https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Sat, 18 Apr 2026 21:50:49 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174905 Mon, 11 May 2015 20:29:23 +0000 Tanjowen 2174905@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I agree with PP, it's most likely a growth spurt, and if he's hungry, feed him. My LO just now at 17 months went through a major growth spurt and needed to eat at 5 a.m. but would go back to sleep until about 8 a.m. I would tell myself as long as he slept over 6 hours, food was fine. I mean, I only sleep 7 hours at night and eat popcorn as a snack before bedtime, so asking him to sleep 10-12 hours without food is a lot.</p> <p>That being said, we went through a period around 11 months where LO wanted to party at 5 am. and then crashed around 8 a.m. Not cool, but it thankfully only lasted about 3 weeks and we co-slept a lot to get through it. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174732 Mon, 11 May 2015 16:48:23 +0000 PurplePeony 2174732@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My 17-month-old still wakes to nurse around 5am and then goes back to sleep for a couple hours. I'd love for her to just sleep through, but since the options are feed her and go back to sleep until 7 or start the day at 5, I'm hands-down going for the extra sleep. I figure she'll grow out of it eventually, though maybe not until we wean completely. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174710 Mon, 11 May 2015 16:16:59 +0000 BabyTsMom 2174710@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I agree with PPs; sounds like he really is hungry. Since you've gotten rid of the other motn feedings, he probably is genuinely hungry. Does he normally go back to sleep for an hour or two after the 5am feeding? If so, then I'd just continue doing it..... </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174633 Mon, 11 May 2015 15:03:59 +0000 Trailmix 2174633@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>At that age, I set 5am as my limit. If they woke up after that, I fed and prayed they'd go back down. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. It's hard but if you can get a solid chunk of sleep in before that (as in, he doesn't wake up in the motn) then it's not so bad... </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174630 Mon, 11 May 2015 15:02:26 +0000 psw27 2174630@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>MY LO is 9 months old and has recently regressed to needing a 4-5 am feeding as well. He used to sleep until 6:30-7:30. He is genuinely hungry (sucks down 6 ounces and goes back to sleep) so I can't bring myself to deprive him of it. He eats a ton of solids and has 30 ounces during the day, I think he is just growing and hungry. No real advice, just to hang in there! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174616 Mon, 11 May 2015 14:54:50 +0000 ShootingStar 2174616@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>You may still have that early wake up until you really get going with solids. My rule for wake-ups was to wait 10 minutes and see if he settled back down. And once he made it to a certain time without waking up, that would be the new cut-off for feeding. So after he slept until 3am without waking a couple times, if he woke at 1am I tried much harder not to feed him.</p> <p>But at the time we were doing this we had switched to all formula (no more BM) and we were doing 3 solids meals a day. And I never tried to force him to go longer between feedings than I felt like he was ready for. He led the way and I tried hard not to let him regress. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174395 Mon, 11 May 2015 12:47:58 +0000 ellewoods84 2174395@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We had a very hard time having that feed disappear. I just continued with it because I did not care to start our day at 5 am. She eventually dropped it on her own, although not until 11 months. But, her wake time did move up about 30 min-1 hour.....so instead of waking at 5, nursing, and sleeping until 7, she is now waking 6-630. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174385 Mon, 11 May 2015 12:43:03 +0000 plantains 2174385@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>He may also just end up needing to wake up at that time. My DD was a 5am riser like forever. She did it until sometime after she turned 2... </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174336 Mon, 11 May 2015 12:21:08 +0000 Mrs.Someone 2174336@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>It sounds like he's hungry, so I would keep feeding him. My DS has started waking up more in the middle of the night to eat at 8mo too, it's rough, but nursing is the quickest way to get him back down! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174332 Mon, 11 May 2015 12:20:13 +0000 catomd00 2174332@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>He's clearly hungry, feed him. It's not giving in, it's giving him what he needs. My 14 month old eats tons and still wakes up more often then not becauss she's hungry. I can't go 12 hours without eating, either. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174326 Mon, 11 May 2015 12:17:08 +0000 gingerbebe 2174326@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>It sounds like he's genuinely hungry. Can you feed him a little more milk or solids during the day to try and extend nights? DS is 8 months and in the 25th percentile for weight (I think he's like 19 pounds or so at this point but almost 30 inches long). He takes about 25 ounces of milk and eats solids 3 times a day (probably about 4-8 ounces of baby food and then another 2-3 ounces of finger foods). He's not interested food in general, so we have to work hard to get him to eat/drink (he's always been this way and we've worked very hard to keep his weight up). He gets three 6 ounces bottles before solids and then a 7-ish ounce bottle at bedtime and sleeps through the night. His solids we try to keep calorie dense - he gets whole milk yogurt, I put coconut oil or olive oil or formula powder in his baby food, throw avocado in here and there, put olive oil and Parmesan on the little pasta shapes he tries to feed himself, etc. Perhaps you can try to get a few more calories in him during the day or add an ounce to each of his daytime bottles and try to see how that works for him? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174316 Mon, 11 May 2015 12:14:15 +0000 edelweiss 2174316@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>the 4-5am wakeup is more common than one would think. it was absolutely driving me crazy because our LO had gone from sleeping for 11-12 hours for a couple of months to these early morning wakeups. apparently around that time of morning a bit of wakefulness starts to kick in and it's hard for some babies to make it to an extra sleep cycle or two.</p> <p>i fought it for weeks, letting him cry or getting up for the day (it didn't occur to me that he could go back to sleep)--it was torture. then i gave in and just started nursing him and he would fall back asleep. i should have just nursed when he started the early wakeups. after a couple of months, the nursing would not put him back to sleep. i still put him down in his crib, and sometimes he fussed for about 15 minutes but eventually went back to bed. then he grew out of it (although is still an early riser, around 6am). </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sleep-training-for-early-morning-wakeups#post-2174279 Mon, 11 May 2015 11:57:04 +0000 bschus 2174279@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I could use some advice. We are sleep training our 8 month old and have hit a serious wall. Here are the details:</p> <p>-Great napper (2.5+ hours day), and can put himself to sleep for naps and bedtime. Can soothe himself (when he wants to ). Goes to bed around 730pm.<br /> -Eats well during the day (25 oz+ of formula and breastmilk). Starting solids but he is ingesting very little at this point.<br /> -Has consistently been waking to nurse around 5am for the last 2-3 months. We were okay with this, as he would go back to sleep until 7am. However, it seems to start a bad pattern of needing to feed at night and the wakeups got earlier and more frequent (2am, 3am...) so we decided to night train completely with the goal of the earliest feeding at 6am (ideally 7am).<br /> -Responded great to training for earlier night wakeups but still wakes up at 430-530 daily and screams his head off to eat. Soothing him does not help, loveys do not help, CIO does not help (my limit is one hour). </p> <p>So, do we give in and feed him at 5am like he wants? A week of training hasn't helped much, except one day he woke at 6am like we would like. How long do we keep trying before we throw in the towel? We trained my 3YO at 4 months old and it was so much easier than this time around!! Thanks for any help. </p>