in January 2024 Babies 🇬🇧

Any advice for a last night wake up?

So we’ve recently changed our routine to try and get better sleep with LO. We’ve brought his bath time a little later, popped on the heating or just the fire to make the room a little toasty and within half hour of all this 1 hour max he’s ready for bed. It’s helped stop the every two hour wake up, but still wakes up at 12.30 and usually about 3/4 but now we’re struggling with around 4.30/5. He wakes up has some of his bottle but then won’t go back in his cot. He goes back in any other time but this one. I’m due in 4 weeks have really bad spd so I can’t really keep him in the bed because I can’t get comfortable and I’m in pain. Then he’s waking up fully between 6.45 and 7.30. This I don’t mind so much as I’m up anyway at 7.30. Not only this but he’s dropped his 1 and only nap from 3 hours to 1.5, and his morning wake up used to be 8.30/9. I’ve worked out he’s losing at least 3 hours to what he was getting. He’s 14 months old. And I really don’t know how I’m going to manage his lack of sleep and a newborn who are both going to be in my room 🙈

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And he’s a really active child! He doesn’t stop all day so not like he’s not burning his energy his bedtime is 8pm

Maybe try bringing bed time forward. It could be that he's overtired especially if his nap has shortened My little one has quite strange not obvious tired cues - she gets really energetic, pulls her hair, itches her ear Her bed time starts at 6 and she's usually asleep by 6.30 for the night and sleeps through until 7 sometimes 8 the next day. She's super energetic all the time! Even right up till bed time and then she's out! You would never think that she needed her bedtime to start so early x

I would try one nap maximum 2 hours in the day. Our 14month old does this and just doesn’t need quite as much sleep as some others!

@Georgia he’s dropped his nap to 1.5 it used to be up to 3. @Chiara we do watch for cues he falls over his feet or starts getting angry and crying over silly things we know it’s time for bed. As a rule of thumb it’s no later than 8 but he can go to sleep as early as 6.30/7. It starts with him stroking his head or pulling his ears that’s when we do bath and heating

He might be getting cold by 4am if he goes down with the heating on and it's not kept consistent throughout the night. Maybe try not putting the heating on and maintain a steady temperature and layer cl9thing to suit

The heating goes on downstairs then when I know he’s ready I take him up for his bottle before he falls asleep then to move him. I do adjust the type of blanket he has depending on the room every time. If it’s a warmer night he has a thinner blanket colder nights he will either have a fleece blanket or his duvet. This wake up at 5 has only really become and issue this past week.

He is also up once or twice before this so I adjust the blankets then too

Could it be light coming in?

@Georgia we have black out blinds and curtains it’s still relatively dark until around 6 but even then it’s still dark enough to sleep. And we have a white noise in the background 🙈 I’ve literally tried what I can which is why I thought I’d ask incase there is anything I have missed. He even wears socks incase he gets cold!

What about having him in his own room? Maybe you're waking him while you sleep?

@Chiara house isn’t big enough. We have an older child who I thinks too old to share. We are actively looking but rentals are really expensive at the minute it’s nearly 3 weeks worth of wages

Frequent wakings could be due to over tiredness and hence accumulated sleep debt. We had this a while ago and followed some online suggestions to bring bedtime forward to 7pm for a week - it did wonders! No night wakings at all for a good while!! And then move back to his usual bedtime 7.45

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