposedly light-blocking shade we got from West Elm is really a light-muter. Anyone have a fabulous and cheap black out shade they'd recommend?

[Amanda]

Yes, I need primal scream Wednesday, too. MIL takes care of the five-month olds two days a week while I am at work. Yesterday she let them sleep a 4.5 hour nap in the morning. So...they were up all. night. long. If she does it again, I might have to fire her. She also tosses breastmilk out like it's formula. Makes up a big bottle, and if they aren't interested, she just pours it *sob* down the drain. She didn't breastfeed, or pump, or pump while working, or pump enough milk for twins while working, so she has no sympathy. Anybody else have a MIL care provider? Going crazy here.

[TB]

My daughter (now 3) woke up between 6 and 6:30, sometimes earlier, every day for a LONG time. But now she is sleeping later. We haven't done anything differently. So I vote for it's probably a phase, and just get through it as well as you can.

[Cloud]

I am naturally a bit of a night owl. My daughter is naturally a bit of a lark. Oh joy. I remember celebrating when, at about 5 months old, she started sleeping in until 5:30 a.m. I still think it is a great day if she sleeps past 6:30. Sadly, she rarely does that on a weekend when I can also "sleep in". The sanity saver for me is that on weekends, Hubby and I each get one day to sleep in. I still have to get up and do her first thing in the morning nursing, but then I crawl back in bed and sleep. If for some reason I don't want to sleep, I get to read in bed for an hour or so, which is also really nice.

My hubby was convinced a black out blind would help, but it hasn't done a thing. We just have an early bird. Once I accepted that and arranged my schedule to handle that, it got easier. I now think that staying up until 10 p.m. is a late night. There are some good things- I get to work early without too much difficulty, for instance.

In my opinion, the most annoying times are the times when she is trying to add an extra hour to her sleep, but hasn't quite done it yet. Then she is cranky when she wakes up at her early time, and clearly wants more sleep. One thing that helped us get through these periods was to hold her while she slept the extra hour for a week or so. After that, she'd still wake up early, but go back down without too much fuss for awhile. And then after another couple of weeks, she just started sleeping through to her new wake up time. The first few times we did this, I worried that we were training her to need us to sleep in the morning, but that is not what has happened.

[Jan]

@Oz: The cheapest thing you can do is aluminum foil and masking tape. Not attractive, but effective.

@Monica: I solved this problem by taping a piece of cardstock over the minutes on the clock. Every night before bed, we talked about what a 5 means (close your eyes and go back to sleep), what a 6 means (you can get up and play quietly), what a 7 means (you can wake Mommy up [Daddy leaves the house at 5:30 for work]). The minutes part was too confusing.

[rudyinparis]

@ Amanda--my SIL did something kind of like that with some expressed breastmilk when watching Younger one time. And that wasn't even twins. The stuff is more precious than gold, and takes about as much work to get IME.

The sweet vindication when she started pumping shortly after and did a retroactive apology!

No advice, just sympathy.

[Cloud]

@Amanda- I just read your comment, and I think I'd throttle your MIL in your situation. Every once and awhile we got a new person/sub at day care who would waste breastmilk, and I'd just about cry when I got there to pick Pumpkin up and saw the wastage. Maybe try leaving her several small bottles already made up? And have a talk with her and explain how breastmilk is the most valuable liquid on the planet. Forget oil. It is breastmilk, because it represents my precious time! Or better yet, get your hubby to talk to his mom about this. Yikes!

[michelle]

Shannon- also, maybe there is hope that your man could do some of these morning shifts?

My husband (who admittedly needs sleep much more than I do) used to do NOTHING in connection with our baby at night, and I was pulling my hair out over the 90 minute waking-feeding cycle.

But when we did the night weaning, I gave him a concrete idea of what to do and got him to commit to waking up and dealing with the baby for certain limited shifts. Then, part two is you have to do what one poster suggested- wake DH up (either physically put the baby on him or nudge him or whatever).

Have you tried all that, or does your husband just refuse to help?

Is he sleeping in because of some perception that you are going to have to get up and nurse the baby anyway?

Anyway- I am with Moxie on the PPD stuff- getting too little sleep certainly is not going to improve things! If you are the same Shannon, then your husband needs to step up so you can get better.

[wealhtheow]

My 7-month old usually wakes up at 5, but then tucks into bed with us for some boob-induced slumber for another couple hours. But yesterday he woke up at 4 and tossed and turned in the bed, resulting in neither of us getting much sleep (while DH snored delightfully away, of course), and this morning he was up at 3, tossing and turning until I made the executive decision to return him to his crib where he could toss and turn by his little lonesome while Mummy got enough sleep to realize that putting him outside alone was not, in fact, a good idea.

I think for us it is definitely the temperature--the little bug hates being hot, and we're just coming off a heat wave. In anticipation of cooler temps today, we bumped the temperature up in the house and turned his fan off after he fell asleep. So we'll keep it a little cooler tonight and see what happens, as well as trying to move bedtime up by 20 minutes or so.

[Sherry]

Hey, Shannon, my husband usually sleeps til 10:30. And we've been together 20 years. At this point, you have to accept that the guy isn't going to change and decide what you're going to do about it, in my opinion. I've decided I love him enough to stick around. I think I'm lucky with my one-year-old. She's a good sleeper. She sleeps past 8, but I think it helps that I wait until 9 to put her to sleep. She usually sleeps 11 hours, and has been for about four months. OK, you can all hate me now. (Hey, maybe she takes after my husband, and I should be GRATEFUL that he sleeps so much!)

[Clementine]

One of our twins (7 months) has been waking up about 5:30/5:45 for the last couple of weeks. That's about when I have to get up for work, so that's OK. She then goes down for a nap around 6:45. Daddy and her sister get to sleep in a little longer.

That's the baby who usually sleeps through the night, so that's fine. Sister is the challege. She wakes up between 11:30 and 1:30 every night. And again about 3, and then around 6/6:30. We (usually DH) try rocking her first, but if that doesn't work, I nurse her. She eats well, so I think she is actually hungry. Then, it can take her 3 tries to get back to sleep. It's seldom more than 2.5-3 hours of undisturbed sleep at a stretch.

There are things we still need to try for the wakeups, but as we get ready to implement each one, there seems to be some improvement, so we wait. Sometimes it lasts, sometimes no. It's rough right now.

@Amanda--I'm also doing the work/pump/twins thing, and I feel your pain. Luckily DH watches them, and he is very aware of the value of the pumped milk. He knows how hard it is to make that happen.

[marsupial jones]

I was getting ready to email Moxie about this. Oh I am so glad other people deal with this. We're getting up around 430 or 445 most days. Last night, my 12 month old woke up at 3am and was all "hey! let's get up!" We let him cry back to sleep after some comforting from Dad. Then he was up every 45 minutes and finally slept until 620. It's funny, about a week ago, he slept until 8 am! I practically threw a party. What a tease.

I'm going to try the blackout shade and fan. I feed birds and squirrels and stuff out back and they are noisy at about 430 am. Perhaps I need to say goodbye to the wildlife refuge.

I'm getting ready to go back to work in the fall and I'm terrified of how I'll deal with doing therapy after being awakened at 5am, on a good day.

Praise the world for coffee and caffeine. Can I get an AMEN?

PS-Thanks to everyone who recommended Blue Lizard the other day. It's working really well and rubs in nice and fast!

[kirsten]

When my girls go through this I have had success in waking them up at 1 a.m. to nurse/have milk and change their diaper. They go back to sleep and stay asleep for longer.

[Debbie]

I just wanted to commiserate. My son moves in and out of early rising and this started around seven to eight months. Prior to that, he pretty consistently slept until at least 7 a.m. and sometimes even 8 a.m.! Ditto what everyone says about the blackout shades -- they do work. When we hit one of these, we also re-evaluate nap time and length to make sure that isn't interferring. Until he was about 15 months or so, an earlier bedtime usually resolved the problem. Now, he wakes up early if he goes to bed too early but then also too late -- quite the delicate balance. We are generally very consistent on bedtime (with an occasional exception on the weekend) but always play around with time when the early wakeups return. So I am rambling on but I would do what others have suggested about the noise machine and shades and I would also make sure his naps are good and not too short or long(for us bad naps = bad night sleep). I would also play around with bedtime. Good luck! More than likely, it is a phase and it sucks but it will pass.

[Amy]

I've been blessed(?) with two earlier risers (both #1 and #3). Eldest is naturally an earlier riser... even at the ripe old age of 8 the boy can't sleep in. I tried CIO when he was waking at 5am just after the 12 month mark... but generally speaking it was just easier to get up and start the day. Youngest might not be a natural early riser, but because he sleeps in our room and we get up before god does on most school days, he's up as well. During the school year when husband and I are both up at 5:15am, so is he. He'll sleep a little later on the weekends... but that means 6:30am. Husband takes that shift because he's more of a morning person than I am.

How do we cope? Well, if I'm up to go to work, it's easier if he's up too so I don't have to tip toe around my room. If I'm not up for work (for example, during the summer), and he wakes up, it depends on how I feel. I might flip on the Tubbies for half an hour and doze on the couch while he plays. Or I just get an early start on my day. My youngest is not down with CIO... so letting him stand in his crib while we get a few more winks does not work.

Building on yesterday's theme, I don't get too worked up about his waking because I know that in a few years he'll be able to be up with just his siblings, and mommy and daddy can both sleep as late as we want.

[MrsHaley]

A second for aluminum foil and masking tape. There's nothing darker or cheaper!

[Suzanne]

I hope the early waking is a phase because I'm ready for it to be over! For some reason daylight savings screwed up my daughter's wake up time and she started getting up an hour earlier - around 5-5:30 instead of 6-6:30. She just turned one and her bedtime is 5:30-6:00'ish so moving it earlier isn't really an option.

I find it hard to complain about the early wake up now though, we just weathered a tough sleep regression and she finally is consistently sleeping through the night. So at this point we ONLY have to deal with early wake up instead of a myriad of problems.

[Amy]

@Amanda--My MIL watched #3 last fall and we had the opposite problem. I'm not a good pumper and can't save the milk anyway (excess lipase), so #3 did most of his eating between 3:30pm and 8am (lots of night nursing), which was fine with me. I knew that the reverse nursing was getting him what he needed. I left her with bottles of formula, but didn't freak when he only took a few ounces during the day with her b/c it was clear that he was doing all of his eating with me. But SHE couldn't stand this. So she would force him to take the formula... offering it ALL day long and gradually increasing his intake to make herself feel better. I was furious! She ignored all of my pleas to let him take the lead. I was very glad when that gig was up. Good luck!

[Amy]

@Amanda--My MIL watched #3 last fall and we had the opposite problem. I'm not a good pumper and can't save the milk anyway (excess lipase), so #3 did most of his eating between 3:30pm and 8am (lots of night nursing), which was fine with me. I knew that the reverse nursing was getting him what he needed. I left her with bottles of formula, but didn't freak when he only took a few ounces during the day with her b/c it was clear that he was doing all of his eating with me. But SHE couldn't stand this. So she would force him to take the formula... offering it ALL day long and gradually increasing his intake to make herself feel better. I was furious! She ignored all of my pleas to let him take the lead. I was very glad when that gig was up. Good luck!

[Keri]

I'm going to vote for time of year. A couple weeks ago I got an e-mail from our local humane society reminding us cat owners that the earlier morning light would probably make our cats extra bananas in the morning. Sure enough...

Our 15-month-old now definitely wants in on the morning crazies. Today I threw in the towel at 4 a.m. I got her some toys and let her play. We had breakfast at 5, at which point my husband took over so I could get an hour of sleep before work.

We asked our nanny today to not let our daughter nap past 3 p.m. I'm hoping that might help.

[kateskill]

I would try a few things like dark shades, white noise/humidifier machine sound, gradually later or earlier (going to sleep too late can cause early waking) bedtimes. I have to say that I did all of these and more, and nothing helped. My dear one woke up between 4:30 and 5:30 until he was 2. From there his wake up time gradually moved to 6:45 where it has remained for a while. He is 5. My second child woke at 7am starting at 3 months. Granted second babe still woke a lot at night, but it led me to believe that wake up time is intrinsic and there is not much one can do to change it. I take the entire night duty with the kids. And anytime after 5am, my husband takes over until 7:30am. When I used to nurse, I would give that one last feeding after the 4:30 or 5am wake up and hand my babe over to my husband, roll over and smile myself into blissful sleep. It was almost easier with this schedule, because my kids tended to wake often during the night, and if I could get that consolidated 3 hour block from 4:30 to 7:30am of sleep, it really helped me to feel okay during the day.

[anon]

Shannon, I sympathize with you as I also have a husband who is not a help w/our 15 month old still-waking-at-least-twice-a-night child. I think there are a lot of people out there whose "partners" are not as involved in the child caretaking, but it's another one of those things that people don't like to talk about, for fear of being too negative or told to basically "man up" and confront said partner. Personally, I'm too sleep-deprived to wage a battle. Pre-child I never thought I'd divorce, post-child I realize that anything is possible and when I hear about other couples sep/divorcing after children, it's no longer a surprise to me.

[Florabora]

Maybe I'll be flamed for suggesting this, but have you tried earplugs? We were getting up at the crack of dawn for a while and then one morning we were both so tired that neither of us got up for the 5 am scream fest (he was 11 months old - not a newborn) and soon after - the kiddo went back to sleep on his own. The ignoring it when you're too tired to wake up trick has worked a few times since. I guess that wouldn't work if the babe's actually in your room, though!

[maman_du_petrus]

Our almost 3 year old son also switched to an earlier waking time (now around 5h50) in the past days, and we have seen this happenning in the previous springs of his life (but more like 4h45, 5h00), so obviously, it has to do with a seasonal biological rythm. This time around we have adopted a different stategy that does not involve changing nap time, dark shades, earlier bedtime.... What works for us this time is to get up and play with him and enjoy the extra time together. Not helpful at all for people who are very tired, but for our level of energy, the approach of going with the flow instead of trying to change him demands less energy because we don't oppose something, and we are in a state of mind and of physical energy that allows us to just do it this way. But I never thought of just letting it go and enjoing the extra time when it happenned before, because I was too tired and I really really wanted to "fix it" and sleep. Both approaches have given sizable results (more sleep or more time with our only child) that have benfits each in their own way.

As a side note, my husband and I both wake up every day at the same time as our son. Nobody sleeps in, ever. I thought that was the normal way to go for a family! Funny!

[bree]

My little guy's a year old and he continues to wake frequently in the wee hours. He is often up at 3:30, 4:30, 5:30, 6, 6:15, 6:30, etc. until we finally give up and get up. He has only just started to sleep a three- to five-hour stretch in the early evening.

My theory is that it's partly the light levels, partly habit, and perhaps partly having a wet diaper by morning. Even as a newborn a wet diaper has always irritated him.

[CG]

We just went through over a month of our then 16-month-old's both refusing to go to sleep at night and waking up at 5:30 or 6 in the morning. As someone else said, it started around when daylight savings time switched, although I can't figure out why that would make you want to wake up earlier, at least not at first. I finally realized that light was shining in the sides of the shades in his room right into his eyes (east-facing window). Instead of buying blackout shades, I switched his position in his crib 180 degrees so he was facing away from the window. We're back to 7:30 wakeups now, thank the lord. The night thing has gotten better, too: he's not so sleep-deprived so he's taking somewhat shorter naps, so he's a little more tired at bedtime. And I'm no longer falling asleep at my desk every afternoon!

[Shannon]

Well, yes, I am the same Shannon who takes ADs for PPD. And actually, the husband's inability to get up in the morning was a big trigger for my depression. I have talked about it a lot in therapy and in my support group. He is doing a little bit better with at least getting up at times in the single-digits (before it was like 10:30 or sometimes as late as noon), but as a PP mentioned, I just don't have the energy to wage a battle to get him up any earlier than that. And yes, he is a college professor, so he works non-traditional hours.

[pnuts mama]

haha, all the suggestions for the aluminum foil/masking tape remind me of hell week at a sorority/fraternity...which could be apropro, yes? sigh.

i get this weird carpal tunnel painful arm/hand swelling now at this stage of the pregnancy that wakes me up at 4:30ish so i go and try to sleep on the couch for a few more hours til it goes away- anyway over the weekend i guess pnut woke up super early and my husband took her into bed with him to try and get her to back to sleep- i wandered back in around 8am and saw her slumped over him face down, both passed out. so cute.

and @amanda- holy cow i don't think my short temper could have handled that- if i ever had a clue that my breastmilk had ever gone anywhere other than my kids stomach i would have gone ballistic!!! i would be as clear as day that the twins need smaller amts (could you set up the bottles ahead of time?) at more frequent intervals (as per their ped's instructions) and that that length nap is unacceptable for their nutritive needs (again, blame the ped) and never, at anytime, should a bottle with extra breastmilk in it go anywhere but back in the fridge. ugh.

[Moxie]

Suzanne, holy smokes--bedtime at 6 pm?! In your case I'd try bumping it *back* to at least 7:30. No way a kid will sleep for more than 12 hours at a time, so if you want a later wake-up, move the bedtime back.

Shannon, it makes me sad that your husband isn't jumping through hoops to help you get over your PPD. I get emails from so many men asking for help knowing what else they can do to help their wives (and these guys are already doing so much of the night duty) that it makes me wish there was some sort of peer-to-peer dad bootcamp where the guys who get it could help educate the ones who don't.

[Suz]

My sweet baby m is almost 1 year old. She wakes up to poop--usually between 5 and 5:30 a.m. The thing that stinks (ha) is that she is not happy about this. She obviously needs more sleep. But, she has to wake up to poop and she doesn't seem able to go to sleep after. I've tried changing her diaper quietly and putting her back to bed, but she's usually too upset. I guess I would be to if I had to wake up an hour to an hour and a half before I wanted to just to poop. I don't feed her until 6 a.m at the earliest. Usually, I shut the door to her room, lay down on the couch in there and she walks around for an hour playing with her animals and pulling towels off of shelves. She often comes over to cuddle with me, but she won't lay still for long. It's like she's confused: okay, I'm up, I pooped, it's time to start waving at everything I see--but I don't want to, but I'm up, but I don't want to be. I'm pretty convinced she just needs to figure out she CAN go back to bed if she wants.

any other early poopers?

[Suz]

My sweet baby m is almost 1 year old. She wakes up to poop--usually between 5 and 5:30 a.m. The thing that stinks (ha) is that she is not happy about this. She obviously needs more sleep. But, she has to wake up to poop and she doesn't seem able to go to sleep after. I've tried changing her diaper quietly and putting her back to bed, but she's usually too upset. I guess I would be to if I had to wake up an hour to an hour and a half before I wanted to just to poop. I don't feed her until 6 a.m at the earliest. Usually, I shut the door to her room, lay down on the couch in there and she walks around for an hour playing with her animals and pulling towels off of shelves. She often comes over to cuddle with me, but she won't lay still for long. It's like she's confused: okay, I'm up, I pooped, it's time to start waving at everything I see--but I don't want to, but I'm up, but I don't want to be. I'm pretty convinced she just needs to figure out she CAN go back to bed if she wants.

any other early poopers?

[sam]

I'm listening carefully. My 9.5 month old is also prone to waking between 5 and 5:45am. Sometimes she'll go back to sleep for another half an hour to an hour after nursing and sometimes, she's up. It means naps are a moveable feast. I never know if I should keep following her signals or try and schedule naps.

I'm going back to work soon and I want to leave my mum a rough idea of her feed and nap times but at the moment, it totally depends on her crazy wake ups. Any tips?? Continue to go with the flow and tell my mum to watch for the signals????