Hey Moms, I need your help.
Micaiah is 7 1/2 months old now. He has been sleeping 12 hours straight through the night for several months. He normally goes to bed around 6:30 and gets up at 6:30am so I can nurse him before I go to school. He takes two 1 1/2 hour naps in the day, for a total of about 15 hours sleep. Lateley he has been waking up about 5 or 5:30am. He is very sensitive to sound, so we took steps to make his room more quiet, but it didn't really help. I tried putting him to bed a little later, but that didn't help. I tried putting him to bed a little earlier, but that didn't help. I know when he wakes up that early he's not well rested, because he wakes up crying, whereas normally he wakes up very happy and cooing. Have any of you had this problem? What worked for you? Any suggestions?
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Sleep Dilemma
Posted by Dena at 8:09 PM
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4 comments:
While I'm no expert on the sleeping baby thing, there is one thing I often try with Gabe that seems to work when he wakes up early/fussy, however this is usually after his afternoon nap. But the longer I parent the more I realize that each and every child is different, and so one mom's suggestion just might not be the best for your child. But you know your child and what he needs. All that said when Gabe wakes up crying from a nap, I almost always let him try to settle himself back down. It's almost always the case with him that when he wakes up crying/cranky that he's definitely not had enough sleep, and almost every time he goes back to sleep after crying maybe 5 or 10 minutes TOPS. I emphasize tops because rarely does it take him longer than that to settle down. And seeing how Gabe doesn't usually do this in the morning, I would suggest to you that perhaps your little man is going through another growth spurt, needing to feed/nurse more often??? That might be why he's waking up earlier than usual. I remember Gabe would do that when he was nursing. Now...something we did with Gabe (and again you know your child best) was to establish a morning wake time where mommy/daddy would always come in at the same time every morning. For Gabe it was anywhere between 7:30-8 in the morning. For your child it would obviously be earlier. But if you've established that he doesn't need fed, or that there's no immediate reason why he needs attention, you always have the option of letting him learn to occupy himself until mommy comes in the morning at the same time if possible every morning to get him. Eventually Gabe learned that screaming would not bring mommy or daddy any faster and that we would come get him when it was time to get up. Now all that said...you have to be flexible and you don't want to go all schedule, natzi crazy...but it worked really well for Gabe and I actually don't remember ever really having too much of a problem with the whole morning issue. Now that he's older it's really nice because he just plays in his room until about 8ish and I always come in and get him....he doesn't fuss or anything to be gotten :) We are very blessed in that dept. Anyways...I didn't intend to write a book :) Just wanted to share what works for us...and hopefully you get to the bottom of what's making your little man wake up earlier than usual :) And...if nothing seems to work at least know it won't go on forever...there's a light at the end of the tunnel for little ones...eventually!! You sound like you're doing a wonderful job and he is just beautiful!!
I found when Mya did those earlier than usual mornings she seemed to be going through a growth spurt.
She's also a VERY light sleeper (despite our noisey efforts when she was a babe) so we put a sound machine in her room with some waves (or something) on it. Otherwise she can be sound asleep and hear you walk down the hall - it's wild. The white noise works really well.
Sorry I'm not really any help - Hope you get some more sleep soon!
Thanks Ladies. Micaiah is also very sound sensitive, so we now keep his door closed and use a baby monitor, and we put a fan in there, too. I also tried hanging blankets over the curtains in his room to block out more light. Neither of these worked. This morning he cried it out for about 40 min, but then slept another 45. I think this may be the key. We had to do this months ago when first teaching him good sleep habits. He has been such a good sleeper for so long that I thought we were done with him needing to cry it out. Again, thanks for your help.
I know I'm late on this, but we have had the same problem with Amberly...she also is a VERY light sleeper. We have put a fan in her room that makes a good not-too-loud-but-just-loud-enough-to-cover-up-sound noise. It works well. And she has also been getting up earlier, but she is going through a growth spurt, too. I try to giver her a pacifier first, and if it doesn't work, I try to let her "cry it out" for about 10-15 minutes. After that, I will go in, and quickly and quietly nurse her in the dark and put her back to bed...I've never had any problems after that. I hope this helps!
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