Early morning waking is possibly the most common (and frustrating!) occurrence parents encounter with their kiddos’ sleep. Le sigh. This is whether they are sleep trained or not. This issue is so prevalent that I probably get asked about it over 5x a week. No joke. It is VERY normal. And with some time, effort, and a sound plan in place, early morning waking can be resolved!
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Why Babies Struggle with Early Morning Waking
As a baby/toddler sleep consultant, I typically work with babies aged 14 weeks to 2 years. Regardless of the child’s age, or whatever other issue the parent is facing, an overwhelming majority of my clients share this single issue. Their child seems to struggle with sleep at some point within the hours of 4:00 am to 6:00 am. For some children, their sleep is simply lighter in the early morning hours. For others, they seem to fall back to sleep easily from all feedings that take place until that elusive 4:00 am hour. It is at this point that they seem to wake every 30 to 60 minutes until the sun comes up. Or worse, they never go back to sleep once woken up any time after 4:00 am.
Why is it so hard for kids to sleep deeply the closer they get to 6:00 am? The answer lies in the brain’s melatonin secretion. Melatonin, which is responsible for making us feel sleepy, peaks between the hours of 2:00 am and 4:00 am. From the hours of 4:00 am on there appears to be a precipitous drop in melatonin secretion. Less melatonin means the body has a harder time staying asleep.
While this drop in melatonin makes it harder for some children to stay asleep, it doesn’t mean that those children are incapable of sleep during that time. And it also doesn’t mean that they should be starting their day any time before 6:00 am. (No one should be starting their day before 6:00 am 😉 It simply means that many children find it harder to stay asleep during those hours.
A Case Study of Twins
Years ago, I spent the night with a set of twins I was helping to sleep train. I shuttled between the two of them throughout the night. I observed their sleeping and waking periods. It was here that I witnessed firsthand how difficult it can be for little ones to remain soundly asleep in those early morning hours.
The particular mother I was working with decided to employ an extinction based method. This meant that while I was physically present in the room with the babies the entire night, I was there to observe them instead of interfere while they were learning how to put themselves to sleep. While each twin worked through a few night wakings in the early part of the evening, it was easily apparent how hard it was for each one of them to stay soundly asleep as we approached the 5:00 am and 6:00 am hour.
While these twins were clearly waking frequently around 4:00 and 5:00 am, I also noticed that they repeatedly cycled from being awake and crying to appearing totally asleep. In fact, many times while they were crying out their eyes remain closed. Even though their sleep was irregular, it was still mostly sleep with some errant cries of between 5-10 minutes.
The Take Home?
Just because a child is struggling to stay asleep in the early morning does not mean they do not want to be asleep. They’re simply having a harder time sleeping than they normally do. Their circadian rhythm most likely has them set on a cycle where they are meant to be asleep for about 11-12 hours at night. (Regardless of brief wakings at night for feedings.) If they are waking before those 11-12 hours are up, then they almost certainly need and want to fall back to sleep. They are simply having a hard time doing so.
How to Help Early Morning Wakings
Now, what do you do to eliminate this early morning waking? An excellent way is to make sure they know how to put themselves to sleep during the rest of the day, and at bedtime. One of the main reasons it’s so tough for babies to sleep early in the morning is because they are reliant on some thing or some one to put them back to sleep when they wake.
And then due to the lack of melatonin in the early morning hours, many babies will find it all the more difficult to fall back to sleep even with their normal sleep helps. (Ie. nursing, rocking, pacifier.) That is why it is vital for children to know how to fall asleep completely on their own. If they’re capable of putting themselves to sleep during the day, then they are all the more likely to employ that skill at 5:00 am.
Next, parents should make sure to keep bedtime no earlier than 7 pm, or 6:30 pm at the absolute earliest. The earlier you put your baby to bed, the earlier they are likely to wake up for the day. It may be tempting to put them to bed earlier to make up for extra sleep, but getting into a cycle of “early bedtime” will perpetuate an early wake up the next morning.
A Word of Caution
Many parents who are unable or unwilling to attempt Cry It Out for naps or bedtime often find themselves attempting it for these early wakings. Moms and Dads are sleep deprived and miserable, and finally decide to see if crying will do what they are unable to do. (Which is put the child back to sleep.) Cry It Out is the LEAST effective when tried for the first time in the middle of the night or for naps. Please do not try to deal with early morning wakings with CIO unless you are also using CIO at bedtime, and for naps.
To address early morning waking, remember…
- Look at your child’s sleep habits in totality – are they able to put themselves to sleep on their own?
- Keep baby’s bedtime no earlier than 6:30 pm or 7:00 pm.
- Once the above two items are addressed, reduce or eliminate your interaction with baby during the hours of 4:00 am to 6:00 am.
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Hi Natalie! Thanks for all this valuable info. my LO can put herself to sleep for naps without sleep crutches and minimal to no crying- however, bedtime almost always involve 5-30 min of crying. This has been ongoing for the past 2 months (she was sleep trained 4 months ago). She’s now 11 months old. Is this a common nightly occurance for other babies? And should I be concerned? TIA!
Hi Elaine, great question. I would make sure you’re watching her total nap – sleep intake per day (keep it around 3 hours max) and I would make sure her naps are ending relatively early, around 3:30 pm, MAX of 4:00 pm, each day. You want bedtime to be around 7:00 pm at this age. If you’re doing these things and she still cries, I really wouldn’t be concerned. Lots of babies need to let off some steam for a while before they fall asleep and sometimes the stress of the day builds up and they let it out before bedtime. If she’s not crying too much other times before sleep and is happy generally, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Hi Natalie! Thank you for blogging for us. After minimal use of CIO. My 6m old can put herself to sleep for naps and bedtime but tends to wake up sometimes at night always about 2a. I try to go in only when she is crying with her eyes open for longer then 10 minutes or so. Do I let her cio then by not going in? She typically sleeps from 830-830. Thank you
You’re welcome, Allison! If your little one is growing well and you have no reason to be concerned she needs to eat at that hour (meaning, if she’s gaining weight well and eating properly during the day) then I would say you can go forward with CIO if you feel comfortable doing so. Generally speaking it should only take a few days of letting her work through the waking on her own before she stops waking up all together.
Hi Natalie!
I have bought your book and sleep trained my LO and it’s working really well for the past 2 months.
My LO is able to put himself to sleep both for his naps and bedtime.
However, he is waking up everyday around 530am in the morning. I tried not to pick up at this time, however he is always crying loudly.
I would like to know how if there is a way to adjust his waking up hours to about 6am in the morning?
It sounds like you’re doing everything!! Generally this issue just resolves with time.
Hi Natalie,
We are so grateful for your book, which helped us take our now 6 month (then 4.5 month) old from crying in our arms for a LONG time to 2-3 minutes and asleep in his bed at naps and bedtime. It worked in a matter of days and we are pretty sure he was crying to tell us to put him down, leave him alone, and let him sleep. If anything, yours was a cry less method for us. Our babe is now 6 months and goes to bed at 645/7. Sometimes he wakes and cries at 11-12 but goes back to sleep. He then wakes to eat at 1ish and then sleeps to 530-545. When you say this resolves itself, do you mean we should wait until 6 and let him cry? Because this takes him from content and cooing to really crying. Or should we get him up and wait for him to learn to sleep a little longer with time. Thanks for everything!
Hi Natalie! My LO is 16 months old and she’s been consistently sleeping from 7:45pm to 7 but the last month she’s been waking up anywhere from 5:15-5:45 am. She still takes 2 naps about an hour to hour and half each and doesn’t have problems taking those 2 naps. We’ve tried putting her to sleep earlier. Last night was 7:15 and she still woke up at 5:45 this morning. What should I do?? TIA
Hi Sandra!!
I would cut down her daytime sleep, especially that last nap. Have her down for no more than one hour and keep her bedtime at the same time it currently is.
How do you respond to the research showing the harm that CIO can cause babies?
http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out
Hi Amy,
Here’s a post I wrote a while back that I think addresses your question. Please make sure to click through all the links and read through any relevant data.
http://babysleeptrainer.com/2012/10/17/crying-and-cortisol/
Hi Natalie, my LO is 10 weeks old and seems to be fine taking 2 hour long naps if sleeping on me or next to me but if alone in his crib or swing they are on the dot only 45 minutes. At night he sleeps in 4 hour stretches just fine. Any suggestions on how to get him to continue sleeping pass the 45 minute sleep cycle?
Hi Angie,
That’s super typical for newborns. I wouldn’t worry at all about naps at this age. Just do your best to establish the nursing relationship (if you are choosing to nurse) and survive. Once your baby hits the 14-16 week mark you can work on extending nap lengths in the crib. If you do really him to sleep in the crib now for longer than 45 minutes, I’d try entering the room just prior to the 45 minute mark, watch him while he wakes, and before he gets all the way up try to shush/soothe/rock him (keeping him in the crib) and put him back to sleep.
If I want to teach my son, 11 weeks, how to fall asleep without the pacifier without doing an extinction cio, how would I go about it? World it be confusing to let him cry 5-20 minutes and then use it, just to get him asleep and avoid over tiredness? What about the 45 minute intruder? Thanks so much!
Hi Jessie,
Excellent question! There are a few books that describe more gradual methods and if you’re interested in attempting one now, you can always read Ferber’s book or The Sleep Lady’s Good Night Sleep Tight’s book. In both books, however, you will find the author’s telling you to wait to sleep train until much later than 11 weeks. You can choose whether or not to follow that advice. I would avoid using the pacifier once you start sleep training. There’s an answer above to Angie’s question that I think will answer your question about the 45 minute intruder.
Thanks so much! At what age do you recommend cio for sleep training? Right now we cuddle/rock a couple minutes before nap and bedtime and put him down awake but with the pacifier and swaddle. The pacifier caused all sorts of night wakings for my daughter and I don’t want to repeat that.
Hi Natalie! First time Dad here 🙂 A lil embrassed to say but I made the mistake of rocking my 9month old sleep and now he can’t fall asleep on his own for naps or night time :/ He needs somebody to rock him or be fed to sleep. Any instruction on how to sleep train my lo to fall asleep by himself w/o aid? Strange how I have read so many articles and they just say it but don’t go into detail of how to. Any advice is deeplh appreciated or any resource to go to is great too 🙂
Well hello, Pham!
This is an elusive question that requires a lengthy response. I’d recommend looking into a few books to see the different methods out there, then decide which one you think your baby will tolerate the best. Ask around to some parent friends who have good sleepers to find out which method they used.
I think the reason no one gives detail about how to put your baby to sleep without rocking is because it will involve crying 😉 Many parents want there to be an answer that isn’t cry based and that’s impossible to come by. I’d love to chat with you further about your choices if you feel you need a lot more hands on help to sleep train your baby! Fear not, because it is still possible.
HI Natalie, thank you so much for giving your time and info to us. My 14 mo old was one of those 4:30am babies for many many months and we were miserable and no one could give us answers so we just suffered through it. Thankfully now he sleeps through till 6am..on the dot, and no matter what time I put him down he is up at 6am. I have tried black out curtains, later bed time, earlier bed time..6am still. It seems from your post that this is just what his wake time will be although I wish so much I could get him to sleep 1 more hour. He naps from 9:30-11am, 3:30-5pm. He used to be asleep by 7:30 but now he tosses and turns and rolls around like he cannot get comfortable for about an hour. Im not sure if its related to dinner? Too late of a bottle? If I put him to bed with a bottle he goes right to sleep but I dont want to do that as we have never needed that crutch. He does not take a paci but has a lovey and mobile. Any thoughts to why its so hard for him to settle down at night?
Hey Amanda,
I think for his age his second nap is ending quite late. I’d shorten that second nap by about 1/2 hour and keep bedtime the same time, and he should be falling asleep more easily soon.
Natalie, thank you so so much for your post and taking the time to respond to everyone! It’s greatly appreciated:) my LO is 15 months and sleeps pretty well at night, usually 630-6. My struggle is I’m still nursing her at night. I only nurse her for 10-15 minutes and I put her down fully awake and she falls asleep on her own, no crying. However if I try to put her down fully awake without nursing she screams! I will rock her and read to her to have some wind down time before I put her down but she just cries. Am I going to have to just cut her off from nursing and let her CIO (which I’m ok with)? TIA!!!
Hi Sarah,
You are so very welcome. If you’re comfortable with CIO at bedtime I would definitely recommend that. I bet you’ll be surprised by how quickly the crying ends and how fast she falls asleep 🙂 If you want to continue nursing her, feel free to feed her about 1/2 hour before bedtime in a bright room, then when it’s time to go to sleep replace the nursing with some cuddles (if she’ll let you cuddle instead of trying to get to the breast). If she won’t let you cuddle, then just put her down to sleep.
Hi Natalie! Thanks so much for your post. I’m struggling a lot with putting my 5 month LO to bed. I had been using the shush pat method to help him fall asleep, but it doesn’t seem to be working anymore. Could you elaborate more on what putting down sleepy but awake looks like? How long should it take for the baby to fall asleep? My LO has reflux so I’d like to minimize CIO, if possible. Bedtime is at 6 and he also wakes up between 3-4 am, also.
hi Natalie,
My son is 14 months old has been sleeping and napping great after we sleep.trained him at 6 months. Currently his routine is wake up 7:30-8am nap from 10-1pm and 4-6pm and bedtime 8:30pm. everything is awesome when we are at home, but when we are outside he will not nap at all and screams bloody murder if I tell him its naptime. We tried mimicking his room by placing him in a pack and play, dimmed lighting, turned on white noise and gave him his lovey. Nothing except the car is working. Any suggestions? Thanks in advanved.
Hi Jina,
Unfortunately that’s the case for many babies. I don’t blame him 😉 I can’t sleep either no matter how hard I try if I’m not laying down in my bed. My husband, however, can sleep anytime and any where. Some people, babies included, are better at sleeping on the go, and others are inherently less flexible. There’s not too much you can do to entice an inflexible baby to become more flexible. My daughter was exactly the way your son is and never slept well on the go. My son, however, has always been super flexible, despite the fact that he’d been as strictly sleep trained as my daughter. So just hang in there. Before you know it your son will be down to one nap and you’ll have lots more flexibility!!
Hey Melody.
The shush pat method, along with a lot of other gradual methods of helping baby fall asleep, tends to stop working around the 4 month mark so what you’re experiencing isn’t uncommon. I actually don’t advocate putting babies down sleepy (or drowsy) but awake. I prefer babies be put down calm but awake. If on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 is totally awake and 10 is dead asleep, you want your baby to be at a 4 to 5 MAX when you put him down. Ideally, you don’t want to spend more than a couple minutes trying to get him to that calm state. If after a few minutes he isn’t calm, I’d suggest putting him down any way. From there, you want to choose the best sleep training method from the ones you’ve researched. Once a baby is sleep trained, you want him going to sleep within 10-20 minutes of being put down in the crib.
Hi Natalie, Your blog on this topic is very appreciated and couldn’t have come at a better time! I’m a mom of 6 month old boy/girl twins. The girl twin falls asleep effortlessly for both naps and bedtime but the boy was breastfed to be put down so he is now struggling with sleep training and the 4/5am waking. I’m currently doing CIO (day 2) for naps and bedtime. Some of the previous posts have answered a couple of my questions regarding putting him down but I want to take a better look a their sleep schedule in total.
What’s the ideal sleep schedule for babies at 6 months? Their current schedule is wake 6:30/7, nap 9-11, 1-3 and 5-6 and bedtime at 8/8:30. You mentioned a total of 3 hours max nap time for an 11 month old and no naps after 4pm but what do you recommend at 6 months? Thanks in advance!
Hi Je,
At 6 months most babies are napping three times a day, usually around 8:30 am, 11:30 am, and 3:00 pm, or somewhere around those times. You want to make sure the last nap of the day doesn’t end too much past 4/4:30 pm. Once babies are down to two naps, which can happen around 7 months, you want naps at about 9 am and 1 pm.
If the schedule you have right now is working, though, I wouldn’t change it!! Sleep after 4 pm often (but not always) causes nighttime sleep disruptions, so that’s why I try to end daytime sleep around that time each day.
Hi Natalie,
Thank you for this topic! My son is 16 months and will still on occasion wake up between 4:45-5:45 when going through some developmental milestone ( which at this point seems to happen weekly!). I cheer if he makes it to 6am! He goes to bed early around 6:30, he has always been an early bird. I wish that you could sleep train adults. Since giving birth I have not been able to sleep past 4am. Your scientific information helped me understand why, I just wish I could do something about it. Guess my self soothing needs some work. 🙂
Hi Rachel,
Actually, you can move past this! I would recommend using loud white noise or ear plugs (if you have a partner that can listen for your son) and these eye covers from Amazon :http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Essentials-Dreams-Contoured-Earplugs/dp/B000CCI4YU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406613084&sr=8-1&keywords=eye+covers
I don’t know what you’re currently doing at 4:00 am, but I would suggest doing a whole lot of nothing. Stay in the dark, think of boring/pleasant things. Do not allow yourself to think stressful or scary thoughts. If you remain with your eyes covered and your hearing muted, you may just find yourself falling back to sleep within about 20 minutes. Happens to me all the time 😉
Hi Natalie, I love this topic! It has been so helpful and I literally started sleep training the day I read your post. My 7 month old has always been such a great sleeper until we hit the 6 month mark. He kept waking up around 4 am and couldn’t go back to sleep! Last week we started CIO and transitioned him to 2 naps, around 9:30 and 2:30, each anywhere from 1 hour to 1.5 hours. He has been doing relatively well, but there hasn’t necessarily been a strict decrease in his cry time — it goes up and down! We’ve been at it for a week now and he will cry anywhere from 40 minutes to 5 minutes.
Three questions:
1) Is this normal for the crying to go up and down like this?? I always hear of people telling me baby decreases from 1 hour to 30 minutes to 5 minutes to no crying…we are definitely not there yet! 🙁 He always cries, it’s just a matter of how long.
2) On a similar note, is it normal for sleep training a 7 month old to take this long? Again, people always said it took them no more than 3-4 days and we’re on Day 8 here 🙁
3) I work full time so by the time I get home at 6, immediately start his bedtime routine of bath, bottle/nurse, he always falls asleep drinking his milk! During this last week of sleep training, I always wake him up for about 5 minutes, we read a book together and then I put him in his crib. Is this too drowsy? Maybe he’s mad that I woke him up?? At this point it is already 7 or 7:30 so I hesitate to wake him up to play for another 15-30 minutes because he always wakes up around 6 (he stopped waking up at 4 when we started sleep training — hooray!), regardless of whether he fell asleep at 7 or 8 — don’t want to rob him of that additional sleep time. Should I feed him in a brightly lit room instead of the dark and quiet nursery? Or drink his milk before bathtime?? (I’ve always done bath and then bottle since he was born, so I worry I will confuse him!) Any advice would be greatly appreciated!! (Sorry, so many questions!)
Hello Jennifer,
1) Is this normal for the crying to go up and down like this?? I always hear of people telling me baby decreases from 1 hour to 30 minutes to 5 minutes to no crying…we are definitely not there yet! 🙁 He always cries, it’s just a matter of how long.
In a way, it is normal. This is actually why some times it helps to have more personal one-on-one support, because then whoever is helping you can pinpoint where exactly the issue lies. I would keep going as you are for another 7-10 days, and I do think the crying will diminish, as long as you are being consistent with not giving him help to fall asleep at bedtime or at naps.
2) On a similar note, is it normal for sleep training a 7 month old to take this long? Again, people always said it took them no more than 3-4 days and we’re on Day 8 here 🙁
Yes, very normal. Usually it can take 14-16 days.
3) I work full time so by the time I get home at 6, immediately start his bedtime routine of bath, bottle/nurse, he always falls asleep drinking his milk! During this last week of sleep training, I always wake him up for about 5 minutes, we read a book together and then I put him in his crib. Is this too drowsy? Maybe he’s mad that I woke him up?? At this point it is already 7 or 7:30 so I hesitate to wake him up to play for another 15-30 minutes because he always wakes up around 6 (he stopped waking up at 4 when we started sleep training — hooray!), regardless of whether he fell asleep at 7 or 8 — don’t want to rob him of that additional sleep time. Should I feed him in a brightly lit room instead of the dark and quiet nursery? Or drink his milk before bathtime?? (I’ve always done bath and then bottle since he was born, so I worry I will confuse him!) Any advice would be greatly appreciated!! (Sorry, so many questions!)
I would simply make his bottle the very first part of his bedtime routine so that he doesn’t get sleepy or drowsy while taking it. Switching when you give him the bottle shouldn’t confuse him too much 😉
Hi Natalie,
Thanks for taking the time to write this helpful post!!! 🙂
My 14 mo old has been an early riser for months and months. He wakes up from 5-5:30 everyday!! 🙁 naps at 9, I started capping his morning nap at 10 hoping he would take a longer afternoon nap. Naps again at 1:30- 2:30 (this nap is usually the shorter one, some times only 45 mins) he always wakes up crying after the second nap, bedtime 6:30-7.
What is the appropriate hrs of wakefulness between naps and bedtime for his age?
Hi Genie,
I would say his wakefulness times look totally perfect! Unless you find that capping the morning nap actually helps to lengthen his afternoon nap, I wouldn’t continue doing it. It it does help to make his PM nap longer, then continue to cut nap one down.
At 14 months of age he should be sleeping about 11-12 hours through the night and he should be napping for about 2-3 hours total per day.
Hi Natalie,
My 12 month old has been an early riser for as long as I can remember. He sleeps at around 7:30-8 and wakes up right at 5-5:30!
He then falls asleep right at around 9:30 (sometimes earlier!) for about an hour and then has a 2-2.5 hour nap in the afternoon (around 12:30-1).
His room is dark as we have shutters, but he seems to be wide awake and alert in the early morning. Is there anything else we can try to extend his wake up time?
Thank you!
Hi Joni,
I think his nap totals might be a bit high. Consider capping his afternoon nap at one hour 45 minutes, or even an hour and a half. Give him about a week and see if he extends his morning wake time.
Thank you! I’ll give that a go!
My 4.5 month old has been waking up consistently at 5:20am. I watch the monitor. He plays quietly in his crib with his lovey and talks to himself for one full hour and then starts to squawk around 6:00/6:15am. That’s when I go in and open the curtains and greet him. He often greets me with a huge smile. Glad he can play quietly but should I be working on getting him to fall back asleep? I’m worried that once he sees me, he’ll reach his arms up and think it’s time to play at 5:20am. His current bedtime is 6:30pm.
Hi Wendy,
That’s a GREAT thing for you baby to be doing!! What a wonderful skill he’s developed. I wouldn’t worry about getting him back to sleep. Hanging out on his own in his crib in his dark room is way more restful/less stimulating than being up with you, and any contact you make with him will have the opposite affect of keeping him up, not putting him back to sleep.
Good to hear! I was worried that 5:20 wake up was cutting into his total night sleep …but I guess I’ll leave him be and start our day at 6:30am. Thanks!
Hi Natalie!
I’m a former client of yours and you have helped us so much with sleep! The only problem we are having is Mila wakes up at 5:00-5:30 every morning!!
At daycare she does one nap around 12 for 1.5 to 2 hours and on weekends she normally takes her first nap around 8:30 for 30 minutes to an hour and her second nap is around 1:00 for about an hour. Bedtime is 6:30 to 7:00.
We’ve tried letting her CIO but she will SCREAM and with it being so early we normally get her. Any tips/ideas on getting her to wake up later?!
Thanks!
Susan
Hi Susan,
So nice to hear from you here on the blog 🙂
I’m sorry to hear Mila is having that early waking. As I talk about in the post, it’s *super* common.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you continue to go to her before 6 am, she will continue to wake before 6 am. You can try again to be firm about setting a start time of the day that’s at 6 am or after, or you can choose to start your day on the earlier side.
Another thing to try is to wait to go to her until 5:45 am, regardless of what time she wakes. Do this for 2 weeks, then move that time to 5:50, then 5:55, then 6 am. She may gradually get accustomed to waiting for you and hopefully won’t protest quite as loudly.
Thanks Natalie! We will try doing that!! 🙂
Hi Natalie,
Thanks for taking the time to answer all of these questions! I’m having a very hard time with my 22 month old waking at 4 – 4:30am. He just wakes up and immediately stands at his crib screaming bloody murder, we’ve tried going in at increasing intervals or just waiting up to 30 min. to go in but he will just keep it up. He’ll normally just scream straight though until 6am when we’ve decided we can take him out of the crib. He just wants out of there so badly. When we put him to bed he’ll refuse to lay down and he’ll stand up and scream for about 10 min but then sleeps. He uses a pacifier which is seeming less and less helpful as part of the routine is to go retrieve it at each check in and have him through it to the floor when he realizes I’m not there to get him out of the crib…any thoughts would be so appreciated!
My 9 months old DS is acting exactly the same as you described, Rebecca… I would love to hear what can I do to help him sleep longer too 🙁
Thank you in advance for answering all of our questions, Natalie.
Hi Natalie, thanks so much for your helpful posts!! My 11 week old is unable to get to sleep without being held/rocked. She rarely stay asleep for longer than 45 mins during the day and has one long stretch at night before waking up several times between 2 and 7, just to be held and rocked back to sleep (she isn’t hungry). I’ve always been a big fan of the schedule/routine (eat, activity, sleep; every three hours during the day) as my son took well to it and slept long stretches early on, however, my daughter just can’t seem to self soothe. From what I gather on your posts, she needs to learn to self soothe in order to settle herself back at night and to nap longer stretches, but I’m not sure how to get her to do this! I’ve been asking my ped all along about this and she keeps telling me I can’t spoil the baby and I just need to give her what she wants when she is this young because she doesn’t know how to self soothe yet. Do you have any suggestions on how I can get rid of these sleep props or do I just continue to do this exhausting routine until she is old enough to be sleep trained and break all the habits at once? Thanks so much!! Melissa
Hi Natalie, my 11-month old son was sleep trained three weeks ago and responded well after three nights. He was STTN for 11-12 hours for two weeks. Bedtime at 6:30/7. Then this past week he’s been getting up at 4:40am on the dot. He’s up and ready to play. He takes two naps at 1.5 hr each. And I’m noticing his awake times are closer to 3.5-4 hours between naps. I’ve tried moving bedtime earlier to 6 and pushing bedtime to 7:30 but it doesn’t matter …still 4:40am. Any suggestions? Is it a sign that he should go to one nap? Thanks!
Hi Wendy,
Definitely not a sign to switch to one nap. I’ve talked in other posts about how the 4 am to 6 am window is tricky because the body doesn’t have a whole lot of melatonin flowing at that time. I think the 4 am waking will stop as soon as you stop reinforcing it at all with a visit 😉 I would set a firm start time to the day any time after 6 am and give it a few weeks. He should start to sleep in later as long as you’re consistent.
Thanks for the reply. Will keep leaving him in the crib and cross our fingers!
Hi Natalie!
I purchase your book and have been nap training my LO for the past two weeks. (He’s been sleep trained since 13 weeks- I hadn’t found you yet so hadn’t learned about doing naps and nights together! Alas!)
How long does it usually take for his naps to lengthen out. He is getting on longer nap and the. The other is usually on the short side- which is not giving him enough daytime sleep. This typically leads to a super early bed time (6pm). Which you say to do for short naps. All of this is leading him to 5:30 wake ups. Per your suggestion, we don’t go in until 6:30am, but he still is crying most of that hour. On top of this, he is waking up and pooping, so he definitely won’t fall back asleep!! Lol
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Most babies under the age of 7 months take short naps. With time, baby will learn to tolerate longer periods of wakefulness. I’d aim for bedtime to happen no earlier than 6:30 pm and hopeful that will alleviate some of the early morning waking.
Hi Natalie,
I have a 16 month old who consistently wakes up prior to 4:30 a.m. This has been the case since she started sleeping through the night about 7 or 9 months ago (via cry it out method). I do not go into her room to pick her up until after 5:15 a.m. So regardless of whether she wakes up at 3:30 a.m. or 4:30 a.m. I’ve been getting her at 5:15 a.m.(except on the vary rare occasions when she goes back to sleep). If I do let her continue to cry she usually cries about 1 hr. 45 min. until she goes back to sleep. I know you’ve said that 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. is hard because of lack of melatonin, but is there anything else I can try? I am now at the stage where I am desperate and do not have a co-parent to trade off with. For naps, she usually does about 1 ½ hours on her own at daycare, but with me she will only sleep on walks, or via breastfeeding or rocking after she’s cried in her crib for about 45 minutes to 1 hr.
Actually, if you’re comfortable with using CIO you should stay out of the room until 6 am or after. If you go to her at *any* time prior to 6 am you’re actually encouraging her to keep waking. It’s a little known thing, but really, leaving her be from 4 am to 6 am over the course of a few weeks should help move that morning wake time later.
Thank you! I’ll give it a go and see what happens.
Hi Natalie,
Great post! My 17 week old son consistently wakes up at 5 something every morning. I would love to start my day at 7am or at least 6:30. I try not to go into his room until at least 6:00 to get him up for the day. Some days he wakes up crying and others he wakes up and just talks to himself. We have not sleep trained yet and he wakes up at least 2-3 times per night. I am trying to establish a schedule to see if that helps before I do a firm sleep training. He can usually fall asleep around 7:30am in his swing (we do all his naps in his swing right now). I’m afraid if I keep him up too much longer he will be overtired and not sleep well, but then an early nap throws off our schedule. His last nap usually starts between 4-5pm. What time do you suggest I make his first nap and his bedtime If he consistently wakes up in the 5:00 hour? How do you suggest I get him to sleep in later? How much time should he be awake between each nap? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Hi Linday,
I generally suggest nap one start NO EARLIER than 8:00 am, and as close to 8:30 am possible. However, until he learns to fall asleep on his own I don’t know how much putting him on a schedule will help his night sleep. It’s normal for all humans to wake 3-5 times each night. Your baby is waking up like normal, but he can’t put himself back to sleep because he doesn’t know how to. I would suggest doing whatever is easiest and works best for your family and worry about his schedule once you decide to fully sleep train him. Once you start sleep training you no longer worry about wake times – he should nap around 8:30, 11:30 and 3:00 pm, with bedtime between 6:30 and 7:00 pm and wake time at 6:30 am or later.
I have a question regarding naps. My 4 month old (plus one week) takes only 30-45 minute naps. He wakes at 7:00 am and I nap him around 9:00 and 1:00. He goes down without a fuss at those times. I have tried putting him down earlier, but the naps are no longer plus he fusses more to get to sleep, sometimes crying quite hard. So I like to wait until he’s more tired. How can I get him to extend the length of his naps? I have left him in his crib, but he usually just wakes up and messes around for 30 minutes until I go in and nap him on my lap for another 30-45 minutes so that he’s not cranky all day.
Also – is it OK to CIO if my baby wakes up at 6 instead of 7 am? He will usually fall asleep after 10 minutes of crying, but I haven’t been able to achieve a 7 am consistent waketime without a couple days here and there of making him CIO at 6:00 am. He’s definitely too tired at 6:00 am to wake up but is all smiles at 7:00 am. (He goes to bed around 6:45 to 7:00 pm and wakes up once or twice to eat at night)
Hi Natalie,
I have a 14 month old. We slept trained him at 4 mos and successfully can get get him to sleep by 630-7, however (blushing) part of our nighttime routine is cuddling with a bottle and then putting him in the crib. I thought nothing of it until now. We’ve recently run into multiple (1-3) wake ups between the times of 1-5am. Sometimes just a couple sips of water and a 5 min rock works, other times he wants a full bottle. He will then sleep till 645-730ish on average. We’ve questioned teething. I’ve also questioned if he’s napping enough while at daycare. It seems the days I spend with him he takes a great 2 hour nap in the am and 1-2hours in the afternoon. Not so much at her house. My husband and I work and are exhausted! Please help!
Hello! My 10 month old twins wake up every morning around 3:30 am for months now. One will wake up, cry for at least an hour, wake up the other one, overlapping crying/screaming for 1/2 hour, first falls back to sleep while the second one jeeps crying for another hour until…they keep flip flopping crying. Dr. says to close the door and let them cry. We have been doing this and it is not working. One twin likes his paci, the other the tags in a soft blanket so we may sneak in a put in within reach
Sorry, my msg got sent by accident…Anyway, the twins nap from 9:30 to 11 or 11:30 am and 2:30 to 3:30. We put them to bed at 6:45 or 7 with a bottle. No feeds at night. No rocking them or holding them at bedtime. They finish their bedtime bottle and fall right to sleep. For napa I put them in their cribs, they cry sometimes for a 5-10 min then go to sleep. Please help us with the 3 am crying which lasts 2-3 hours total, continuously almost everyday!
Hello, first off I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this amazing website. I am not going to read any other baby sleep site again!
Our babe is 15 weeks, born a week early. She has never been a great napper but its gotten to the point that she is only sleeping *maybe* 3 times a day for 45 min and she is exhausted all day. She can only handle being awake an hour and even that is too much as she is yawning/eye rubbing from the moment she finishes her nap. We put her to bed by 5:00 because she is so tired. Sometimes she fights her afternoon nap and is awake for hours upon hours until bedtime.
I am so upset and frustrated. I don’t know what to do.
What do you think?
You are so welcome!! So the key here is that you’re going to have to stop taking her wake times into account. While it seems like she can’t make it past an hour, trust me, she can!! You just have to give her time to get used to being awake longer stretches. This can take about 1-2 weeks. I would make sure that you set a nap schedule for her and regardless of how short her naps are, don’t put her down until her next scheduled nap time. Don’t put her to bed before 6 :00 pm and don’t start her day until between 6:30 am and 7:00 am. Giver her the 1-2 weeks and she’ll adjust. Also, make sure at first you’re making sure all her naps happen at home.
Hi- my LO has slept straight through the night since she was two months old. She falls asleep on her own for naps and bedtime. She is a rockstar sleeper. She is 3 1/2 months old now and has been wide awake since 5:00 am. Why is this happening and what do we do to get her back on track? I feed her at 7:30, 11:30, 3:30 and 7:30 and don’t want to get her too far off her eating schedule. I have her 2 ounces at 5:15 to try to get her to fall back asleep.
Hi Natalie! My little one was one who always needed rocking to sleep and woke up frequently. We started the cry-it-out method about a month ago and it seem to be working well. She’s almost fourteen months now and has continuously been waking up at 4 in the morning. I read that cry it out doesn’t work after 4 a.m. so we have been getting her at 4 and she’s been falling back asleep in my arms in the family room. She usually goes to bed between 7:30 and 8 o’clock she does have a hard time napping. Usually around 9:30 to 10:30 and 2:30 to 3:30. Not sure what I can do to get her to sleep on her own until 6. She used to get up between 6:30 and 7:30.
I don’t agree that CIO doesn’t work after 4 am. I’d put her down at bedtime and, making sure you can see her closely through her video monitor, not return to her until you’re ready to start your day. Before you do this, though, you’ll want to get the okay from your pediatrician. She’ll eventually start sleeping til 6 several days or 1/2 weeks after you stop going to her before 6 am. Also, don’t let her fall back to sleep again once you get her up for the day.
Hi there, I hope you are still answering questions! I have two questions for you. 1) I recently sleep trained my 8 month old for bedtime and naps. Bedtime went a lot easier than naps. Naps took about two weeks. He was previously bounced/nursed to sleep and now he goes to sleep within about 10 mins without fussing. He used to nap 30 mins at a time and he still does even now when he can put himself to sleep. Occasionally I will get a 1-2 hour nap, but more often it is shorter. What should I do?
He is also an early riser. He wakes around 4:45-5am and has been for months. His bedtime is between 5;15-5:45, he does a night feed between 12-2 and then wakes early. I always go in and feed him (he used to fall back to sleep) but now it seems like he tries to go back to sleep but can’t. If he does it is for a short time, like 10-20 mins. We get him out of the crib at 6 or close to. This early waking also really messes with his naps. Should I just stop going in at 4:45, even if he cries and wait until 6am? Will he eventually get the picture?
Hi Bridget!! I do love broadcasts every Tuesday night on my facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/babysleeptrainer
They are at 7:30 pm pacific and you just go to the facebook page and you’ll see it going (it’ll look like a video 🙂
I’ll answer your question on my next live blog. I may be out of town on 8/2, so if you go to the page and don’t see it, check back the following week.
Hi there, my 4.5 month old has been sleeping through the night (sort of). She goes down by 7:30-8pm, dream feed around 10:45pm but then wakes up crying around 3am usually 4-6am. She’s a good napper, 1.5-2hrs in the morning and about the same in the afternoon with a 30 min catnap around 4-5pm. I let her CIO for about 5 minutes, sometimes she falls back to sleep other times, not so much. I go in and stick a pacifier in her mouth and she falls back to sleep but wakes about 45min to an hour later. I don’t think she’s hungry because she doesn’t eat as well in the mornings but when I do feed her at say 4am, she usually sleeps through until morning. Any suggestions?
Hi Natalie, I hope you will still answer this. I have 22 month old boy. He goes to bed between 6:30pm-7pm. He wakes up really early around 5:10am to 5:20am everyday. He only naps once a day at 9am for about 1.5-2 hours.
What can I do to make him wake up at a later time?
I also want to move his nap to afternoon or lunch time but I can’t cos he is already sleepy/cranky by 9am.
I hope you’d be able to help me.
Thank you.
Hi Natalie, Great site with lots of good info so far!
I have a similar situation as Lesley. My 18 month old will not sleep past 5 am and has been getting up at 3:30 the last week or two. The time change didn’t help, but she did have a few 3:30 am wake-ups even before that. She goes to sleep easily by herself between 6:30 and 7:30 (although we try to keep it on the earlier side). We had tried to get her down to 1 nap a day around 11:30, but now that she’s up so early, she just can’t make it that long. If we don’t put her down around 9, she falls asleep mid-activity. Sometimes she’ll take an afternoon nap around 1:30 if she’s had an early one, and sometimes she refuses it.
When she does wake up early (or refuses her naps), she stands in the corner of her crib and cries very loudly (“mama, dada, carry me!”). She will not sit or lay back down even if she’s in there for over an hour. Sometimes she falls asleep standing up, but she wakes up again a few minutes later. We started CIO with 5 minute “sleep waves” around 5 months and that generally worked for us. We’ve tried the sleep waves in the morning and we’ve tried just letting her cry without going in and neither seems to work.
We are beyond exhausted and any helpful advice you can provide would be fantastic!
Thank you!
Hi Alysa,
I would do the following:
1. Focus on NEVER allowing her to have a second nap. It’s preferable that her single daily nap consistently occur before 10 am (if that’s what her body absolutely needs) and then keep her up until bedtime. You can incrementally move her nap time later 5-10 mins later every 2-3 days.
2. Try as hard as you can not to have her bedtime occur before 7 pm.
3. Pick a start time of each day and, with your pediatrician’s approval, do not go to her prior to that time (assuming she’s safe in her room).
Hang in there there!! Give this a few weeks of *hyper* consistency and you should hopefully have some success.
Natale
Hi Natalie, I love your site! I have just been reading all the comments and wanted your advise for my Son. He is 15 months and in the last couple of months has been fighting his second nap. He has always been an early riser no matter what I try. I have been working on a gradual move to one nap and seem to always need to backtrack because he wakes too early. Yesterday he woke up at 4.30 and needed two naps and because bedtime was 7.30 he was up by 5 crying and couldn’t fall back asleep. I forced him to stay up till 11am today he would have slept at 8.30 or 9 if I let him but then I would struggle with the second nap. I have been trying a bedtime of 6pm but he would only sleep at 6.30 or later even with one nap he is extremely overtired and has very bad dark circles. Please could you provide some help on how I can schedule his day to get more sleep into him?
Thanks a lot
Hi Sandy!
A few things – try to make sure if it’s possible that you allow your little guy to stay in his crib without interacting with you until as close to 7 am as possible. Then, keep pushing ONLY one nap a day and commit to never permitting a second nap (or a first nap before 11 am) for 3-4 weeks. If he is still struggling, then it may be time to go back to 2 naps for a month then trying for just one nap again.
Thanks so much Natalie. It’s hard to leave him until 7am as if he wakes up at 4.30 or 5 he will start crying after an hour to get him also I am assuming he is hungry as 6pm would have been his last bottle as bedtime is at that time. Should I still keep pushing for one nap at 11am when he wakes that early and stick to an earlier bedtime of 6pm? Thanks so much for your help.
Looking for any advice or encouragement.
With some work, we finally got my 4.5 month old to be able to go to sleep on her own at naptime and bedtime (we put her down awake, and she can go to sleep after 10-15 minutes of talking to herself and tossing/turning). We accomplished this by 1 night of CIO (she screamed for two hours straight, then intermittently through the night… never again. In subsequent nights we let her cry but checked on her more. Then I did some nights where I sat next to her while she fell asleep. And finally she was able to do it on her own.)
Anyway, our problem is the night wakings. I’m not even sure when this started – it has been a few weeks. About a month ago she could give us a 5-6 hour stretch, and then 2-3 hour stretches until morning. Lately, it’s been all over the place. Sometimes up 1-2 hours after bedtime. Sometimes a 3-4 hour stretch and then up every 2-3 hours. The problem with these night wakings is that is inconsolable unless we feed her. We can’t rock her, pat her, bounce her, absolutely nothing will calm her except food. When she wakes on these, she starts with some whining but it quickly escalates to full on screaming. We have tried ignoring her to see if she can self-soothe; she can’t.
She’s is a big girl (80-something percentile for weight) and breast fed. In the past two weeks we have worked to get her to stop snacking throughout the day and take large (5-6oz bottles) every three hours. I’m not sure if she’s waking at night from hunger, or if it’s a habit now. I really don’t want to feed her when she wakes 1.5 hours after her last feed, but in the interests of my family’s sleep, I have been doing it.
Any ideas on why she can soothe herself to sleep, but not BACK to sleep? Should I just keep feeding her? Should we let her cry it out? HELP.
that was confusing, sorry – she gets breast milk from a bottle.
My 2 year old has just transferred to toddler bed, only because he could now crawl out of crib. He will not nap by himself unless door is locked unlike when he would nap in crib. He falls asleep after 5 min less but wakes up extremes grumpy. Our real problem though is waking several times at night and getting out of bed. Usually we can walk him back to bed and he goes to sleep but will not go back to sleep from 3-5 am. This is a huge struggle since I have a 2 month old sleeping in our room. He wakes him up coming in every other minute. What can we do? I don’t feel comfortable locking his door at night time.
Hi Natalie please help! He is only getting 9 hours of sleep at night waking up 4.30-5 Everyday I have no idea what to do
My 22 month old falls asleep on her own for her one nap during the day and for bedtime. She has started waking up anywhere from 2am to 4am and stays up for 2 to 3 hours. We share a room so I started bringing her to bed with me but she just rolls around and cant get to sleep. When I put her back in her crib she will throw out her lovey pillow and blanket and jusr cry. She does fall back asleep after 6am but we everyone is sleepy. Is there anything I can do?
Hi, I have a 10 month old that wakes up around 5:30-6:00 AM. I am hoping to get him to sleep 30-60 minutes later in the morning. He started popping around 5:30-6:00 AM every morning. The last few nights he has not pooped, but still woke up at the same time. I find if he goes down at 8 PM, he is happy in the morning when he’s up that early. If he goes down any later (which happens when afternoon nap is later), he is pretty cranky in the morning. He is sleep trained but I can’t get him to fall back asleep at that point in the morning. Would you first recommend shorter naps during the day and try an earlier bedtime in the hopes he will sleep later? He usually naps in the morning around 9-9:30 for an hour and a half and his second nap starts between 2:00-3:00 and is usually an hour and a half as well. The problem is obviously if he goes down later for his afternoon nap, his nap gets into the late afternoon (4:30 ish). I also find I am needing to wake him up from his naps after an hour and half which makes me think he’s not getting enough night sleep. Also, have you heard of doing “wake to sleep” which is described in the Baby Whisperer book? I just read something about it online. Thank you!
Hi there, hoping you can help. My nearly 9 month old is waking at 430/5am every morning. I have tried absolutely everything from patting, rocking, feeding, dark room, white noise – the lot. He goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps through until that 430am/5am mark but I just cant settle him. He is also formula fed. Hopefully you can help, thanks.
Hi! My son is almost 16 months old. He has been waking up around 4:45 every morning for weeks now. I thought it was a leap or the time change but now both have passed so I’m not sure why he is up so early. Our day starts at 6am and that is when I always go in to get him. He usually lies there are plays for about an hour until he starts to cry. His bedtime (eyes closed) is between 615-630. He has one nap at school and they tell me it’s usually 2 hours between 12-2. He naps the same at home; though sometimes a little less. Any suggestions? Thank you so much!
Hi Natalie
I have 22 month old twin boy, fraternal. They do exactly what you have observed in the last month or so….they start to wake btw 4-5 and then one or the other can’t put himself back to sleep usually around 515 or so. We try to make them stay in their cribs until 6 at least. But one of them gets so emotional and is screaming so much. They go to bed for their nap and bed time wonderfully. They tell good night and we shut of the lights and that is it. They have a lovey and a pacifier. When they start to wake I go in turn their music on and make sure they have all their comfort measures and maybe 60 % of the time they will snooze, but the other it is described above….other than moving the cribs around away from the window and darkening even more. Do you have any other suggestsion. Oh and bed time is about 730. nap time is 1230- and they usually nap for about 2 hours
Hi Natalie, LOVE your book! Read it cover to cover. It’s so easy to follow and you get right into, which is great for moms of multiple kids. After reading your book and really committing to staying home for 48 hours, we’ve already seen a HUGE difference in my 6 month’s sleep and her ability to put herself to sleep. THANK YOU!
One question though — I understand that melatonin levels are low especially after 4am, but what’s the reason or science behind not doing the interval check-ins for early morning wake-ups after 4am? With the levels being so low, is it just that check-ins simply won’t work and doing check-ins will end up waking them up more?
Hi Natalie im a single mum currently at my wits end exhausted this week as my 6 month old baby has gone from sleeping from 7pm till 7am in the morning and sleeping great to sleeping only 9 or 10 hours and waking around 5am! I dont understand why, should i put her to bed earlier or miss out her nap she has around 4.30pm? Or should I wake her in the middle of night and give her a feed.
I use a bottle to send her off to sleep and wondering if this is just a phase and she having some sort of growth spirt I dont get why the past two weeks she has suddenly started doing it when she was previously doing great?
Hey there!! I would DEFINITELY stop the late nap for sure. I would read this and move her to 2 naps: https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/nap-transitioning-made-easy-part-one-3-naps-to-2/
would also like to add i have low innune system and get run down easily so sleep is important for me and then i feel terrrible on her if im unwell, also a bit of a gym bunnie and feel down as now missed a week as normally manage to train most days so basically if i dont get 8 hours i get run down and if cant train start to feel very rubbishy. I suffer with an illness rather not mention on here but it works the same way as a coldsore and is controlled by medication i take every day.
Hi Natalie,
My 5 month old son (just turned 20 weeks) has slept through the night the past two nights. We start his bedtime routine by 6-6:15 (bath, pjs, bottle, and book) and he is asleep by 7pm. He is now waking at 5am hungry and we give him a bottle. Two night ago after his bottle he slept until 6:30am. But today after his bottle he stayed up…however he seemed still tired but wouldn’t sleep. At 5 months old how long should he be sleeping at night and what time should he be getting up? I’m concerned that he still needs at least one feeding and he’s waking after 10 hours because he hungry.
Hi Gretchen!! Congrats on the sleeping through the night 🙂 I see that you purchased the online training series, and I think that will go a long way in answering the concerns in this comment. Good luck and hang in there!!!
Hey Natalie,
I see that this thread is still active and I’m hoping that the wisdom you have shared with others might work for me as well! Your site is amazing and I’ve come across it several times over the last few months and it has helped immensely.
I have an 8 month old that we sleep trained about 2 months ago. As soon as things started to settle into place…she started teething.
She goes to sleep between 6:30 and 7pm every night and used to wake up between 6 and 7 every morning (I also still do an 11pm dream feed and am not sure when to cut that out exactly)
BUT…now she wakes between 4 and 5 and it is madness. I actually had similar questions to a ‘Bridget’ who wrote to you in July of 2016. You referred her to your live broadcast and said you’d answer her questions..but I can not seem to find it 🙁 Here’s what she wrote below and it is as if we are living with the same baby!
1) I recently sleep trained my 8 month old for bedtime and naps. Bedtime went a lot easier than naps. Naps took about two weeks. He was previously bounced/nursed to sleep and now he goes to sleep within about 10 mins without fussing. He used to nap 30 mins at a time and he still does even now when he can put himself to sleep. Occasionally I will get a 1-2 hour nap, but more often it is shorter. What should I do?
He is also an early riser. He wakes around 4:45-5am and has been for months. His bedtime is between 5;15-5:45, he does a night feed between 12-2 and then wakes early. I always go in and feed him (he used to fall back to sleep) but now it seems like he tries to go back to sleep but can’t. If he does it is for a short time, like 10-20 mins. We get him out of the crib at 6 or close to. This early waking also really messes with his naps. Should I just stop going in at 4:45, even if he cries and wait until 6am? Will he eventually get the picture?
(Really the only difference for me from her second question is that we do the dream feed at 11 but everything else is the same. If she wakes at 5 I go in and feed her and try to put her back down to sleep but she tries and tries and just can not get herself to sleep.)
I am so lost…did all the work we did to sleep train her for naught??
If you could share any insight, I would be forever grateful!
Hi Natalie,
Thank you so much for your insight! This is an invaluable resources! I have a one year old daughter (actually 2 days shy of one!) who we successfully sleep trained around 4 months. She had been sleeping through the night 7-7:30 pm to between 6-7 am and I would go in and breastfeed and put her back down and she would often sleep until 8:30 am and then nap at 11 and 3. This worked for many months while she was taking two/three naps. Around 11 months, she started fighting the afternoon nap and I thought maybe she was ready to go down to 1 nap/day. But then she started getting up around 6 am for the day so I moved her first nap to around 9 am and second nap to around 2 pm. This has coincided with a lot of developmental leaps – crawling up the stairs, pulling herself up, moving from an army crawl to a regular crawl, and two stubborn teeth that took a long time to come in! She also has had two colds over the past month. Anyways, she has been getting up between 4 am and 5 am every day and wailing most days. I have tried different things over the past couple of weeks – letting her cry and waiting until 6 am to get her, going in at 4 am and nursing and trying to put her back down, etc. I have not been very consistent which I realize is part of the problem. This morning I heard her around 5:20 am and could see from our monitor that she had been up for a while already. I went in ten minutes later, comforted her without picking her up and then left the room. I waited another 15 minutes and went back in. She seemed to start settling more and then after 20 more minutes it was around 6:30 am so I just went in and got her up for the day. I was very cheerful saying, “Good morning! It’s time to start our day. The sun is coming up….” Any advice? I don’t know if it’s wrong to be doing this at this time in the morning because it’s so close to when I would want her to get up in the morning for the day. But I can’t listen to her wail and shriek for 2 hours straight! Also, she generally goes down fine at bedtime although I am still nursing as the last part of her bedtime routine but putting her down drowsy. For her naps, I nurse when she wakes up and am also starting to wean/introduce cow’s milk which she seems to be doing well with. Help! Thank you!!!
Becca
Hi Natalie,
My son isn’t turning 8mo old in days and I successfully implemented CIO a week and a half ago. He goes to sleep effortlessly now on his own and soothes himself for his night time stirs except for a feeding around 2am. He has been waking up at 4am on the dot for a few months now which is what drove me to CIO in the first place. If I let him cry he escalated and won’t stop until I come in and still is hard to calm down even in my arms. He will cry all the way from 4am to 6am nonstop. If he isn’t crying anymore and did CIO successfully will it work if I just consistently don’t go in at 4am? I feel like this is so mean of me especially since he never cried this hard in the initial cio training for any night time sleep. He does to bed at 6:30 and takes 3 40-45 min naps a day.
Hi Natalie! Thanks for the article. I know I’m late to the party here but I’m hoping you can help. My 15-Month-Old knows how to put himself to sleep for bed and naps. He takes one 1.5 to 2 hour nap during the day and wakes around 2:30 (sometimes earlier). He goes to bed around 6:45 or 7. He sleeps great at night into 5 or 5:30ish and then wakes up and won’t go back to sleep. The problem is, he’s tired and often falls asleep in the car on the way to daycare. Do you have any ideas on what we can do? Im considering CIO but he had a 3-year-Old brother that I worry about waking. Also, he’ll go a week at a time when he sleeps until 7… then out of nowhere, the 5 a.m. wakings begin again. It’s torture. Any help is appreciated! Thanks so much!
Hi Melissa! Sorry for the delay in getting back to you! If you’re still having this issue, I invite you to come join my bi-monthly Facebook lives (www.facebook.com/babysleeptrainer) – every 1st and 3rd Tuesday night at 7pm PST, where I do a Q&A and answer your questions!
Hi Melissa
My name is Linda and I have a 13 month old with the exact same issue! Sounds like I wrote the post!! My little one shares room with his brother too. I decided on cio and had my hubby sleep with the older brother.
Today is day 3 and alright it feels like I have made little progress, he has gotten back to sleep after crying an hour (even if thr snooze was 30 mins)
How did it work out for you?
Natalie
I should also have asked – if you have reassurance that this will get better— I’m always questioning myself and if I’m actually making progress
Hi Linda! If you’re following my book or take my online training series – things should definitely improve quickly! <3
HI Natalie,
I have read your book and am soon to begin sleep training my 6 month old. However, he is already able to put himself to sleep at bedtime with no help from me and then sleep until at least 1am or 2am. It is around this time that the wake ups start. Is it ok to use the controlled crying method starting at this time of night? Also, I generally feed him once (at the first wake up) but when I put him back in his cot awake he then lies awake for up to 1.5 hours – during which he doesn’t cry but tries to get back to sleep. Should i just leave him to it and hope he gets quicker at it?! It makes me wonder whether he is even hungry for a feed as it doesn’t seem to send him back to sleep.
thank you!
Hi Ella! Thank you for reading my book! Definitely talk to your pediatrician and follow their guidance on how many, if any, feedings are necessary for your baby <3
Hi Natalie!
I just came across your site and I am truly blown away by your kindness and willingness to answer so many questions. Just reading through these questions most of my own were answered! I guess we really are all going through the same things! 🙂
I just was wondering if you could clarify for me early wakings for naps…I have a 5 month old son, he goes down for naps with minimal crying (we’ve done CIO and eliminated sleep props) and will pretty consistently take 30-45 minute naps. Most of the time he doesn’t put himself back to sleep. Should I leave him in his crib for the duration of what should be the nap?
And for early morning wakings (he keeps waking between 5:30-6, when he used to sleep until almost 7), and I don’t go in to get him until atleast 6:30. If I continue with this, should I expect to see him sleep until atleast 6:30?
Thank you so much again for everything…it’s so rare these days for you to ask for help and simply get an answer without strings attached. You’re wonderful!
Awww thank you so much Maeve! That is so sweet of you to say! Up until 6/7 months old, shorts naps are the absolute norm. If baby is healthy and safe and you feel good about it, you can certainly leave him for another 10-15 minutes to see if he’ll put himself back to sleep – or even longer if you’d like. Eventually the naps should lengthen. Early morning wakings are completely normal too, it’s very hard for babies to sleep at this time. And yes, as long as you continue to wait to get him until 6:30/7am, you should eventually see him getting better at putting himself back to sleep.
Hi Natalie! We completed your 48 hour house arrest/sleep training program. Our 5 month old son took pretty well to it! It was like magic. For about two weeks he was sleeping 7pm-6:30am and the whole house was happy. (we were keeping one feeding a night since our pediatrician said it was fine- and he was waking once around 3:30am as opposed to 2-3 times a night) Then he got sick. Which is making for horrible sleep. Now he’s waking at random times b/c of his congestion, and waking up every morning between 4:30 and 5:30am. My predicament is that I did cave and fed him one morning a second time, even though I know we aren’t supposed to go in between 4-6am that early b/c we couldn’t get him to go back down to sleep. He slept till 7am that morning. But now, If we let him CIO, he basically cries and gets him self so worked up that if he doesn’t go back to sleep, he’s essentially so worn out by his 8:30 nap that I feel like we are running in circles and in the ‘negative’ with sleep. Is there a way to get back on track so he’s at least sleeping until 6:30am again? I realize melatonin wears off, but what I dont know is why he was responding to it before, and this hiccup of sickness has him all confused now.
Hi Gina! This is a great question to ask on my next Facebook Live (1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month at 7pm PT)! I’d love to chat with you there (www.facebook.com/babysleeptrainer), and that way you can respond in real time too. <3
Hi Natalie,
Thank you so much for having this blog! I have an eight month old boy who was sleep train with the Ferber method around 5 1/2 months. Since then he has been sleeping around 6 PM but had always woken up around 4 AM. His room is dark, he has a sound machine, he has transitioned from three naps to two naps already. Daylight savings time helped with the switch as now he is waking up around 4:45 AM. However, I have tried putting him to bed earlier around five or 5:30 PM, I have tried shifting his naps by 10 minutes every day and nothing seems to be working. When he wakes up around 545 – at his age he is already super tired around 745 or 8 AM. Around then he gets his first nap and it usually lasts until about 930. His second nap start around 12:30 PM – Should end around 2 PM but Usually it is closer to about 1:30 PM. I try to get him down by 6 PM but around 515 he is already starting to get super cranky and overtired. This cycle keeps repeating itself and it’s impossible to shift forward. I have tried stretching the first nap as far as 9 AM – but it just throws off his whole day. I feel like I have exhausted so many options and I am unable to shift him forward. I get that he may be an early riser which is OK – but the night awakening is where I struggle. I should say, when he wakes up at 4:30 AM he is super happy. He plays in his room in the dark without a problem and does not cry. I do not go in there until 6 AM to do a grand “good morning“ and allow him to start his day. I really thought that would slowly teach him to sleep longer but that does not seem to be the case. At this time do you think I should be going in at 4:30 AM and reinforcing the original cry it out sleep techniques by telling him it’s not morning and to go back to sleep? And leave the room, returning every 15/20 min reinforce it? He isn’t crying or anything so that seems to be odd to do. Or should I continue to just leave him there until 6 AM when I go in?
Any advice would be great!
Best, Megha
Up around 4:45a he starts getting tired around 7:45a, not 5:45a sorry.
Hi Megha!! As long as he’s healthy and safe, I’d suggest continuing to wait until 6 am, then, you really need to wait until 9 am for nap one. It may take a few weeks for him to adjust, but I would do nap one starting any time between 9 am and 10 am, then regardless of the length of that nap, don’t do the next nap until 1:30 pm at the earliest (or 2:30 pm at the latest). I would move bedtime closer to 7 pm, give him 2-3 weeks, and he should adjust. This is a good blog post to read: https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/nap-transitioning-made-easy-part-one-3-naps-to-2/.
Thank you so much for the feedback. I will start this ASAP. Do do I think that I should do 15 minutes forward each day until I get to 9 AM and 1:30 PM for his nap times? Or should I abruptly change and do the one hour jump? My biggest fear is that I push the whole day abruptly and he crashes around 630 or 7 PM and still wakes up at 4:45/5 AM in the morning. I sincerely appreciate your knowledge about this as I have been beating my head against the wall for the past couple months. Thank you also for the blog link! Going to read it now 🙂
Start at 9am and 1:30pm which may be a little rough at first, but will get easier in a couple week’s time. And know that early morning wakings may still continue, but as long as you stay consistent with not going to baby until the desired wake time things should improve.
Hi there! Thank you – he’s been doing 9a-10:30a and 1:30p-2:15p. Current bedtime is around 6p and wakes around 5:30a. So there has been improvement! 🙂 thank you so much! I plan to push the bedtime to 6:30p starting next week, and hope that he’ll slowly push his wake time to 6ish. I’m hopeful 🙂
Thank you again!
Good morning,
It has been impossible to push the sleep time past 6p! He’s crying in tiredness. He’s back to waking up at 4:30a-5a. Nap 1 is 9a and the second is 1:30p and both are about 1hour in length. Do I just need to keep him up regardless? With Distractions etc? Could now be a bad time since it’s possible he’s in a sleep regression?
Please advise.
6 pm is just fine if that works best for your family, but early morning waking may continue until bedtime is at 7 pm or later. Later bedtime will get easier with time.
I’d like it to be 6:30/7p for his bedtime with a 6/6:30 walk up But he’s clawing at his eyes around 5:45-6p. Maybe the weather being nicer we can do an evening walk before bed or stroll to drag out the time until he’s used to it….
Morning 🙂
My son, as I’m sure you now know, is very stubborn with change when it comes to his sleep. I’m still trying to shift his sleep but have paused because we have a trip coming up and the nap times will be totally off. Just wanted your advice – if I start shifting his sleep time to an abrupt 7p sleep this week – with naps 9-10:30, and 2-3:30 (the hope being he finally wakes up at 6a or later in the morning) do you think it will be settled in 1-2 weeks? The reason I ask is because we are taking his first flight in 3 weeks.
Second part of this question is that our flight times are either at the end of his nap (so while in transit to the airport!) or halfway into his nap time so I’m nervous about airplane sleep since.
He’s so used to blackout rooms, a sound machine, and his crib – the plane will have none of those…
If the sleep will finally shift then at least we are all sleeping better before the flight, and if there are tricks to sleep on the plane I’d love to know!
Thank you!
Yes, things should largely be settled within 1-2 weeks of making any changes in his routine. There’s never a really good time to fly that doesn’t disrupt sleep routines, so just do your best to survive during your plane trip and allow or assist him to sleep wherever and however you can. Good luck mama!!
Hi!! Your posts are amazing!! I’m eating this all up and want to hire you for my next baby.
I have a 5 month old who has been sleep trained. She wakes between 5-5:15am everyday.
Nap 8:30-10am (or sometimes 8:30-9:30am … usually that!)
12:45-2:30pm is her next nap (she’ll sleep on average 90 min
4:30-5:00pm catnap
If we get home from work late or she’s not tired@ all it’s more like 4:45-5:15pm
She can sleep thru the entire night with a 7:30pm bedtime. Do you have any advice for me?
Hi Allie! Thank you so much! I would make sure you’re following the guideline about waiting to go in to baby until 6:30 am to start her day, and remember it’s important she not be assisted to sleep for naps or at nighttime. <3
Hi Natalie, thanks for the responses provided here to follow up from your post! My 11 month old self settles quickly and with almost no crying for all naps and bedtime with a sleeping bag and lovey-with-two-pacifiers-attached. She has blockout curtains. She naps around 3 hrs a day, usually 9am-10/11 and 1pm-2/3 (she swaps the longer nap and shorter map of from morning to afternoon on a pattern I can’t predict but usually one is shorter and one is longer). The start time of her naps varies by 30-60 mins depending on what time she wakes, whether she gives early tired signs, etc. She goes to bed between 6:30-7pm, usually around 6:45-7 though. Ive tried putting her to bed earlier and later once or twice and neither seems to make much difference. She is night weaned and has two breastfeeds a day – 10 mins after getting up and 10 mins before bed. She has always struggled a bit with early morning wakings and now that she has started sleeping through she has slipped into a pattern of waking around 4:30-5:30am. I check she has her lovey/dummy and leave again, then only check on her if her cries start to become more urgent.usually it’s either babble or a sort of wind down cry that very gradually, off and on, becomes more agitated. She tends to settle a little then after 20-30 mins starts becoming agitated. Very very occasionally she will go back to sleep by herself but usually after winding down and up several times I get her up around 6:30. Sometimes when she has been awake for over an hour I can pat her back to sleep and she’ll then sleep until 7. I don’t use white noise but we live in a quiet place and there isn’t much morning noise yet at the times she usually wakes. It’s driving me crazy, and I can’t work out what I’m missing! Do you have any ideas?
Hi Ciska! I believe it’s the initial check upon her waking at 4:30-5:30am that is instilling this early morning waking. The best thing to do is to stop going in to her until 6:30am or whatever the desired wake time is, as long as you’re certain she’s totally safe and healthy. Know that it may take quite some time for this issue to resolve, so stick with it and give the process time.
Hi there!
My son is doing better with wake ups and seems like he’s transitioning pretty naturally.
My question is – how long can his 2 naps be?
He wakes around 5:30a (previously 4:45a so it’s improving!) I get him at 6a, nap 1 is 9a-10:30a and second at 2p-3p. Bedtime around 6:30p.
sometimes he sleeps longer during naps and I wonder if I should wake him because it will effect his second nap or night sleep (if it’s the later nap).
Thanks again for the travel advice! I plan to push the bedtime to 7p after travels to get his wake time to be 6-6:30a.
Wish me luck!
Hi Megha! You’ll want to cap total daytime sleep at 3-3.5 hours and not allow any single nap to exceed 2 hours in length to preserve night time sleep. If you need additional help, please check out The Baby Sleep Trainer Program under the pricing tab! <3
Hi,
we are currently on day 3 of CIO. the first day was hard but got through it . the 2nd day was harder. both the 1st and 2nd day, i did the pat/shhh method. The third day, I had more confidence or was just too tired and we never went in the pat/shhh. we just let him CIO. this morning, (morning of day 3 CIO), he woke up at 630 to feed. Normally, he wakes up between 7-8:30 am but right now. The thing is, he went back to sleep after this feeding, which is unusual for him because even when he is sleepy during feedings, as soon as he’s done, he’s alert and ready to play.
He is still sleeping after his 6:30am feeding (it’s nearly 1030am). Is he just tired because he woke up crying about 4-5 times? Should I let him continue sleeping and wake when he is ready or is this sabotaging any sleep schedule we had in place? I worry, because we take him to day care by 8/8:30am (except for today) and I know he needs sleep. …maybe I’m just overly concerned ? .
Natalie
sorry for the typos and grammatical errors!
No problem sleepyinchicago 😉 I really think you would benefit from doing the Baby Sleep Trainer Program (https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/my-program/). In the program I provide you a complete schedule and very thorough, how-to guidelines. If you choose the middle tier package ($99), you get direct follow-up, hands-on support from me and I can better help you troubleshoot for your specific baby and situation. <3
Hello there! Thanks for your insight here! I will try my best to keep this short, but I need help. My daughter is 2 1/2 (Will be 3 in September). We sleep trained her around 20 months with basically timed checks by dad as well as “whatever she needed from us in her bed so she didn’t have an excuse to need us – Mom only came in when it was time to wake. She never really got it completely, but made a lot of progress and was down to 1 – 2 wake ups a night without needing milk. Fast forward to now when baby brother is due any day. Things had gotten BAD. 3 wake-ups requiring mom to lay beside her after getting her a sippy cup of warm milk (I know! I know!). We repeated our original sleep plan and she is doing MUCH better. Goes to sleep “independently” (with a pacifier and 2 cups of warm water in her bed in case she wants them when she wakes AND multiple lovies so she can find them when she wakes). She never uses her cups at night, but wants them there when she falls asleep. I hear her wake 1-2 x per night but she falls back to sleep without us. Bedtime: 8. Naps 1:30 – 3:30 / 4.
The problem: Between 4:30 – 5:30 she will not fall back to sleep unless my husband goes in and covers her up – Crying always escalates at first when she sees it’s not mom coming in. She will sometimes ask for milk also – he will hand her the water cup and she will fall back to sleep without even drinking it until about 7AM. If we try to let her fuss until she falls back to sleep, she doesn’t and then is up crying for sure by 6 and she is overtired…..
Hi Emily! I really think you would benefit from reading my “Sleep Training Children in Beds” chapter of my book: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Your-Baby-Sleep-Trainer/dp/0999086707/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8. I think it will help!
Hi Natalie,
My son is 15 weeks old and he’s a very good baby but we’re currently having an issue with early morning waking. Right now he goes down to sleep between 7-7:30pm with naps from 8:45am-10am and 12:45pm/1pm-2:45pm/3pm (sometimes he takes a 15 minute cat nap at 5pm). We’ve let him put himself to sleep with minimal resistance from the beginning (not usually more than 2-4 minutes of crying if at all). He sleeps in a Love to Dream swaddle. We instituted a dream feed at 10/10:30pm in the hopes of having less early morning waking but have not seen any difference. He wakes up at around 4:30am and I’m usually able to get him back to sleep with just pacifier and shusher. However, then he wakes up again at 5:30am and will not go back to bed. I generally feed him a little as possible and try to get him back to bed — but I’m up for the day and that’s been a challenge. His day begins at 7am no matter what the night has been like I’m wondering if CIO could work for the mornings and if so, how long should I let him cry for and for how many days before I simply give up.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Mikey! I think you would really like The Baby Sleep Trainer Program. There’s quite a few pieces to your situation that my online course will address for you, and if you purchase the + Support Program then we can also work together directly. From first glance though, I think the issue lies in his naps.
Hello,
My 17 month baby is consistently waking between 5 and 6 am. He has never been a good sleeper. Now he gets one nap in the middle of the day which consistently lasts around 2 hours. Usuallly napping from 1230-230 or 1-3 depending on when daycare puts him down. We get him to bed around 630. He will generally sleep well overnight (we previously trained him with cio for overnights and it worked) until the 5am hour. We’d love 630 wake ups. What can we do to push him just a bit more? Is CIO appropriate at 5am? If so when do we go in?
Hi Ben! You could try a later bedtime ie. 7 or 7:30 and see if that helps with the morning waking. However, this is a very very common issue (as you can see), and the best thing to do is simply wait until at least 6:30am (if possible with your schedule) before going in to start their day.
My son is almost 3 and we have a hard time going to bed. We have tried the 8 PM bedtime but then he is awake in his room for 2 hours. I know he is not getting the sleep he needs. If we move his bedtime earlier, then he is going to bed right after dinner.
What do you suggest?
He is not a morning person especially when I have to wake him up in the morning.
Hi Michelle! It’s vital you wake him right at 7 am, even if he went to bed late the night before. Make sure nap doesn’t exceed 90 mins, and that it doesn’t last beyond about 3 pm. Waking him each morning at 7 and limiting nap length/end time should help his body re-regulate into falling asleep earlier.
Hi
My boy will be 6 months on Jan 7. He is sleep trained using CIO since Nov 17. His bed time is 6pm – 5:30am with no feedings. His naps are currently 4 – 30 min naps, with 2 hour awake periods. I’ve been treating the 5:30 wake up as a night waking and he cries until I go in at 6:30. A couple times he has fallen back to sleep. It makes for a very long day for the little guy when he only cat naps. Any tips on how I can get him past 5:30?
I appreciate any advice you’re willing to offer. Thank you
Hey!! I would suggest you check out my book on Amazon (link below). That will guide you through exactly how to deal with this issue. You can also check out my online training programs (also linked below) if you need more hands on support <3
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999086707/ref=nav_ya_signin?ie=UTF8&qid=1496773245&sr=8-2&keywords=natalie+willes&
https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/my-program/
Hi Natalie,
This is such a helpful article!
We have been sleep training our almost 4 months old for the past 2 weeks. We use the extinction CIO method. We gradually weaned him off night feedings a few weeks before we started so he can fast for 12 hours without issues.
While he definitely made great progress, he is not consistenly sleeping 11-12 hours every night. His bed time is always at 7:30pm. For the past three nights I have been putting him to bed awake and no pacifier. He falls asleep almost instantaneously or cries for 3 mins then sleeps.
The first 3 nights were rough (cried/whined for at least 1.5 hours each). Then the crying gradually decreased (10 mins one night, nothing the next, then again for 10 mins, nothing, and so on). Besides this morning, for the last 3 nights he didnt cry at all. Then this morning he woke up at 4:40am. I was looking at the camera while he was trying to put himself back to sleep. He tried until a bit past 5am, then started complaining. I let him cry and at 6:30am he fell back asleep. I picked him up at 7:30am and he had his eyes wide open and was not moving but smiled as soon as he saw me (scared the heck out of me lol).
I should note that before this morning, he had been waking up and complaining at around 6am and I have been picking him up at that time.
I am so confused, because I don’t know if the fact that I was picking him up at around 6am was making him “test” me and cry even earlier. I also don’t want him to cry for 1 or 1.5 hours in the morning and then it gets to 7:30am and I have no choice but picking him up. I am afraid this will send him the wrong message (baby: I know someone will pick me up after 1.5 hours if I cry for that long).
Should I be consistent and wait until 7:30am every morning, even if that means letting him cry up until that point? Or should I establish a minimum wake up time for when to pick him up (example, I will only pick him up if he starts complaining at 6am or later). Wouldn’t that cause him to push his wake up time backwards gradually?
He naps well, but I usually give him the pacifier for naps and I am not doing CIO for naps as I heard that the brain functions differently during the day. Should I be consistent with naps as well? That will be a challenge as he starts daycare next week.
Thank you so much!!
First, I’m astonished he’s doing as well as he is considering the fact you haven’t nap trained him. I suspect when he goes through the four month sleep regression (https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/the-four-month-sleep-regression/) you will find his nighttime sleep regresses and at that point you will find it necessary to nap train. In any case, I would just get him up each day at your desired wake time, ***as long as you are 100% certain he is healthy and safe*** until that time. If the crying makes you uncomfortable, go to him prior to that time <3 check on him immediately if you think anything may be wrong.
Thank you for replying! I got your book earlier today and started nap training today! I was able to do two naps (2nd and 3rd) per your instructions (I got the book after the 1st nap). He did fairly well without the paci and fell asleep after about 15 mins of complaining. Naps were short (max of 45 mins),so i picked him up 15 mins after he woke up. I will continue the nap training consistently and hope that he will be fairly well trained by Monday when he starts in the in-home daycare. In any case I will give instructions to the care taker and hope they will try to follow them.
I CIO my first daughter at the same age and she was fully trained in only 3 days. She is 3 yo now and never looked back! This one is taking a bit longer, and unfortunately i can’t remember everything i did with my first one ugh.
Nap training with paci doesn’t usually work <3 ask the pediatrician if it’s okay for baby to sleep without paci, and restart training then <3 You can do this!
Today I did it without the pacis 🙂
Great!! As long as the pediatrician okayed it, it’s good with me. Hang in there!!
Hi Natalie,
I have a follow up question about naps, I hope it is okay to ask you.
So I have started nap training (without pacifier, okayed by the ped) four days ago. My baby has been pretty much night trained since two weeks ago, but would wake up ocasionally (2x) and cried in the middle of the night.
He was doing very well during these four nap training days at home (complaining between 0-15 mins max before falling asleep). After I started nap training, i noticed his night training improved significantly and I’ve seen him thru the monitor putting himself back to sleep a few times during nap.
However… today he started at daycare. It is an in-home daycare, and I gave them clear instructions on what to do (don’t use pacifier, don’t put him in crib when he is already sleeping, don’t pick him up right away if he fusses). The ladies at the daycare say that they have a very hard time letting a baby cry. They are visibly distressed about it. And of course, they indirectly kinda make me feel like a horrible mom for doing that (even though i know the training is the right thing to do).
My questions are; if at daycare they ocasionally pick him up to calm him down but never give him the paci to sleep, while at home and at night i remain consistent with the correct method, could the training be compromised? Should I settle with them for a “softer” version of nap training, such as 5 mins checks without picking him up? Should I give him a few more days of training at home to make sure that training is better established, with the hopes that he will fuss less druing naps berore sending him back to daycare? Should i realistically expect that after training is done, he will most of the time go down for naps without crying?
I told the daycare that I will stay there tomorrow and put him to sleep there, so they see how I do it, and hope that this might provide them with reassurance that it is okay to ket him cry a bit.
Btw, your book is awesome, I already recommended it to a few friends with babies!
If they continue to assist him in anyway, or deviate from allowing him to fall asleep on his own, he will struggle at home. I suppose they can reduce the amount of time they allow him to cry, but even that will result in him eventually falling asleep in their arms or while eating and generally being confused about being made to cry for no reason. I think it’s a brilliant idea to spend the day there and hopefully that will be enough to help them learn the best way to approach his naps. I would focus on them following the plan and not modifying it at all <3 Hang in there and thank you for your kind words!
My goodness, just read upur article about sleep regression at 16 weeks. My son is 16 weeks and is doing EXACTLY what you described!
What are the odds!! I’m glad you found the article!!
Hi Natalie,
After dealing with early waking (4:30 – 5:30am) the past couple of weeks, I came across your site. I am beyond impressed by your kindness and willingness to help so many. You are amazing! I have a 16 mo boy. He was always a good napper who has slept through the night since 5 mos old. But, the 2-1 nap transition was very long and difficult, and recent sickness and teething has thrown him off. He still take his nap between 10:45 and 11:15am, typically for 1.5 – 2hrs. He generally goes to bed between 5:45 and 6:15. Even when he wakes early, we don’t get him out of bed until 6:10ish. He always tries to go back to sleep (sometimes he’s successful). The early waking is driving us crazy. Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
You are so so welcome <3 I''m hopeful my blog posts help people. I would move every thing later. Don't allow him to nap before 11:30, and then after 5-7 days, go to 11:45 am, so on and so forth until his nap isn't starting before 12:30. Move bedtime later as you move nap time later. Once he sleeps at 7 or preferably 7:30 pm you'll find he starts to wake later in the morning. Give it a few weeks 😉
I really appreciate your quick and thoughtful reply. Coincidentally, we’ve been trying to move everything later, but our son is pretty rigid with his awake times – he gets overtired very easily. Yesterday is a perfect example. He woke around 4:40 and couldn’t fall back asleep. So, we got him out of bed at 6:15. We were concerned about keeping him up for more than 6hrs from wake-up (because we tried the prior day, and he woke up from his nap cranky after only an hour, presumably due to the nap being too long after he woke (about 6:15 hrs from wake)). So, we put him down for his nap at 10:45am, and he took a nice 2hr nap. Since he woke at 12:45 and took such a nice nap, we planned to push his bedtime till 6:15ish. But, he was already getting pretty crazy around 5:20, so we started his bedtime routine, which ended a few mins before 6 (when we put him in bed). But, he was too overtired to put himself to sleep, so my wife had to calm him. As long as we’re in his window, he generally puts himself to sleep with very little fussing (and has done so since he was 5 mos old)..
Sorry for the long-windedness. But, I guess the gist is it just seems so challenging to push back his schedule when he wakes so early and has such little tolerance for extended awake-times.
Overtiredness isn’t really a thing 😉 He just has to get used to the new schedule and if he cries, it’s important you let him work through it as long as you’re *certain* he’s healthy and safe. If you keep interacting with him, you’ll never resolve these issues. Stick to the advice I gave closely and he should work through all the kinks within about 2 weeks.
Also, please do checks as needed to make sure he’s healthy and safe during his crying spells.
Hi Natalie! Thank you so much for this post. We have been having a long time struggle with our 11-month old daughter waking up at about 6-6:10 every morning, though we never go into her room to get her before 6:30 with hopes that she’ll get used to that being her wake-up time. I am still breastfeeding once at night (hoping to eliminate that ASAP) and I notice when I nurse closer to 3-4am she wakes up later, closer to 6:45-7am. However, she most often wakes around 2:30 and I nurse her then, and then she wakes up around 6-6:10.
She falls asleep on her own.
Her schedule is:
6:30am: Wake-up (we grab her from her room)
I breastfeed her as soon as she is up
9:30: First nap, I’d love to get this closer to 10am if we can move her wake-up time closer to 7am, but already by 9-9:15 she is showing signs of being tired
11/11:30: Wakes up
2:30pm: 2nd nap, again would love to push this closer to 3pm so that she wakes up from her next nap around 4.
3:30/4pm: Wake up
(the following schedule sometimes happens earlier depending on when she woke up from her 2nd nap)
6:00pm: Dinner
6:15pm: Bath, breastfeed, storytime
6:45pm: In Bed
I don’t know if we just need to accept that she is an early riser and get used to waking up at 6am. Or if you see things we could tweak to encourage a later wake-up time?
Thank you so much for any advice!!
Caitlin
Hey!! Anything after 6 am is pretty normal for kids. I’d stick to what you’re doing and hopefully things will get better with time. I think you should just move naps to 10 and 3 and then bedtime to 7/7:15, give it a few weeks, and see if it helps in the morning.
Hi Natalie,
This post was so helpful for us! We are currently sleep training (gentle CIO) our 6.5 month daughter and she has been great at putting herself to sleep at night (took 20 min the first night, 10 min the second night, and less than 10 min the third night) but is really struggling with going back to sleep in the early morning. The first night of sleep training she woke up at 1, cried on and off for about an hour, and went back to sleep till 6, but the second night she woke up at 3 and cried louder and louder. We ended up bringing her out at 5:30, turning on the lights and saying good morning.’On the third night, she woke up at 4 and it was the same.
She naps around 3.5 hours a day with the last nap ending around 4:30-5. She sleeps at 7-7:30 and usually wakes at 6 (before sleep training but with 1-2 feeds at night).
Should I continue with CIO at 3-4 am even if she keeps crying and doesn’t go back to sleep..?
Honestly, it’s very hard to say because I would need to learn a lot more about what’s going on during the day with naps, as well as understanding in detail how you’re handling her sleep training/what method you’re using. If you’re interested in more personalized support, check out the offerings on the Programs and Products pages above.
Hi Natalie! I love this article!! But, I still need a little help PLEASEEE. My now 15h month old has been sleep trained since she was 4 months old. She dropped her third nap about 2 months ago and today is the 11th day where she has been refusing her second nap as well. She used to sleep 8pm-8am, but these days for the past 11 days, she will not take her second nap and wakes up screaming anywhere between 6-7am. For the past week she also been waking up screaming from her nap after only 30 minutes. I have tried to let her cry it out when she wakes up from the nap and in the morning for upto an hour each but she will not go back down. This has been especially tough since she will not take her second nap either. I am sticking with the same feed and sleep schedules even during this time. I’m not sure what I am doing wrong, if she’s trying to drop the second nap, if I need to change something, or if time shall heal? Please help me!!
Her current schedule:
wake between 6-7am, milk
breakfast 9am (can’t be earlier since were in the car dropping off my older daughter to school)
nap 1030-11ish (used to be until 12-1230
lunch between noon-1pm
milk 2pm
nap (we try) 3-30pm (but wont sleep)
dinner 5:30pm
sleep 8pm
please please help me
You’re not doing anything wrong. Once she skips one of her two naps for 14 straight days, go to just one nap. https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/nap-transitioning-made-easy-part-two-2-naps-to-1
Natalie, thank you so much for this article about early wakes. This is so informative. Our girl is 14.5 months and we did some modified Ferber method at 4.5 months for sleep training and 5 months for nap training. Lately, we just decided it is better to not respond to her wakings in the middle of the night or during crib hour. It goes against your recommendation. Is it okay for us to let her be and try to soothe herself for maybe 15-20 minutes before we go in for night wakings or early morning wake ups? What do you suggest?
If you are certain she’s completely safe and healthy, giving her whatever time you judge is safe is fine.
My almost 3 year old wakes up every.night around 2am. We put her to bed between 7:30-8:00 and then she always wakes up. I let her cry for a few minutes and then go in. She’s always standing at her door, so I pick her up and bring her back to her bed. The crying gets worse and she says she wants to get uo or she’s hungry. The more I talk, the worse it gets, so I don’t say much. I just say, it not morning time I’m going to tuck you back in now. , I quietly leav the room. As I’m leaving she gets up and runs back to the door crying and screaming and banging on the door. So I just leave her in there crying. It goes on for over an hour then she eventually falls asleep on the floor. This has been goes on every night for months. I’ve tried going in there to comfort her, but it just gets worse when I do that, so now I just have to let her cry it out. It’s a nightly occurance and I don’t know what else to do. I feel terrible letting her cry it out. and I’m exhausted from the sleep. interruptions. I can’t get back to sleep for hours and the then I have to get up for work, so I only end up sleeping 3-4 hours every night. Please help!
This is a tough one!! You can TOTALLY over come this, but it will require formal sleep training. I work with kiddos in this age group in my One on One consultation. https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/how-it-works/
Hi Natalie! We are one week into training our 4-month-old using your book. Overall the changes have been fantastic!! It feels so good to sleep again! We are still struggling with short naps and early wakings. I understand that the short naps may just take time and age. My question is, regarding early waking, is there a point at which we just cave in and say ‘she’s an early riser’ and start the day when she’s ready? Some mornings she’ll go to 6:30/7 on her own. This morning she screamed very loudly from 5:15-6 (back to sleep 6-6:30). How long should this take to sort itself out, or is that just one of those things that is different for every baby? I can handle a few more days/weeks of making her cry for so long in the early morning, but it’d be helpful to know if this will potentially be the norm for the next few months!
Thank you for all of your wisdom! Already recommending your book to friends 🙂
Generally you always want to stick to starting the day no earlier than 6:30 am, and especially because often she’s already doing that on her own, I’d say to stick with it as long as you are certain she is safe. This can take quite a while to resolve, and it may be that she intermittently wakes early in the morning throughout the first year of her life <3
Thank you so much! That is very helpful! Your book, blog, and facebook page have been incredible resource: for us. Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
You are so so welcome <3
Hi Natalie
Thank you so much for the information on your page – it has been such a godsend to us!
I have 17 month old twins. They have been consistently been sleeping from 7pm until 6.30am (occasionally needing waking at 7am) for many months now since we originally sleep trained them which has been brilliant. However in the past weeks one of them has been waking around 5am (crying and crying where she used to wake happy and chatty) and it seems to be getting earlier (4.45am this morning!). I have tried letting her cry for a while (occasionally popping in – from reading your advice it seems this may be the problem as my popping in to lie her back down seems to make her more irrate). Eventually around 5 30/5.45 I end up getting her up (and by this time she has woken her sister who loves her sleep but then won’t settle back either.)
I wondered whether the root of the problem may be our nap situation – we still have 2 a day. After waking at 6.30 (prior to the past weeks) they have a nap at 10. I wake them at 10.30 otherwise my problem sleeper twin will not go down for a second nap. They then have another nap at 1.30 for 1.5hrs. Bedtime at 7.
I feel that my first twin is ready for 1 nap – do you think this could be causing the early waking? I dont know whether to force a new routine on both girls (or if the second isn’t ready yet?) Due to such early waking they are both shattered by 9.30/10, should I still try to push the nap back regardless?
Thank you 🙂
Anna
At this, even though they don’t “qualify” to move to one nap (read the post below), I think it’s fine to force the move to one nap. Be prepared that for about 1-2 weeks you’ll likely not see any improvement in early morning wakings AND that the single nap may be short, but, it’ll all come together if you’re really consistent in just a few weeks.
https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/nap-transitioning-made-easy-part-two-2-naps-to-1/
Great! Thank you so much Natalie!
Hi Natalie!
My 10 month old is currently waking between 4am and 5am. I have tried everything possible to try and change this, from earlier bed time, later bedtime, limiting naps, extending naps, more feeding in the day. He self settles, always has done he’s a real gem at going to sleep both in the day and at night! We have blacked out the room, he has white noise and we don’t get him out of his cot/feed him until 6am. I don’t know what else I can do and with my partner away I am slowly going crazyyyy!
Hello Natasha,
It sounds like you’re doing all you can do. This may simply be something baby continues to struggle with for some time. I wouldn’t change a thing about what you’re doing – I’m sorry this is happening and I do hope he improves soon. Make sure he doesn’t nap more than 2.5-3 hrs total each day and that bedtime isn’t before 7:30 pm.
Hi Natalie!
My 5 month old is sharing a room with his older brother (2.5). OB wakes up super early some mornings, anywhere from 5-6am. We can typically get him to either go back to bed or sit in the rocker and read a book to himself. But this usually disrupts the 5 MO and he wakes as well and has a hard time getting back to sleep. My baby also is still waking several times a night, usually only once to feed but sometimes twice and our pediatrician said it is okay to discontinue these night feeds. I typically rush in once he wakes b/c I don’t want him waking our toddler so I’m worried CIO might be difficult for us. Any tips on room sharing with siblings and CIO method?
Hi Alicia,
I believe we are communicating regarding this issue and you using the course directly, so I will reply there.
Hello 🙂
I bought your book for sleep training my 4.5 month old. It went VERY well and he is basically sleeping through the night. The only issue is he will wake up around 4/5 and cry for a decent amount of time. Sometimes on and off for an hour.
We put him to bed between 7 and 7:30pm and get him out of bed at 6am.
He has been a great napper. I usually have to wake him up from his naps. His first nap is 2 or 2.5 hrs. The 2nd nap is a tiny bit over an hour and the last nap is around 45min to an hour.
Is there something that we can change to fix the early wakings where we just have to let him cry in the crib? It’s so sad.
Do you think it has something to do with him being hungry?
Thank you so much for your help in advance.
Lauren
Hi Lauren,
I’d stick to the guidelines in this blog post, and perhaps reduce naps so they don’t total more than 3 hour. Make sure to keep bedtime no earlier than 7 pm. Regarding hunger, that’s a question for your pediatrician <3 Most kids this age still eat once a night, so if he isn't eating overnight, a feed might address this issue.
Hi 🙂
My LO was putting himself to sleep and sleeping from 730-630/7 am every nigh from 5months on. We struggled to keep him at 3 naps, he would take 10 + minutes to fall asleep at each nap. I would wake him from every nap as they were becoming too long and interfering with bedtime. This resulted him being grumpy throughout the day. I finally dropped him to two naps, at 6 months, he now sleeps from 9-1045/11ish and than from 2-3/330 ( give or take a bit of time there). Bedtime is now 7pm. He is much more pleasant and happy throughout the day BUT now he is waking at 5-530 am every day….I usually leave him until 6, as I can tell he’s trying so hard to put himself back to sleep and is still tired. Did I drop this nap too soon? I’m not sure what to do…
Your help would mean so much. Thanks so much,
Alexandra
I don’t think dropping the nap has anything to do with the early morning waking. See if moving bedtime to 7:30 helps over the course of 1-2 weeks.
HI!
I have a 20 month old who keeps waking up at 4:20am every day. He stands and screams bloody murder in his crib. When I go into his room and pick him up, he fights to try and get out of his room. Once I open his bedroom door, he is fine (mostly). He was sleep trained at 6 months and again a little later after that. He has tubes in his ears due to chronic ear infections. For 18 days a few weeks ago, he was fine. He was going to bed at 7-7:30 waking up at 6:15-6:30 and napping from 12:30-3. He woke up happy and calm. He presented as a different kid. I don’t know what changed, but now we have reverted back to the 4am (ish ) wake. We’ve tried earlier bedtimes, later bedtimes, etc. Sometimes he is so good in the 4am morning, but I know he shouldn’t be awake because he can’t stay awake for a full two hours. Is this behavioral? Should I be letting him cry it out in the morning so that he goes back to sleep? Please help.
Hi Lindsay!!
If you feel comfortable leaving him in his crib, and you are certain he is 100% healthy and safe, yes you can allow for CIO. Know that it can take quite a while to work – but it typically does if you remain consistent.
Hi Natalie.
Not sure if you will respond…
I’ve emailed you at the end of last year. Traumatic birth. Now 7 abs half month of baby. Cry it out with baby would not work. You gave me great advice. I believe in your strategy so I brought your book and it worked. Baby went to sleep 7-7 without no pacifier, nothing. On his own. You are truly a miracle worker!! However After two weeks he started waking at 4/5. Some days cries. Eyes shut. Cries continuously until 6/6.30. His naps were terrible that I transitioned him to 3-2 and now he goes to sleep so easily for naps.. Naps at 9.00 till 11. And 1.30-3.00. I’ve tried putting him down later for his second nap (2-2.30) but he just cries and can’t put himself to sleep. I give him milk and keep Trying till 3. But it does not work. . And sometimes stays awake until 7pm Only barely.
Bedtime is between 7-7.20. He sleeps straight away on his own. It’s been over two weeks and nothing is working. Please help. Ayse
Hi Ayse!
I would love to be able to help more, but I think I need to deep dive a bit more to figure out what’s been going on. Check out my BST+Support program so we can work together to resolve this issue.
https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/purchase/
Hi Natalie, my 7 month old is in the habit of waking at 5:30am no matter what we seem to try. We recently stopped feeding her during the night and now she sometimes sleeps through or has one brief wake up. She naps at 9am and 1pm for around 1.5hrs each. Then a catnap for 30mins around 4:30 from which I waken her. Bed around 7pm. She is capable of falling asleep independently although sometimes I need to go back in briefly to pat/shush her. Wondering where to go next. She’s not hungry as we don’t feed her until 7am. We’ve tried settling her at 5:30 but she really resists that. Would really appreciate your advice.
Hi Carolyn,
I would move her two naps and give it two weeks.
https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/nap-transitioning-made-easy-part-one-3-naps-to-2/
Hi Natalie, thanks so much for your response. We are now one week in doing 2 naps – 9am and 1:30pm. She’s pretty exhausted and grumpy by bedtime so initially it’s been nearer 6:30. Now pushing it closer to 7pm. No night time wake ups and going down for bed and naps quickly on her own but unfortunately mostly still waking at 5:30am. We don’t go in to get her up until 6am. Is there anything else we should be doing? Thank you.
Hi Carolyn,
Nope, I don’t think you need to do anything different. It can just take a few weeks for this to work <3 Hang in there!!
Natalie
Hi Natalie,
Thanks for the link.. it has a lot of useful information. Fortunately my som doesn’t wake up crying when he wakes early morning. We get him from the crib only at 6:15 am everyday and he is always happy when we go in. He sleeps independently.. So the 4:30/5:00 AM wakings throw us off.
Thanks – Anuj
Hi Natalie, I’m facing same problems with my 21 months old. Her nap is from 12-2. If she doesn’t wake up I wake her up. So it’s never more than 2 hours. Bedtime is at 7 pm ie. she’s in bed at 7 pm. Falls asleep in half hour or more. I take her out of bed at 7 in the morning. But she wakes up before 6 nowadays and sometimes I wake up to see she’s up at 5:30 or earlier. She doesn’t cry or fuss. Her room is pitch dark and she still uses the sound machine. Should I reduce the nap length? I don’t want to push her bedtime later as 7 pm works perfectly for us.
Thanks, Sarah
Hi Sarah,
I’d move her bedtime to 7:30 pm at least, if not as late as 8:00 pm. Within a few weeks that should help the early morning wake time. If you want to keep 7 pm, that’s fine, but you won’t be able to fix the early morning waking <3
Thanks Natalie for your response, I think I’ll push bedtime to 7:30 pm. But how long will a 2 hours nap be right for her? She’ll be turning 2 years in a few months so I’m curious.
Regards,
Sarah
2 hours is a good length nap for any napping baby. You can try to reduce it to 90 mins, but I’m not sure why you would. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try it if you wanted to for any reason.
Thanks. What I meant was, if at any point in the future, a 2 hours nap will interfere with night sleep. But if you’re saying it won’t, then I’m great with it. I love my 2 hours of afternoon breaks.
Thanks
Also, I suspect even if you reduce the nap length, I don’t think that will help the early morning waking. You can try it, but I think the later bedtime will be the key.
Hi Natalie, what is a good schedule for a 10mth old? My daughter has been waking up between 5:30am- 6am, naps at 9am-10am and 130/145-230pm, and bedtime at 645pm. I would like her to sleep a little longer in the morning any advice? I have been sticking to this schedule for sometime, and has been waking up early the past couple of weeks.
Hi Chelle,
This should help.
https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/nap-transitioning-made-easy-part-one-3-naps-to-2/
Other that that, I’d follow the advice in the blog post above <3 Make sure bedtime is no earlier than 7:00 pm.
Thank you I will push till 7pm.
Hi Natalie, Firstly thank you so much for the helpful blog posts. We purchased your book and have just started sleep training our 6 month old. She’s always been a pretty good sleeper at night but with very short crib naps – they only get longer when she slept on me. So this has always been our biggest struggle but we have now added early waking to the list! She’s already pretty good at putting herself to sleep before a 10 minute check in is needed and goes to sleep unassisted. Today she woke around 5am and she played in her crib quite quietly until just before 6am but by 6am her cries were unbearable so I ended up starting our day at 6am. I know that is against what you recommend but I hoped to maybe be able to gradually extend that to 6.30-7am over time. The problem for us with a 6am wake up though has been keeping her awake until the scheduled naps, especially as her naps are still a max of 40 mins. Do you think we just need to give it time for her to hopefully eventually extend her naps and learn that we won’t go in until 6.30am etc or any other suggestions are gratefully received! Thank you xx
Hi Carys!!
Yes, this will just take time. Most of the time kids eventually grow out of short naps (and, early morning waking, but that can take more time). Stick to the scheduled nap times and especially do what you can to keep bedtime no earlier than 7:00 pm.
Hang in there!
Natalie
Hi Natalie, I was wondering could you use this same schedule for a 1year old that takes 2 naps? Not sure when to put her down for naps when she wakes up at 7am. She has been napping for 30-45mins recently, hope it ends soon. She just turned 1 yesterday.
Hi Michelle,
This blog post has a great two nap schedule on it.
https://www.babysleeptrainer.com/nap-transitioning-made-easy-part-one-3-naps-to-2
Natalie
Hi Natalie,
My LO is 18 months old, she can fall asleep on her own, but recently she’s been waking up early. Her bedtime is around 7:30pm she usually wakes up at 5:30am. I was wonder if her awake time is too long? She naps at 10:45am until 12:15pm, she almost never naps longer than 1 and 1/2 hours. She’s had this schedule for about 2 months now. Is there anything I should do differently?
Thank you,
Cam
Hi Cam,
I’d gradually move her nap start time later until it’s around noon, and I’d move bedtime later until it’s closer to 8 pm. This may help her sleep in later in the early morning.
Natalie
My 18mo is a BST graduate and has been a fantastic sleeper (7pm-7am since 4mo). Lately she’s been waking up at 5am and not going back down. We are staying consistent and doing everything you say. (Sometimes we do a 6:30p bedtime when she asks for “bed”) Her nap is at noon. Weeks ago she napped 2 hours. Now it’s 1 or 0.5 hours. She’s happy and energetic and eating and everything, but 5am isn’t ideal, nor is the short nap.