Early Mornings!!

My son (will be 3 in June) has always been the same way. And his little sister likes to sleep late but he always ends up waking her up when he pulls out his toys are starts talking to us to wake us up! We've also tried covering the windows with dark blankets, putting him to bed later, no drinks right before bed so he doesn't wake up from wetting the bed, etc...but nothing works. The ONLY time he ever sleeps in, which is 7am in his case, is when he's not feeling well. Otherwise it's 6am sharp every day. He's up before my husband and I even get up! I truly think he's just an early riser and it's a built in mechanism that we cannot control :( lol

I don't really have any suggestions for you on this one. I have a son that does the same thing. He is up every morning early. We tried everything under the son ourselves, he is now 7 and still does it. The only thing I can suggest is that if he is being quiet and playing let him stay in his crib for a little while, well, you get a little extra rest. Or start you bedtime early,lol.

Some kids are natural morning people, I know that I am myself and that is where my son gets it. Good luck.

My son did the same thing. I started making him take his nap in the afternoon a little later and also moved his bedtime to later. It seemed to work for me. Although he was very cranky the first few days of not getting his nap when he was used to but he sleeps til 7:30 now. So that turned out to be a bleesing! Hope this helps.

Both of my boys are early risers! We are kind of the running joke in my entire family...whenever they spend the night somewhere, they're always the first people awake (usually around 4:30)...When we're home, like on the weekends, they get up around 5:00...so 5:30 sounds like a dream to me! LOL I agree with the ones that said to let him play in his crib for awhile....my kids are older now, so they just get up and play, but I do agree that some kids are just naturally early birds. It's good for me too, forces me to get around....because I really could lay in bed all day long!!! LOL

what time do you put your baby to bed. Maybe keeping your baby up a little longer would help. You help other moms work from home that is great. I have one ? how. well I hope you can get some sleep

I agree, www.babywhisperer.com is the bomb. And don't fall into the trap of putting him to bed later because waking early is usually (counterintuitively) a sign of overtiredness. Is he getting a good 2 hour nap during the day? Is he on a regular routine? That will help a lot because night and day sleep are related.

My suggestion is not getting him up at 5:30. When he wakes up, let him cry himself back to sleep. After he learns that you are not going to come get him. He should just stop getting up at 5:30. I know it sounds mean, but it worked with my son in one week. But you have to do what you are comfortable with.
When my son was first born he was up every hour, I never slept. Then I stopped feeding him during the night when he woke up, and he started sleeping all night. At 10 Months I started making him put himself back to sleep (it is hard at first) and now he sleeps 9:30pm- 9:30am. Sometimes he even sleeps until 10:00. If I need to be earlier, I just put him to bed at 8:30.

Here's a link to the toddler sleep forum for the Baby Whisperer: http://www.babywhisperer.com/smf/index.php?board=34.0

There have been several posts with different answers on this topic lately and the moderators there are very helpful.

HTH. :)

My son used to do the same thing and eventually he started gradually sleeping later and later. Have you let your little one try to put himself to sleep? It is so hard when they aren't on your sleep schedule. Also, this has nothing to do with your question, but I noticed that you said that you help other mothers work from home. Could you give me some more information? Thanks and good luck!

M.

Hi J.,
I really don't know if you can do anything about it. But what time do you put him to bed at night ? and how soon after he does get up does he take a nap ? and have you tried just leaving him there in his bed ? And another question what time does he take his afternoon nap ? is it really early in the afternoon ?
I could only say that if he wakes up at 5:30 just let him stay there maybe he will go back to sleep on his own eventually and also he may just be an early riser. good luck W.

What time do you put your son to bed?? My son was waking up really early to and we pushed his bedtime back 1 hour and he seems to sleep so much better through the night and later into the morning(he goes down at around 9pm and gets up between 6:30-7am).

I read in one of those parenting mags once when I was having similar troubles. It said to get your child to sleep later in the morning put them to bed earlier. Sounds backwards I know but it works. Like they explain having the child take a nap every day plus putting them to bed at an earlier time makes them more tired. Just like when if we were to sleep the whole day and still feel tired. So I made my children's bedtime sooner than what I had it and now the ones not in school sleep til about 8 and occasionally 9 so I can get the other two ready for school without a bunch of chaos inside the house of 3 running kids and a screaming baby.

I hate to tell you, but from all I've read, and from my experience with my son, I don't think there's anything you can do to change their wake up times! Kids have an internal clock that is always right on time. The only thing that got my son sleeping a LITTLE later was daylight savings time...but he's eventually worked himself back to waking up around 6:45-7, 7:30 if I'm REALLY lucky! Although...I have friends who are master baby trainers who swear by sleep training methods. But every baby is different, so if you feel like you've exhausted your resources and nothing has "worked"...maybe nothing will for your little one, at least for this season in life. Try to get to bed earlier yourself to compensate!

But...to agree with one of the posts I saw below, the best thing we've done was start putting our son to bed earlier too. Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child is a really great and informative book. We kept trying to put him to bed arond 8, but when we started putting him to bed around 7 (sometimes later depending on when he woke up from his afternoon nap) he started sleeping MUCH better. If not later in the morning, at least more solidly through the night, which is sometimes more valuable to parents sleeping well!!

Mine were both the same way and we just let them play in their cribs until they got totally anxious to get out. This in turn pushed back breakfast time and eventually they gave up the getting up early thing and now both sleep until 7:30 - 8am. Just keep trying to get him to stay in the crib and amuse himself and start feeding a little later each day (10min., then 15min. and so on.) Good luck!