Re: 10 Month Old Waking at 5:30Am!

Put him down at 7. If you really want to try to push up his bedtime, you need to keep at it for about 3 weeks to see if it'll take. He's 10 months old. Personally, I don't think he needs to go to bed later than 7pm and 630 to 7 is an awesome wake up time for a 10 month old...

I also did the changing the diaper before I went to bed or double diapering them. Works well. They aren't as wet and seem more comfortable.

I'm not a huge fan of waking to feed. I'd hate to be woken up and a bottle thrown in my face so I don't do it. It's a personal thing.

Some WONDERFUL mum clued me into a phrase I've learned to treasure: Sleep begets sleep.

LOVE it.

It doesn't actually make sense to me, but in my experience it's 99% accurate. Any time we've move my son's bedtime later (on purpose, or due to circumstance) there he is, at oh-dark-thirty a.w.a.k.e.

I would suspect that since you just tried to push bedtime back, that this is what is up. If you just lost a nap he might settle into things...but unless the sleep is coming from somewhere else...most kids need 11-12 hours of sleep. Why they'll take 7 and be cranky over 12 & happy if we put them to bed late, I have nooooo idea.

A few other tricks that worked for US along the way:

- Changing into a dry diaper right before *I* go to bed (ahem, otherwise known as 12-1am)

- Waking him up to eat in the middle of the night (At the beginning of a growth spurt he would always wake up at some ungodly hour STARVING, tired, cranky -sometimes too ticked off to eat- but would have had JUST enough sleep to not want to go back to bed after he'd eaten. I learned this trick late. Once he was full into a growth spurt he'd wake up between 11pm-1am on his own to eat. I finally caught the hint and after one or two early mornings, tried pre-emptive feedings. Huzzah!)

- Teething & tylenol. Enough said.

Sounds crazy but the 'later' you put them to bed, the earlier they will wake. It's from being overtired. It's natural (at this age) for babies to wake up at 5:30-6:30. Just don't go in to get him until at least 6:00am (because if you go in at 5:30, he'll start to wake up at that time thinking it's 'wake up' time). I would still put him down between 6:30-7:00pm. I got all of my sleep information from Davis Erhler (sleep expert/consultant).
Go to www.3daysleep.com and get Davis' video. She is AMAZING!!! Both my babies sleep 12hrs/night and she has several helpful techniques/suggestions on bedtime routine, when to put your baby to bed (and how it changes as they grow), etc....... It's cheap and most importantly - QUICK to watch.
Good luck!!

my daughter did this when she was teething so i gave her some Tylenol before bed and it worked great. I only had to do it a couple of times and she was back feeling better and back in her routine. Also now that the weather is so hot I found she wakes thirsty so i put a sippy cup with water in it and that seems to be very helpful. Nothing but water because it is not good for those new little teeth but she is able to locate it take a drink and go back to sleep on her own.- she is almost a year so not much older than yours.
good luck!

I may not be much help, but I understand how you feel! I have 4 children, aged 22 to 10. My older children would wake up ridiculously early even when they were tired. If they stayed up late, they would get up an equal amount of time early the next morning, so an hour late to bed equalled two hours of lost sleep. It was maddening, especially since they were grumpy and argumentative when tired. I would say, keep doing what you're doing by letting him wait a while before you get him up. When my kids got to be about 4 and 5, I bought an alarm clock and told them that if they woke up before it went off, they had to play quietly with their stuffed animals or other quiet toys until it went off. (They shared a room, which undoubtedly aggravated the situation.) My oldest still has to make a concerted effort to get enough sleep. (She's away at college, though, so sometimes she has to have a complete meltdown before she realizes that she's missed too much sleep.) My second realized somewhere in her early to mid teens that she was miserable without sleep, so she now turns down invitations that keep her out too late. (My younger two, blessedly, never went through the phase.) You may not be able to do much about his body clock, but as he gets older you can help him find ways to minimize the effect on everyone else.

Put his bedtime back to 7 for sure. At this age, him being overtired will impair his sleep rather than making him sleep later. As for the separation anxiety, I think that's normal at that age. My daughter didn't seem to go through it but I remember watching for signs of it at that age.

Hello C.,

The reason might be teething. Baby do get up when their teeth hurts. My daughter used to do that at night she was such a good sleeper , she would go to sleep at 10 and wake up at 7am...but when she was teething she would get up at 12PM and cried and get all cranky but then i realize its the teeth that was bothering her. I used teethig tablets from WHole foods and that seem to work for her. DO NOT USED BABY ORAJEL..its not good for the gums...:)

Take care :)

C., I've read over and over that overly tired babies don't sleep as well and that putting them to bed earlier rather than later may help them to sleep more. You guessed the problem. Try your old routine and see if that helps. Regarding the clinging, it sounds like he's entering into the mommy-centric/stranger anxiety phase. I've read it peaks at 14 months. My twins are 15 months and didn't cry for the first time this Sunday when I dropped them off at the infant room at church.

My 20 month old has gone through phases of waking between 4am -5:30 (so exhausting). She doesn't require as much sleep as other children - she naps 2 x per day for about 30 minutes and is a super happy girl.

I started putting her to sleep at 8:15 -8:30 around the time the 5 am wakeup became a 2 week routine. She wakes now between 6:30 and 7:00 (unless I've been out late on a weekend nite, then she goes early!). Oh,and she pretty much always wakes up crying out insistently for me or my hubby.

When she wakes before 6:30, I pick her up from the crib and snuggle with her on the twin bed in her room til a decent hour. If she wakes up at the time I prefer, she goes to my bed and we hang out for a morning bottle.

People have said let her cry it out in the daytime or early am..I just can't stomach it. I have always been firm on sleeping at nite so if she's awake around the 4:30am hour, I pop in her room, help her lay back down, stay til she settles and then leave. Those days, I usually have to go back in several times and just grind it out. (the other nite she woke at 12, 2 and 4 - that is unusual)

I don't ever want her thinking she's sleeping in my bed with me! Never mind the kicking, I can't sleep thinking I may crush her, also my bed is so tall, if she fell off it would be like me falling off the roof of my house.