What do you do if baby wakes too early in the morning?

[1sttimemom]

We just moved our LO into her own room 4 nights ago, and while her usual wake up time used to be 630am, she seems to be waking up earlier.

Good thing is, she's sleeping from dreamfeed (around 11-1130) to 530am. Bad thing is, it's still only 530am!

When she wakes, she doesn't cry. Just babbles and plays in her crib, for at least the first 20-30 mins. Should I go in once I find her awake, and try to get her to go back to sleep? Even if it's just for another half hour or 45 mins?

What do you do if baby wakes too early in the morning?

What possible reasons are there for this? ..

 

[Gataloca]

I just feed my baby and then put him back to sleep
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[wenyihsu]

How old is your baby? It's quite normal for babies to wake up earlier just to play and if your baby knows how soothe herself back to sleep, sometimes she will after a little bit of playing. There's lots of reasons for waking up earlier - just being more aware and excited to be awake, developmental milestone, etc ... I've always left both of my kids alone until their normal wake up time unless they were up early crying for milk. I just don't want to encourage them to continue to wake up early. Plus there is nothing wrong with baby playing with themselves in their crib for a little bit as long as they are perfectly happy. I think it's good training for the future. My son who's 3.5 is an excellent sleeper and stays in bed until someone goes to get him in the morning. If he wakes up earlier he plays by himself. My daughter, who's 9 months old, is also in the process of becoming a great sleeper. Her normal wake up time is 7-7:30. There are some days that she'll wake up an hour earlier but we just let her play by herself. On most days she can last until 7. A couple of months ago she would wake up in the middle of the night to play but once again as long as she was not crying, we just let her be and she would normally go back to sleep in about 15-20 minutes.

 

[oi0io]

I would just leave my son playing in his crib until it's time to start the day, in our case 7:30am. If my son cries on and off when he wakes up, it's most likely because he's got a poopy diaper, got stuck in the corner or he's hungry - that is when I attend to his needs. Otherwise, he'll just play with his fingers, the toys in his crib or just babbles. If they can self soothe, they may be able to fall back asleep when they are tired entertaining themselves.

 

[Singstar]

Again I think it depends how old your baby is. With my son he wakes up from about 5.30am - 6.30am and I just leave him in his cot (he is in his own room) and he amuses himself until I go in at 7am. He used to cry when he who up for attention so I went in and told him that it was too early to get up and he should either go back to sleep or play (I know this sounds silly but even at 6 months old he understood this) and the crying stopped. I think it is good for them to be able to amuse themselves. I do not think that feeding them (again depends how young they are) will help as they will think that if they wake at 5.30am then it means they get food - if my son woke up in the night or early I would feed him but this stopped once he turned 6 months and we night weaned him - good luck

 

[lesliefu]

with my 6mth old, i give her a pacifier that will make her sleep again...rationale for that is so that she will slowly know that her feeding is at 6:30/7 and NOT at 4:30/5...have done that for a week...and she is going back to bed faster day each day at 4:30/5 as it appears her body knows there is no milk coming. having said that...she DOES have her midnight feeding (sleeping at 7:30pm, feeding at 12mn and then 6:30).

I wouldn't pick her up or let her know you're around though..my hubby did that once and she ended up wide awake and wanting to play for a whole hour before falling asleep again!

 

[1sttimemom]

Thanks all for the replies. My LO doesn't seem to be asking for milk. Before we moved her into her own room, I had been slowly weaning her off the 430/5am feed with diluted formula. She hasn't woken up crying for milk since we moved her into her room. So, I don't want to start it again by feeding her so early and putting her back to sleep.

We have a strong bedtime routine and most nights, she'll fall asleep by herself very easily. I put her down awake after a bath, bottle, and story (story lasts about 5 mins - long enough?). Dreamfeed at about 11pm and she sleeps til this early morning waking.

It's def more difficult for her to soothe herself back to sleep cuz the urge to sleep is much less at this time of day.

To make things more complicated, she is a poor napper. 3-4 naps of 1/2 hr - 40 mins each only. UGH. what to do!?

BTW.. before, when I fed her at 430/5am, she would usually wake between 7-8am. With her naps so poor, I don't know if I should just give her the milk and send her back to bed.

 

[1sttimemom]

as I write this, she is yelling in her room... she's been up since 5 with a bit of a nap between 515 and 530. So up since 530 and it's now nearly 630. Maybe i shouldn't have picked her up. I had been resisting for a few days.. and I caved in

 

[carey]

I have not noticed you mentioned how old is your baby. When they are younger under 4, 5 month old, their naps are usually short, 30 to 40 minutes.

Mine is 18 month old and he is sleeping a lot better now. But he woke up at 5am every morning until he was about 14 month old. When he was cosleeping with one of us, we tried to put him back to sleep after getting him milk.

We slept trained him in his own room when he was about 7 month old. He still woke around 5am. We tried every thing: milk feed, leave him there to CIO, give him a toy to play by himself. Nothing really work. Like you, we caved in and let him get up and play with him then he will go down for a nap around 8am.

I hope things are different with your little one. If you are a SAHM, catch a nap while he is napping too. That was how I coped.

Good luck.

 

[oi0io]

At 5 months...naps are around 30-45 mins. It does get better as they get older. As carey mentioned...nap when she naps.

Definitely do not start feeding her if she cut out that early morning feed and if it affects her morning bottle. BTW, I don't think you should use diluted formula http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/28030635/ns/today-today_health/

I'm not sure if it's because I started sleep training early (around 3 months), so I never really had the problem of my son waking up so early. If I had to deal with this, I probably won't not cave in. After a couple of days of this, maybe she'll get the idea that it's not time to wake up. Of course if she's crying in distress, I would go in and check on her every 10 mins or so. Try not to pick her up, instead, just stroke her head telling her it's ok, mommy's here and shushing her. If she still balling her eyes out, then pick her up, calm her, tell her the same thing and then put her back into the crib. You might have to continuously do this every 10 mins or so. Hopefully after a couple of days of this, she'll learn that waking up early doesn't mean playing and she'll give up.