Baby wants to play at 3am ~ wwyd?

[P.J.]

My DS is 3 months old. Was a STTNer from day one ~ until recently. In the last week or two on and off, and consistently in the last 5 or 6 nights, he's been waking up between 2:30-4am all bright-eyed and bushy tailed wanting to get up and play.
I know about the "4 month sleep regression" (he was born almost 2 weeks late and has always been early in developmental stuff) and how they naturally wake up when they're busy working on the next developmental milestone. Right now he's been using his hands to hold toys a lot more, and working very hard during the day on crawling...he could roll over at around 6 weeks and his "crawling" is like commando-style using his arms a lot, and he's really into it and busy with it during the day.

Anyway, my approach until now has been to more or less try to ignore these middle-of-the-night wake-ups and wait until he fell back asleep, but he now has started crying too. I can tell it's not a cry of hunger or discomfort, rather that complaining angry cry, probably because he would rather get up and play. He thrashes around and then starts crying. So, I've picked him up and rocked him and hummed to him...but it makes no difference he still keeps crying until he's done (usually 5-15 minutes). Honestly it is killing my lower back to sit up and rock him in bed, so last night I did a little but then just laid him down and let him cry with a hand on him and softly singing. The crying will stop, or come and go, and he'll keep thrashing about, and usually it's about an hour until he falls back asleep. Last night he was up from 2:45 for about an hour, then again about an hour later for a shorter time.

I think I may be doing all I can here, but just wanted to get more input or ideas. I pretty much know this is impossible to stop, I just have to patiently wait it out. I hate to hear him crying like that, but the last thing I want to do is start a bad habit and get up with him and give him the idea that we play at 3am and that's just fine. BTW we're cosleeping in the same bed but do have a little sidecar crib, but it hasn't made a difference when I put him in it, same story.

Thank you for reading all that and in advance for your replies.

[Parker'smommy]

Could he be hungry?

[lookatreestar]

so do you get up and play sometimes? i remember that phase and both my kids were great sleepers too. i am a sahm so i would just get up and watch a few tv shows while we "played" then usually an hour or less they would be ready to nurse back down to sleep.

hahahaha i guess i didnt see the last part. honestly i still do this with my ds who goes to bed then wakes once more before his "big sleep" ... i also did the same thing with dd. and she doesn't ever wake up at night anymore, hasn't since about 24 months old unless sick/teething/over tired.

seriously dont let baby cry. neither of mine have held onto the "bad habit" (which i don't think it is)

[P.J.]

It's definitely not hunger. I always put him to the breast first and he nurses a few times during the night in any case. But when he's feeling active, he just yanks around at my nipple and starts squirming and fussing.

I'm not totally opposed to just getting up with him....but I was under the impression it was useful to build the association that night is for sleeping and day is for playing, and that if they are up and active at night they slowly learn that night is also for playing and their biological clock resets to include a midnight playtime ...??? Also I'm the type of sleeper that if I get fully awake with lights on then I have a harder time falling back asleep. I also cannot easily nap during the day, only sometimes, so I find myself getting overtired pretty easily. So I'd hate for this to be my morning wake-up time! I'm a SAHM for the moment, but actually this Saturday I am working for the first time again at 9am (I'm a teacher and for the next 6 months or so I'll be doing a few one-off private lessons and half-day workshops). But my DH is only working part-time and can help with the night wakings a few nights a week also.

So, has anyone else gotten up with their baby for an hour or so in the middle of the night....and noticed it didn't become a long-term thing? Or is that just what we do with babies? At this time I'm just not too into the idea that we'll be up from 3-4 every morning for X number of months/years. Of course if there's no other solution then I can deal, ok....but just wondering if there's another way.

[lookatreestar]

the fact that your ds sleeps that long/well is already a really great sign. i think if you honor his time clock now and get up with him it is better in the long run than him associating the middle of the night with sad/crying/being upset/fussing wahtever you want to call it kwim?

both my kids at that age did it and now they both sttn, even if my ds doesn't "technically" sttn, he will nurse and take a pre bed time nap is what i call it... he goes down early, will sleep for a few hours, get up and play/snuggle with me on the couch than an hour or two later goes back down until morning. i bet you it is a very short phase. and yes you could deal with it either way, i think if you leave him be he will learn to go back to sleep without you waking/playing but is it worth it to hear him being upset about it? (some people don't mind listening to "fussing", i just personally can't- but i also can easily get to sleep even after being awake for an hour or two in the middle of the night)

also some of my fav moments with my kids at that age have been when it is just us up early in the morning and the house is still and quiet. (esp. with two, it is great to have the one on one time with ds when dd is fast asleep, even just for an hour or two snuggling, staring into their eyes etc)

like i said, i think you are just jumping the gun a bit, he sounds like a great sleeper and i would not worry about this later down the road. just when you think you figure them out they go changing... so just when you get used to him getting up early for a few hours he will prob go back to sttn with no problems. (also once they get a bit more active then they tire themselves out so again, i highly highly doubt he will be waking like this for even a month or two longer- outside of obvious illness/teething etc) and one last thing, they learn pretty quick that nothing "fun" is going on at night, we would watch a few episodes on the tube, play quietly, rock sitting up, and i found that ds went to sleep easily an hour or two later no fussing.)

ps your ds is adorable!!!

[P.J.]

Thank you for your encouragement. You're right. I know he's still sooo young and generally he's a good sleeper. And yeah, things change day to day. For example last night he went to sleep at 8:30pm, nursed when I went to bed around 10:30, and slept through until 6am. I usually don't like to get up so early, but I figured for him to sleep from 8:30-6 was really good, so I was happy to get up then. We played quietly for about an hour and went back to bed for another 1.5 hours.

I think if he does the 3-4am wake-up again, with crying, I'll take him into the baby room and try to sit and rock with him in the glider and see if he'd be happy with that, just hanging out quietly for awhile. I see what you mean about he could get negative associations with sleep if he has to whine and fuss in bed at night.

Thanks again!

...I'd still be interested to hear other folks' experiences with this.

[texmati]

My son would occasionally do this-- I"d stay up with him. It never became habit. It seemed to coincidence with a milestone. The first time I saw him rollover was at 2am!

[sillysmile]

My 19mo dd also occasionally did this, and would always be up for 2.5-3 hrs before predictably getting sleepy again. The vast majority of her nighttime wakings were short (~5 min), but occasionally she was just AWAKE and it was easier let her get up and play than try to put her back to sleep, which gradually infuriated us both since it just didn't work. She's usually pretty good now.. still wakes up a lot, but the nighttime playtime sessions are few and far between.