The Unhappy Early Riser

Hey there,

Have been following your site for a while, mostly in awe. Now wondering/hoping that in your vast array of tips, tricks and solid research you might have some advice for us.

Our son is about 4.5 months old. He’s always been a terrible sleeper, due to a combination of reflux, wind, confusional arousal an sheer bloody-mindedness. We’ve got it all mostly under control with a reasonable nap schedule he occasionally ignores and one major nighttime wake-up for food. However we just can’t shake his 5am unhappy wake-up. Like clockwork he wakes up at 5, eyes shut and unhappy, making the hoarse barking cry he does when he doesn’t want to wake up. If we hold him or bring him into bed with us he can usually sleep till 7, but then obviously we’re up and this doesn’t always work. Sometimes if we feed him he’ll go back to sleep in his cot, but that then means he won’t eat at 7 and his whole schedule is off. Worth noting he wakes up for his night feed at different times, sometimes less than 3 hours before he wakes up at 5 so I’m not sure if he’s hungry or it’s just soothing him back to sleep, and he’ll go back to sleep without food if we’re holding him. We’ve tried letting him figure it out for himself incase it’s just confusional arousal but it always escalates into full scale awake screaming that doesn’t settle down.

So I know we should be grateful it’s only twice in the night and maybe we just need to let him grow out of it, but we’ve had so little sleep for a while now that every minute counts! Anything you can suggest?

In eternal gratitude
Dad

Oh, yes, the way-too-early-whhhhhyyyy-are-you-waking-up waking. All three of my babies did this occasionally — usually thanks to a growth/developmental spurt, teething, or as early-warning sign that a cold or other illness was about to rear it’s ugly, snotty head.

But when “occasionally” turns into “EVERY FREAKING MORNING,” that’s almost always a sign that something in the sleep schedule is off and needs adjusting. A baby who wakes up grumpy but not hungry is probably an over-tired baby. And over-tired babies will NOT do the sensible thing and sleep until they are not over-tired anymore. They will just continue to fight naps and sleep like crap at night and wake up grumpier and grumpier. It’s a delightful cycle, really.

Since you didn’t give details on bedtime and nap times/nap length, I can’t make any SPECIFIC recommendations on what to tweak, but instead I’ll keep it general and give you a few of the more common scheduling “mistakes” parents make that lead to an over-tired early riser problem.

(And I put “mistakes” in quotes because come on, we’re all just desperate, over-tired pawns in the baby sleep game, and the babies KEEP CHANGING ALL THE RULES.)

1) Not enough naps during the day, or naps that are too short or poorly spaced. How many hours should your baby be napping? When should he be taking those naps?  Let these handy dandy age-based feeding/sleeping schedules at The Baby Sleep Site be your guide!

2) Too many long stretches of awake time, especially before bedtime. At four months, his awake/alert time should still be kept pretty short. Like under two hours, especially if your baby tends to get over-tired easily. Which, given the 5 am waking of misery, I’m gonna go ahead and put your baby in that category.

3) A bedtime that is too late or too early. Whenever sleep started going wonky and haywire for us, a change in bedtime was usually the first thing we tried. And we usually moved it earlier, not later. (That whole “sleep begets sleep” concept.) Babies need a set number of sleep hours, so if he’s not napping consistently for you (or naps are all super short or skipped entirely), he’s GOT to make up for that loss at nighttime. Try moving his bedtime earlier, two hours or less after his last nap and see what happens.

4) Inconsistency in parental reactions to wakings. Treat the 5 am waking like his other night waking. Unless you have a baby who naturally wakes up super early, refreshed and happy, consider anything before 6 am a “night waking.” Whatever you’re doing then to get him back to sleep at 2 or 3 am, do the same at 5 am. Keep the room dark (blackout shades maybe?) and the routine the same so he knows this isn’t playtime. The whole “if he eats at 5 he won’t eat at 7 and then his whole schedule is off” isn’t a dealbreaker here, because I suspect you’re going to look at the Baby Sleep Site and see a couple modifications you can make to the current schedule anyway. BUT  if you really think he’s not hungry at 5 am, try just patting and soothing him with your voice, or turning on a musical toy or some other sleep cue you can incorporate into bedtime. (God bless you, Fisher Price Crib Aquarium.)

That said, I distinctly remember my middle son doing the 5/6 am waking thing, and I would usually just bring him to bed with us, shove a boob in his mouth and go back to sleep for an hour or two. He’d maybe take two sucks and pass back out. But I ALSO distinctly remember that extra waking coming to an abrupt end once we figured out a better nap schedule for him. (Hint: He wasn’t napping nearly enough.) So…do as I say now and not as I did then, I guess.