I FINALLY got my 13 month old to sleep through the night! I am sooo happy! As soon as i stopped breastfeeding he slept through the night and has been for 2 weeks now. lol. Well now the problem is he goes to bed between 7 and 7:30. But now he is gettin up between 5 and 5:30 and refusing to go back to sleep. Ill go in and shush him and and he will still cry. I wont bring him in bed with me. If he needs a diaper ill change him and put him back in bed but he will still scream. ill even give him water but he wont go back to sleep. i get a email from dana obleman and i read a blog on what to do when your child is sleeping through the night but waking up too early and she said if your child gets up before 6 then check on them and let them cry until they go back to sleep [after you check their diaper and everything]. but if they still arnt asleep by 6am then start your day and thats what ive been doing for over a week but its not working. he still gets up at 5:30 every morning. any advice?
There is nothing you can do with an early bird but grin and bear it. I used to force my daughter to stay awake until 5:30PM so she would sleep in until 5AM. Naps were at 9:00AM and that's when I caught a cat nap. No mama I know has ever succeeded in getting an early bird to sleep in.
You are very lucky that he is sleeping for 10 hours straight! He probably won't do more than that and it's terrible to start the day off in that manner since their 1st waking minutes/hour they are usually in such a rested good mood. He is just ready to get up and is not sleepy any longer. You will need to try to keep him up a little longer and hope that he'll sleep for that extra hour or two in the morning. For us, an 8-8:30 bed time usually put them sleeping until 6-7 a.m.
If this is something that has only been gone on for the last week or so it is probably because of the time change. My son is only 6 months but since the time change he has been waking up an hour to an hour and a half earlier. He still sleeps in a bed next to us so luckily I just put him in bed with me and he plays with his pacifier for a couple of minutes and then usually falls back asleep within a half an hour. Hopefully he will adjust.
If you want to change the bedtime, do it by no more than 15-30 minutes each night, if not, they will likely go to bed later and wake at the same time. With the time change, did you slowly change his bedtime or did you change it right away by a whole hour? Might reverse and go to bed earlier and see what happens, he might wake at the same time getting more sleep, and then slowly change bedtime by 15 minutes later each night. Also, Since you aren't doing any night wakings, the amount of time he used to be up at night is now sleep time, so the total amount of sleep at night might actually be the same. When did he used to wake up? Mine used to have 12-12.5 hour nights when he woke 2-3 times at night. Once he slept straight, it became around 11 hours. He usually is asleep around 7:45pm and wakes between 6:45am and 7:00am. I also learned from Dr. Ferber's book that babies are much less motivated to return to sleep once they feel rested, so the crying doesn't work much then, which I know, contradits what Dana Obleman says, but I found is true. When we did sleep training with our son, we never let him cry when waking up in the morning or after a nap, even if only a 30 min. nap. He would just be good and tired the next time, which made him more motivated and went to sleep even faster. He could put himself to sleep within 5 minutes on the second night. No crying the 3rd. She does have some good suggestions though, I just didn't think that one worked. Congrats on making it a year breastfeeding!
My son has gone through many phases like this in his first 4 years. The time cgange in he fall always sets us back an hor of wake up time, which is a killer. e email said, You can try altering bedtime or naptime, but just like your advice email said, you might just have to go with it for now. The good news is that it will change again many times, so hang in there!
We also had this challenge. Someone gave us the advice of putting a toy in the crib for our son to play with (a soft ball). I didn't feel totally comfortable with that idea so we found a mirror with attached toys that you can tie onto the crib. It worked wonders. It didn't add hours to the time, but enough that I could sleep just a little longer.
Hope this helps. :) Also, if the room is really bright in the morning, that can contribute to him waking up early. You can get shades that block out the light better than the average shade. I can't remember the name of them though. If I figure it out, I'll get back to you.
Try putting him to bed earlier...it worked for our son...we started 1/2 hour earlier than his usual bed time and then after a few days of observation, 1 hour earlier...we also made his room as dark as possible...no night lights...and added a black out curtain and a fan for white noise and bingo...he sleeps 12 hours every night and takes a 2 to 3 hour nap each day...hope these suggestions help...sorry for the lack of punctuation...typing w/ one hand:)
It sounds like he just doesn't need that much sleep. If he wakes on his own at 10 hours, he's ready to be up. If you want him to sleep later, put him to bed a little later.
