Sleeping in?

[BearyBlessed]

Is there any way to change a baby's internal alarm clock?

Punkin wakes up between 5:30am and 6am every morning, almost without fail. Occasionally it will be a half hour earlier or later, but not much more variation than that. It doesn't seem to matter whether he goes to bed at 5pm or 10pm. :/ I would really love to sleep in a bit. I can figure out how to keep him up later to adjust things, but that doesn't seem to do anything.

:help

[klpmommy]

if you figure it out, let me know. P is a huge morning person. I am not. I could not adjust his internal clock for anything. I finally gave up. thankfully E is more "adjustable" & I have both of them on the same "schedule". For the past year plus it hasn't been too bad b/c I could get up with P, take him downstairs & turn on the tv, give him a snack & go back to bed until a more reasonable hour of 7ish (which is still too early IMO, but better than 6). Also, he has been sleeping a little later in the past several months- 6:30 instead of 6. I'll take what I can get.

[doubleblessings]

At that age mine woke early (still do), but then they would have thier first nap really early. Like less than 2 hours after they woke up.

[2sunshines]

How is your room (assuming he sleeps with you) when he wakes up? Is it dark? Curtains closed? No sign of life that's waking him (alarm clock, dh moving around, etc)?

If you cuddle him and nurse, will he go back to sleep?

[Niphredil]

Sorry Becca, I've got nothing. N sleeps from 9:30 at night til 10:00 am.

Feel free to send A over for lessons. :lol

[BearyBlessed]

I think I just might do that, Lindsay! :P


There's a low light on, so that I can see to make bottles. No alarm clock, no movement that I'm aware of. I can give him the bink, but he usually refuses it and wants up. He's not normally ready to eat right away, either, so that's out.

He does normally nap early, within a couple hours. But, it's most often a half hour nap, so I can't get any more sleep. :yawn

[illinoismommy]

Maya gets up at 6 or 6:30 most of the time right now too.... but she goes to bed early so its okay.

[Ali]

Mine was always an early riser not matter what I tried. I remember noticing as he got closer to 3 years old (sorry that's a long way off for you!) that he would sleep in if I kept him up later.

Have you tried keeping her up later for 3-5 nights in a row? Sometimes that's how long it takes to re-set things. Also, if you have dark curtains, that can help a lot. And making sure the naps get moved later as well.

[CapeTownMommy]

Oh I feel your pain, I really do!

Dd wakes up around 5:30am too - to be precise, she's been up at 4:45 for the last 3 mornings in a row. And then she's wide awake, standing up in her crib, chatting away, ready to play. I usually nurse her immediately, and then she's often content to lie quietly in the bed next to me for a while, but she almost never goes to sleep again. This morning dh actually took her to the living room to give me a chance to sleep some more, and when I got up at 6:45 I found her fast asleep in his arms. I was like :jawdrop because normally she not only goes to sleep easier with me, but she doesn't sleep at all early morning! A first nap if she got up at 5 will usually not be before 8:30.

Anyway, if someone has advice for me too I'd be sooooo grateful. It sometimes feels like she wakes because she's hungry, since she'll nurse greedily immediately after waking up, but (other than this morning) she won't sleep any later than that. Poor dh comes home at 11pm every other night, gets to sleep shortly before midnight, and then has an utterly charming and unfortunately utterly awake baby in the bed 5 hours later. It gets old real quick.

Oh and thanks for the idea of keeping her up later for a week or so; I'll give that a try. It's not really the ideal solution for me, because the time after she's gone to bed is precious to me, but my sleep is even more precious so right now I'll give anything a try!

[3PeasInAPod]

some kids just don't sleep that much & are early risers. I've tried many things with ds to get him to sleep in later, but he still doesn't. Like last night, we got in late & ds didn't go to sleep until 11pm & then woke up at 6:45am...yes 6:45am. He's never slept much more than 8hrs during the night & that's usually with one night waking now.
Your ds is still young - so maybe as he gets older you can try different things & see if he'll get better.

Ali - I'm glad to know yours started to sleep in longer at 3yrs old...that gives me hope!