Please help me to not screw up my baby's sleep! She is 20 weeks, and has been sleeping 11-12 hours at night since 10 weeks. In any case, last week she started waking up a bit early. Her normal wake-up time was 7, but last week, she started waking at 6:30, then 6:15, and then this morning 5:15!!!!!
She doesn't have a great day nap schedule since she is a third baby, and last night, she had a very late third nap, around 6:15. in fact, I thought she was going down for the night, as she usually goes to bed around 7.
I'm fine with her getting up at 6, but I remember my son doing this to me, and he went from sleeping through the night to developing a 4:30 eating habit.
I have dark out blinds in the room already.... Other suggestions?
Also, the two older ones are getting up early too! They normally sleep till around 8. For the past two days, they've gotten up at 6:30.
She might need more food right before bed.
She is getting bigger....
Mine had cereal at bed time. :)
She's going to bed pretty early. As she gets older she needs less sleep. Once she gets the amount of sleep she needs she will be up for the morning.
That's a LOT of hours to go without food. As she grows and has growth spurts she's also going to wake up during the night starving...
I'd much rather have a child up a little later and have them sleep later in the morning.
I truly believe every baby is an individual and while certain things (dark room, white noise, clean diaper, full tummy) are usually universal, sleep patterns vary from child to child and stage to stage.
I will say that 11 to 12 hours is a LONG time to go without food or a diaper change. My kids never slept that long until they were probably 18 months old or so.
Your baby is only five months old, and doing a LOT of growing right now. I don't know if you're breast or bottle feeding but I was still breastfeeding mine at least once a night at that age, and they went down around 9 and were up around 7.
Of course I brought baby to bed with me for that night time feeding, where s/he stayed the rest of the night (after a diaper change.) That's what worked for us, especially me since I NEED my sleep.
(And no we never had any sleep issues later on. Once my kids were weaned they were good sleepers.)
Hang in there, and be open to trying different approaches!
You're not going to screw up her sleep. Her sleeping patterns are going to continue changing quite a bit in the next couple of years and will continue to change throughout her life. That's true for all of us.
What usually works best for us is to consider how much nighttime sleep our child needs, what the ideal wake-up time is, count backwards to find the ideal "go to bed" time and work towards that goal.
If I remember correctly at 20 weeks, the kids were ready for a nap after being awake for about 2 hours. So that meant several little naps each day. It wasn't until closer to 9 months that they were doing 3 naps a day. Around 12 months they started to settle in to 1 nap a day.
Good luck!
I have no advice but I feel your pain as my 19month old daughter is doing the same right now, springing to life at 3am. The trouble is her twin sleeps soundly (up to 13 hours if I let her) but wakes at 7am so I'm shattered.
Hope we both get sorted soon x
Later snack & bedtime, maybe.
She is hungry. Feed her change her and put back to sleep.
put on white noise and do NOT get her up till a set time no matter what. Like you said, it easily becomes a habit. Same with your other kids, tell them no way are they to be up before X time. When they couldn't read a clock I would crack open their door if they were allowed to be up. A still closed door meant go back to sleep.
I think if you keep her on a better nap schedule that will help too. Naps matter SO much. Keep her really active right before bed and make sure she eats lots right before bed. You could do a feeding when you put the other kids to bed or you go to bed, don't wake the baby just do what is called a "dream feed" and then you will know the baby is not hungry when they wake.
Weird-maybe there is something in the water, because my 2-year-old and 9-mo-old have been getting up super early this last week too! Yuck. What I am doing is getting up with them (because what else can you do, really?) but delaying nursing the 9-mo-old until a time that is acceptable to me (6:00). We just walk around, talk, make coffee :), etc. My hope is that by delaying feeding her body won't get used to eating at that awful 5:00 hour? Your baby is younger though and so she may be hitting a growth spurt and needs to eat....good luck!
