Up for the day at 4am! HELP

[Anonymous]

I’m new here. My 5 month old daughter has reflux. Same with
my 4 year old son. She gets up in the night for a bottle couple
of times, some nights more than others. Sometimes she doesn’t
even want a bottle. Just wakes up. I can deal with
that. What is hard is she gets up between 4 and 4:30am for the day.
I’ve tried everything; feeding her, rocking her, rubbing her back, not
leaving her room, etc. All failed. She is wide awake
sometimes and sometimes she wants to go back to sleep but if I put her
down in her crib she wakes up. So if she’s tired still, I have to
hold her for a couple of hours. Now I’m trying to keep her up to
her next nap time at 9am but she rarely makes it to 8am. I
thought maybe this would push her wake up time foward. So far,
no. She only naps between 3-5 hours in the day. I’ve tried cutting that back, increasing it, etc.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I’m exhausted.

Thanks!

Sal

[Anonymous]

We had that wake up time forever! Once reflux was under control, we did CIO to get him to sleep through the night, but then he would be up at 3 or 4 am for the day! No nap, and then not back in bed until 8pm at night. It lasted forever! We finally got a sleep study done and found out that his tonsils were so big, they were causing him to wake up 7 to 10 time an hour from the obstruction. We had his tonsils removed, and then it took a while becasue waking up at that time was a habit, but we did CIO at the 3 or 4am wake up for three nights and now he goes until at least anywhere between 5:30 and 7 am every day! For us, there was a medical reason. The Peds did not think they were so big, but once the ENT saw the results of the sleep study, they knew they had to come out.

Maybe something you might want to investigate?

And by the way Welcome to the site! There are a ton of great people here with a ton of great advice!

Ann Marie

[hellbennt]

hmm…what if you brought her back into bed with you, so you don’t have to hold her? I realize you probably do not want her in bed with you, nor do I blame you…just thinking of what can be done to get a poor mama some rest!

welcome! please find the time to read this welcome/intro that I put together for all newcomers: https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=853 it’s loong, but it should address many of your questions & concerns

& everyone here is amazingly wonderful!

glad you found us,

~laura

[Anonymous]

WELCOME – Zach seems to like that time too. I’ve gotten to the point that we do whatever so we get more sleep!!!
What works for us is we either lay on the couch with him or in the
recliner and we both tend to go back to sleep for another couple of
hours. I didn’t want to get in the habit of having him in bed
with us but we do need our sleep so this seems to work for now.
I’m a pretty light sleeper so any time he moves I do wake but it’s
better than the alternative. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

At that age, Ashtyn did the same thing….4:30 am every day. We didn’t really do anything different but after a couple months, she just started sleeping later.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your input! I get nervous because my son never
slept past 5am until he was around 3. It’s nice to know that I’m
not alone on this one. I keep telling myself “this too shall
pass”. It seems to help when I am so exhausted.

I’m glad I found this site!

[Anonymous]

At that age my son also had a hard time sleeping during those hours. I always felt like the reflux was somehow harder for him during those wee hours of the day. But then he would sleep hard from 6-8 or something like that. (I’ve always wondered if acid levels are different in our bodies at different times of day or something.) We co-sleep now, and it has been the only solution that kept me from losing my mind with no sleep. Have you tried giving her Mylanta Cherry Supreme when she wakes at that time and then nursing again or bottle after the mylanta? It really helped us at different times wtih night wakings. (Laura’s intro will have a link to Mylanta and dosing for age/weight.) She sounds uncomfortable to me… Is she on meds for reflux? You can put info into an automatic signature with your baby’s age, and med info so we don’t have to ask you all these questions every time. I think it’s under settings at the top right of this page. Welcome to the site!

[Anonymous]

My baby did the same thing around eight months. I’ve read that it can be caused by a betime that is too late, so they are overtired, and sleep so hard, that when they wake up they feel rested (for only an hour and then need to go back to sleep) and then miss their final sleep cycle. It took a few nights with Taylor, but I started putting him back in his bed after feeding him. He cried the first night before falling asleep, played for a while the second night before fussing and falling asleep, then finally learned that I wasn’t going to let him get up and learned to fall asleep after that feeding. Still haven’t gotten him to sleep through the night but I’m praying… 🙂

[Anonymous]

My 8 month old son has started doing the same thing too. He went from sleeping til 7:30 to overnight wanting to wake up at 5:30. I don’t understand why. It is very frustrating. I’ve started taking him into bed with me and he will usually fall asleep after that til 7. I don’t want to let him CIO though because he does seem ready to get up and I would feel bad if he really wasn’t tired and just wanted to get up.

[Anonymous]

I wish that I could take her back to bed with me, but when I do she
won’t sleep. Her bedtime is 7pm, so I don’t think that’s too
late. I guess I just have to deal with it. I’ve tried just
about everything else. My son was the same way. Even now at
4 years old he wakes up half the time at 5:30am.

Thanks for the advice.

[Anonymous]

We had to bump Kaelyn’s bedtime a little later when we realized that she was consistently waking up earlier and didn’t seem tired during the day. She was a little older though (probably 15 months), so I’m not sure that it’s the same situation.

[Anonymous]

I know it seems strange, but try an earlier bedtime. I was having Gabriel wake up at 2 and three am and wanting to start his day. When I started to put him to bed earlier at 7pm instead of 8pm he slept in later. I know it doesn’t sound logical, but as another poster noted, overtired babies sleep LESS not more. Bt he could just be an early bird and there may not be anything you can do about it.

[Anonymous]

I agree with Emmy!!

It never fails:
The EARLIER the bedtime, the LATER they sleep-in in the morning.

If I put my son to bed at 8pm he’ll wake up at 4am for the day.

If I put him down at 6:30pm he sleeps ’til 6:30am-7am.

Sounds crazy, but it has ALWAYS worked for my refluxer!

[Author]

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