s/o CIO

Breezy8407

My son has never been a great sleeper (compared to his sister anyway, who is a champ), but lately it's gotten worse. He is waking up consistently at 4:30-5am and in the past would just wake up and talk but now is crying. Hard. Like angry cry. If we go in to soothe him it just gets worse and he gets more upset if he sees us leave the room. We end up getting him up out of bed and he is basically up for the day. He won't go back to sleep in our arms or in bed with us. 

Two nights ago, he cried when we put him down. I let him cry it out, which lasted 30 minutes. I wasn't sure what else to do and felt bad about it, but we never had to sleep train him since in the past, he was always the one that went down easier.  

Bedtime has been 7pm for months now, and they are both almost always so tired by then it's torture to keep them up later. But, my only thought right now is to try to keep him up in the hopes that he will sleep longer 

So, any success in pushing back bedtimes in order to get them to sleep longer? 

Is one year old too old for CIO at bedtime if it comes to that again? 

AmyJoy728

How many naps and how long are you guys on? There was a few weeks there where L woke up at 3-4am and nothing I could do would get him back to sleep. I wound up giving him a small btl (4oz) and then he'd go back down. 

jcath

My girls go through phases of waking up really early (between 5-6 a.m.)  I have never had success going in the room and soothing them. I just watch them on the monitor and let them cry.  They usually get back on schedule sleeping to 7 in a couple of days.

MuseumMaven

This might sound crazy, but you might want to try putting them down earlier babies who are overly tired sometimes don't sleep as well. We had a 6:30 bedtime at that age and it worked well.

MrsLnt

We went through a sleep regression around that age. My DS would wake up and cry around 10 or 11pm. It was the same kind of angry cry. I think some of it was developmental (learning to walk) and some of it was overtiredness (the worst episode happened the night of their first birthday party and they hadn't had good naps that day, because the sleep regression was affecting their naps.)  We did let them CIO. It's no fun but it's just something they gotta work through, especially if they aren't responding to any soothing. It sucks but you get through it. Kind of insulting though that you get through the infant stage and then sleep goes wacky. 

We're big proponents of sleep begetting sleep and earlier bedtimes making for better sleep. At a year old, bedtime was still 7pm at the latest. Bedtime didn't get any later until around 18 months and at 2.5 it's around 8 or so, but that's only because they take a 2-3 hour nap still.

 

Darcie Elicia

I had to cut my girls naps shorter when they did that because they would sleep too long and then just wake up pretty early in the morning. I know putting some kids to sleep earlier helps some but it def didn't help us.

Breezy8407

Thanks for your advice. I read these over the weekend. I also asked our Doctor about him, and she said trying to keep him up later. We tried Saturday night, but he still woke up early. Last night was normal bedtime and he didn't wake up early and didn't wake up screaming. go figure.