earlier bedtime leading to night awakening?

[seafox]

For the last two months DS has had a pretty consistent 8pm bedtime (8-830, really) mostly because any attempt to put him to bed before that, would fail - even if he'd been up since 3pm. Its like he knew it wasn't 8 yet!

the last week though we've had some good luck w/ getting him down at 7pm which seems like a better time for a 4 month old. We usually join him around 9-10pm. Sometimes he sleeps until we wake him when we go to bed (put him in a nighttime diaper, nurse again) other times he wakes up exactly 2 hours after he goes to sleep to nurse so I just go to bed at that time.

w/ the 7pm bedtime though, he really gets up much earlier. The best is when its only 5am (used to be 6/7am if asleep at 8pm) the worst, like last night, is when he's *awake* at 3am, for no reason, it seems! it took a good two hours to get him back asleep. Since he was a few weeks old he's had a pretty good sense of night/day and wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night, he'd just nurse and go back to sleep.

I'd like to think its random and a teething thing but its never happened before and he's been teething since two months, off and on, it never interrupted his sleep this way (instead he wakes more often and nurses, but goes back to sleep), and the other times he's still up at 5am which also seems early. He can't *stay* awake long, he gets cranky fast and I put him back to sleep within 45min, so its not like he's up for the day like he used to be at 7am (could be up for 90min after that before needing a nap)

I think he really should go to bed around 7, not 8, mostly because getting in a last nap is hard after 4pm and it just seems like it should be bedtime. But I'd rather him be up between 7 and 8 if it means he won't be up between 3 and 4 or 5 and 6! everything I read says earlier bedtime should *not* mean early awakening.



any experience with this?

[Jayray]

Hi Seafox! It is fun to see you around the boards again. We've been putting DS down between 6-6:30 for a couple months now. He wakes about 3 times a night and then usually around 5ish "for the day." We can usually put him back to sleep for another hour or so. We've been putting him to bed a little later each night this week in prep for daylight savings. He has been waking a little later each day.

I don't know if this is helpful or not. Sometimes it takes a little while to get him back to sleep, but we almost always can. Sometimes we give up and DH just gets up with him at like 5:30.

[seafox]

Originally Posted by Jayray

Hi Seafox! It is fun to see you around the boards again. We've been putting DS down between 6-6:30 for a couple months now. He wakes about 3 times a night and then usually around 5ish "for the day." We can usually put him back to sleep for another hour or so. We've been putting him to bed a little later each night this week in prep for daylight savings. He has been waking a little later each day.

I don't know if this is helpful or not. Sometimes it takes a little while to get him back to sleep, but we almost always can. Sometimes we give up and DH just gets up with him at like 5:30.

I guess a 5am regular wake up time isn't too bad - its the 3am that's trouble! Hopefully that's just a fluke though.

He usually wakes about 3x also - when I go to bed, then again around 1am or 2am, and then again at 3am or 4am, etc. Sometimes I get a 3 hour stretch, sometimes 4 if I'm lucky

We can usually get him back to sleep within an hour of his 5am get up time, we just trade off in the AM who does it That's why this 3am thing was so odd - since it took two hours to get him back down and he was obviously tired.

Ill try for 7pm again tonite and hope that its 5am not 3am again Its good to know its not too odd to have such an early riser. I was just hoping that we'd put him in bed at 7 and at the most he'd be up only an hour earlier at 6, rather than 5. But it may be unrelated!

eh, anytime I think there's a pattern anyway it changes

[Jayray]

Our wake up pattern is the same! What are your naps like? I would really love to get beyond the 45 minute nap. He can only stay awake for about 1 hr 15 min-1 hr 40 minutes. I've been thinking I should keep him up a little longer to try to get longer naps, but he really seems tired at these times. He also does not like to nap after 4. Yesterday I got one out of him driving around in the car.

[seafox]

Originally Posted by Jayray

Our wake up pattern is the same! What are your naps like? I would really love to get beyond the 45 minute nap. He can only stay awake for about 1 hr 15 min-1 hr 40 minutes. I've been thinking I should keep him up a little longer to try to get longer naps, but he really seems tired at these times. He also does not like to nap after 4. Yesterday I got one out of him driving around in the car.

our naps are often 4 1-hour or 45 min naps, between 8am and 6pm. though occasionally he does the two-cycle hour and a half, but only if he's been up for >2 hours which sometimes he can do in a happy way. He *never* seems tired, only cranky so its hard to tell sometimes if he's tired or just bored.

If I want a nap out of him after four, I wear him and go for a walk, which always works. He doesn't like the car seat though, that wouldn't work for us!

[SeekingJoy]

Your LO is telling you when his bedtime should be. Other than reading that it worked for someone else's baby, why do you think it would work better for your LO? Would a 7 pm bedtime work better for your family? Even if it means he is up for the day at 3 am?

With the earlier bedtime, are you getting in the same number and length of nursings?

For most babies, the switch to an early bedtime typically happens along with naps being dropped. For some that is as early as 3 months, for others 7 or even 8 months. Your DS will probably give you signs that he is ready for an early bedtime right about when he drops back to just three naps. And, he might even start going to bed earlier still once he drops back to two, although mine waited until they dropped their naps entirely before that last shift.

[seafox]

Originally Posted by SeekingJoy

Your LO is telling you when his bedtime should be. Other than reading that it worked for someone else's baby, why do you think it would work better for your LO? Would a 7 pm bedtime work better for your family? Even if it means he is up for the day at 3 am?

With the earlier bedtime, are you getting in the same number and length of nursings?

For most babies, the switch to an early bedtime typically happens along with naps being dropped. For some that is as early as 3 months, for others 7 or even 8 months. Your DS will probably give you signs that he is ready for an early bedtime right about when he drops back to just three naps. And, he might even start going to bed earlier still once he drops back to two, although mine waited until they dropped their naps entirely before that last shift.

I didn't think it would work better because of anyone else's baby, it was just having him stay up to 8pm when he last got up at 4pm seemed way too long for him to be awake. (I did read that >2hrs awake isn't great, but its also true for him, he gets pretty cranky) We just couldn't get him asleep before 8, so that's why it worked that way. Now we all of a sudden can get him asleep before 8. We actually aren't doing anything different, we've always been trying to calm him/get him asleep from 6-8, its just now working before 8.

he did use to cluster feed more in those four hours of awake time, but mostly because we didn't know what else to do with him to calm him down or what! It was not calm feedings either, I'd have to get him almost asleep to eat, he'd eat, and I'd hope he'd nurse to sleep, and he wouldn't, and then i'd try rocking him to sleep w/out nursing, and it wouldn't stick, etc., etc., from about 6 to 8. Then at 8 it would work. Now its starting to work at 7pm and from 4-7 he's also much happier and so nursing just his regular every two hours (so at 4, and at 6, and then maybe a bit more at 7 when going to sleep)

The only way we could get him asleep between 4 and 8 was if I wore him and bounced on the ball which we did occasionally. Sometimes getting him to sleep on the mr. on the couch would work also. So he'd get a nap of an hour or maybe more between 6 and 7 or something if those tactics worked. But that didn't seem to make his night sleep any different.

Its hard to say how many real 'naps' he has. I guess right now he does only have 3 between 8am and 6pm when he used to have more like four, but he also used to sleep straight until 7, and now he's up at 530 so there's a 'nap' that I'm kind of not counting in the early am before 8am. It is true though that he can now be up for >45min w/out becoming cranky - now its more like 90min which is nice (not every time, but most times) if we go out on a walk w/ him he can stay up for two hours and be happy, though it can be trickier to get him to sleep at the end of that stretch.


I got him to sleep again at 7pm tonite, I guess we'll see what happens. He was pretty damn tired, I didn't want to keep him up until 8pm like that. His last nap was from 3-4pm. (so his total day was
up at 3am,
down at 5am to 630am,
down at 730 to 830,
down at 945 to 1045,
down at 12:30 to 1:30,
down at 3 to 4.

He was looking tired already at 5pm but perked back up when we tried to go in for a last short nap. I walked w/ him for an hour hoping he'd nod off but didn't work, nursed him at 6, also still awake, let him play a bit while not cranky but then he started to dissolve at 645, so I bounced him to sleepiness and nursed him one last time.

I was surprised since I wouldn't have guessed that one hour earlier bedtime would mean full wakefulness 4 hours earlier in the AM (7am being the usual)! If he wakes at 5am that's fine, and not totally weird (he'd do that occasionally even going to bed at 8pm)

I dunno. We're pretty flexible, and wouldn't mind him going to bed whenever, we just try and keep him from being too upset or cranky, which can be just using distractions for a while, but eventually he really just needs to go to sleep.

[Summersquash]

I wonder if your baby is going through the 4 month sleep regression and maybe the 3am wakefulness isn't necessarily related to the bedtime? My DD was up wide awake during the night quite a bit at 4 months. Lots and lots of developmental stuff going on at that time.

You've got the time change coming up, so maybe that will help things? It will be getting dark earlier at least so there will be an external sleep cue that hopefully will help.