My 15 month old wakes up at 5-5:30 a.m. every day. We used to bring him in to bed with us at that time and he would sleep another hour or two. Now, however, he won't go back to sleep in our bed and wants to be awake. Both my husband and I don't have to get up until 7 a.m. and have decided to not get him out of his crib until at least 6 a.m. We had to do sleep training with him in the middle of the night a few months ago and let him cry it out, so we are trying that at 5 a.m. now, but this morning he cried 2 hours straight: 5 a.m.- 7 a.m. He won't go back to sleep at that time, but is exhausted by 8 a.m. and goes down for an hour or so nap then and then another hour or two in the afternoon. His bed time is typically 8 p.m. I am desperate for ideas to get him to sleep later in the morning, any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!!
My 15 month old did this too, but I have found that if I put him to bed earlier, he tends to sleep until 6:30, which is much better than 5:30!
I know that it seems counter-intuitive to put to bed earlier, but it really has worked for us. It may take a night or two, but it is definitely worth it.
If you can skip the afternoon nap. The more tired he is the longer hell sleep in the morning
I see you have a great deal of responses, and I apologize for not reading them first (lack of time) before posting.
Anyway -- not to be the bad news fairy, but I'm guessing you're pretty much going to just have to get up with him.
Our son is exactly the same way. We also tried everything people suggested...letting him cry in the morning, putting him to bed later & earlier, bringing him to our bed -- nothing worked.
When he was about your sons age we were still doing 2 naps a day so he'd be up for a few hours and then go down for a nap between 8-9am. Now he is on one nap (12 noon-ish) but still gets up everyday between 5:30-6am. Most days we leave him in his crib for 30 mins or so (while we are getting ready) and he just plays with his stuffed animals.
Good Luck!
hm. i really hope i can do this without making you feel bad. i have strong feelings about crying it out, so i hope to impress that but without makign you feel bad about the choices you make... only you know whats best for your family. remember that
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i know that the cry it out thing "seems to work" because they do stop crying. but at what cost. thats their communication remember, it means they want something, and we shouldnt ignore them. only you know the difference between a cry that means they need something and a cry thats just a whiney, non-immediate thing.
its ok to let them whine a little and 'talk to themselves' its quite another to make them scream until they pass out and until they figure out you wont respond to them.
now, that was the part that sounds offensive. heres the fine print. some kids do wake up at night and they kinda fuss and whine and make all sorts of noise, and thats fine. you can let them find a way to fall asleep on their own, its just the screaming like theres no tomorrow part that breaks my heart. put it this way, if it makes you ache to go get them, follow your heart. again, only you know best.
my son also wants to get up at that hour. he will usually go to sleep in bed with us.
what you could do is reduce the number or length of his naps, or push back his bedtime. also, you could probably give him a book or 2 or a couple toys (not hard ones that could break something if thrown) and see if he will play quietly and in his crib for a while.
maybe he just wants more mommy/daddy time. whats wrong with getting up (you know, at 6 not 5 LOL) and just simply spending time. take a walk, make a breakfast (kids that age can sorta help) read books, etc.
sleep is really touchy. my son is getting wierd about sleep again, but hes teething a molar. so thats probably most of the problem right now. as long as we can understand that 'this too will pass' it makes the bumps in the road easier.
My 15 mo. old is the same way and I recently asked our pediatrician about it. She said some babies are just early risers and that anything after 5 a.m. is considered normal. She said to expect the baby to continue taking a morning nap for a while because of the early AM wake up. Eventually he'll start sleeping later in the morning but will drop that morning nap. My older son went through this too, now that I think about it, and he eventually started sleeping until about 8:00 a.m. Hang in there!
You can't make a 15 month old sleep K. any more than you can make your husband sleep. Take turns getting up and let go of the idea that you will always be able to sleep until you "have to get up". Now, you "have to get up" at 5 am because you have a baby. He will definitely grow out of it, but you can easily enjoy this stage by planning to get up early until this stage is past.
Letting him "cry it out" will create abandonment issues. Babies at this age are not able to visualize other rooms - they are not developmentally able to visualize YOU when you are not there in front of him - he thinks you are gone and have abandoned him ~ thus the crying.
I encourage you to remember why you had a child - to raise him to be a healthy part of our world. Healthy children wake up early sometimes... sometimes for months on end.
Crying for two hours straight is a long time for anyone at any age. Perhaps you could wake up at his time and see what it is that is so important to him. I am betting he is just changing his sleep patterns and getting more teeth. I do think your little guy is trying to tell you something.
Hi,
Our son is the same way! We did room darkening shades and now he sleeps until 6 or 7. We couldn't find any at Target but the Home Depot has ones you can get custom cut to the size of your window for around 15 dollars, well worth it!
Good Luck!
You are going to have to give up some of his nap time or put him to bed later. He is telling you that he doesn't need as much sleep as you are requiring. Welcome to toddlerhood, you life with "baby" just left.
Hi my son would do the same thing while he was still on the bottle the nice thing was I could give him a bottle and get him to sleep another couple hours. But after getting him off the bottle we had to let him cry to get him to go back to sleep or I would go in there and give him his binky and play his music and walk out and see if that would work and it did! That was back when he was 13 months old now hes almost 20 months old and has been most days waking at 6:30am sometimes depending anywhere from 6:30-8am but like I said most the time its between 6:30-7am so when that happens at times I go in his room and try to get him back to sleep if I can get more sleep and dont have to work and most the time it works he hasnt been taking a morning nap for maybe 2-3 months now he gets one once in awhile cause he still likes those naps and sometimes needs one but sleeps great for his after lunch nap. His bedtime is 7:30-8pm most the time.
Our son now lays in bed awake until we get up if we are home and dont have to go anywhere and hes fine with it, its never very long.
I would say you could try to get him back to sleep like I do if he uses any of those things in his bed at 5am when he wakes up or just let him cry like you have. He might not cry every morning for 2 hours it will get less. Just see what the next morning is like. We did that same thing with our son at 9 months old to get him sleeping all night it took a week but very well worth it he was getting up twice. So hang in there I was in your shoes not very long ago and I was able to get him back to sleep and that worked for him so just try that. Good luck! L.
Anything past 6am is normal. So I agree that you need to put him to bed a 7. I know it seems weird. But you need to make sure he getting enough sleep during the day and going to bed early enough. We used the book Good Night Sleep Tight, by Kim West. It worked great. And it is a gentle no cry solution. I would get a sleep book they help out so much. And the books go up to five years of age. We have our 3 month old sleeping through the night because of the book. And we never had to let him cry it out. The book is at Barnes and Nobles. Good luck.
This happend to us with both of ours. We were told by our pediatrician it's because they are either getting too much sleep during the day (naps) or they're in a growing phase and needing to eat more (hunger is waking them at night).
For us, upping the amount of food they ate during the day did the trick everytime.
Sorry, this isn't probably going to make you feel any better...My husband and I deal with the same this with our son! When he was your son's age, he was getting up anywhere from 4-5am, for the day and then want a nap by 8 or 9 - letting him sit in his crib never worked for us either! Running him harder and giving up the naps WON'T work, it will just wear on the two of you and make matters WORSE! We just had to accept the fact that he is just an early riser, which is VERY difficult after having two girls who love their sleep, usually up between 8-9am (sometimes later). Our son is now 3 (4 at the end of this month) and often gets up between 5:30-6:30am - for the day, no naps! One Saturday we woke up and it was 7:30am - I ran upstairs to check on him - he still had a pulse...lol! I shared this with you to let you know, you're not alone...Hope you have a great day!
This might sound strange, but try putting him to bed earlier at night. Sometimes when they are too tired it is more difficult for them to sleep. Also, check out Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's book, "Sleepless in America." It has a lot of great ideas. Good luck.
We used Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child (Weissbluth) as a reference for all our kids. I think he would say try to put him in bed a little earlier. It seems counterintuitive but we have found it often makes a difference. I realize that might not fit your normal family routine if you or your husband has to work late but it might be worth a try. At some stage pretty soon he should be able to start a playing in his crib routine which might give you guys a bit more sleep. Good luck! (I hate getting up early; not a good trait for a mother of 4 small children! oh well!)
What about going in and giving him something to occupy himself. Like a sippy cup of Milk at 5am. He may drink a little and fall back to sleep for you then.
Go to bed earlier, get up at 5:00, enjoy the beautiful summer mornings!! Kids don't run according to our schedules. But they do go through phases.
If you keep him busy so he only gets a chance to take one nap instead of two he'll be more tired, and probably sleep longer at night. With my 2 1/2 yr. olds if they get a good 3 hr. nap during the day they sleep for 8 hrs. at night, but if they don't get a nap they sleep for 12 hrs. straight.
IMHO, I don't think you're going to get him back to sleep unless, perhaps, he would go back to sleep while in bed with you. In his own crib, he is certainly not going to go back to sleep if his internal clock says, "Wake up, there's a world to explore!" You could try room-darkening shades if you want to try to fool him into thinking it's still earlier than it is, and try keeping him awake later in the evening. (Although, frankly, do you want to lose your adult time after 8pm and be around a cranky, over tired baby?) Personally, I would attach a few activity box hanging toys to the crib or give him something he can entertain himself with in there - that's why he's crying, he's bored. And if that doesn't work, either you'll have to get up with him or accept that he's going to cry until you get him up.
My daughter got up between 5-6am for at least a year, and I got up with her every time. It doesn't last forever, and I guess I think that's just part of being a parent. They need to get up and learn, they can't do it unsupervised... that's the 24/7 of parenting.
Good luck!
My daughter is 26 months and is getting up around 5:00. She has always been an early riser. She used to get up between 4:00 and 4:30 until we moved her bedtime back a half hour (she now goes to bed at 8:00). We figure it will end at some point. By the time our kids are teens we will be yelling at them to get up at noon. In the mean time we go to bed at 9:00 and are enjoying our time spent with her in the morning. Also, my son was an early riser too. He started sleeping longer when he was about 2 1/2.
My son is also an early riser and I find the later he goes to bed the earlier he gets up. In the winter time he goes to bed at 7:00 and gets up at 6:30 or 7:00 (he goes to bed at 7 due to it being dark outside already - until daylight savings time). After daylight savings time he goes to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 (depending on how bright the sun is shining in - he does go to sleep when its light out most nights) and gets up around 6:30 am. A few times he has been up late and I have always found that the later he is up the earlier he is up - really weird how that works).
He has gotten up at 5:00 on a few occasions and I would grab my pillow and blanket and a few toys and books for him and go curl up next to his crib - i didn't really get to sleep (he was busy having me read to him), but at least he was safe and happy and I was resting and on a rare occasion he would fall back to sleep, just knowing i was there if he needed me.
I used to be a late to bed and late to rise person, but now I have no choice but to go to bed early and get up early with my son - he is my first priority afterall - my needs come second to his. If you are too tired then take a nap when he does, it does help. I rarely make it up past 9:00 pm anymore.
K.,
This time of year, if you don't have them, get some room darkening curtains. I believe they have them at target.
If it is light, the kids are up!
T.
