12 Week Old Wakes Very Early

Hi A., Yes 4:30 is really early! One of my sons was a very early riser but I was not working. You could try to ease back to 7:30 and 8:00 a little at a time. Unfortunately, babies do what they want. You may need to get to bed earlier so you can get enough sleep. Grandma Mary

Hi A., your son is young yet and may be hungry. Try giving him a little formula before yu go to sleep. If you go to sleep when he does try to stay up and give him a bottle around 11 pm that might give him an extra hour or so in the early AM. Good Luck!

J. B.

When he gets cranky early, don't put him to bed for the night, let him take a 20 minute nap. They get him up and play with him or keep him stimulated for awhile. An hour or so. Then get him ready for bed. I do this with my daughter and it seems to work. She goes to bed sometime between 9-10 and I wake her up at 8 if I have to work that day. If not, I let her sleep in. Sometimes she sleeps 12 hours. Anyway, good luck.

My daughter slept through the night very early and it was great but at about 12 weeks old she started to wake in the middle of the night again. When i went back to work i was able to bring her with me so I was able to feed her every 3 hours, even if she had fallen asleep soon before a feeding i would wake her to eat on time. This helped her learn to stay awake a little bit more during the day. Once we got this going well she kind of put herself on a good napping schedule where she was almost always awake at feeding times. Then with knowing she had enough to eat during the day she would sleep longer at night.

A sample of her day would be something like this:
wake at 7 am 4-5oz
10am 4-5oz
1pm 4-5oz
4pm 4-5oz
7pm 4-5oz
9pm 4-5oz then bed

She would normally nap 2 to 3 times a day but they were generally short naps maybe 1 to 1 1/2 hours. In between bottles. My daughter was kind of a piglet too so she started solid food at about 13 to 14 weeks old and when we did that she started going to bed a little bit early and still slept through the night it was great.

Hi A.,
It seems to me that 9 hours isn't enough for a baby that age. My son's father used to go in at 5 AM when my son woke up because he didn't see him all day and wanted to spend time with him. Consequently, my son at age 8 still has difficulty with getting enough sleep since when he wakes up before 6 AM he can't get back to sleep. He wakes up and lies there feeling "exhausted" and then he feels "tired at school." The moral of the story: make sure that he isn't hungry and let him learn to get himself back to sleep even if he has to cry for a few days. Maybe you need to go in at 11 PM and give him a feed before you go to bed so that he won't be hungry at 4:30 AM. Just don't wake him or talk to him--nurse and back to sleep.

I never found that when my son went to sleep later that he slept later in the morning. I think that everyone has a natural rhythm and some of us are early risers, so going to sleep later just guarentees crankiness. Put him to bed by 7:30 for a couple weeks and don't go in until 6 AM if he wakes up at 4:30--he may surprise you and end up getting 10 1/2 hours.
Maybe you need to go to sleep earlier, too, so that you get more sleep during the "adjustment period." Again, the key is to make sure he isn't hungry at 4:30 and let him figure out how to go back on his own.
A.

I would slowly work your way back to putting him to bed later. Even if that means a few minutes each night until you reach the time that works for both of you. He may just be going through something like teething that has affected his sleep. Good luck - hope this helps :-)

It would be great to try to put him to bed a few minutes later every night, but babies will do what they want, there is no guarantee it will work. My son also got up that early when I went back to work. Although it was early and I was tired, I got used to this being our special time together since I didn't see him all day anymore. I would feed him and then we would snuggle, play and sometimes snooze together for an hour or so. It became a time that I treasured (and believe me, I am not a morning person!) He slowly grew out of it and would wake later until he finally slept until 7am, but it gave us such a close bond and he still loves to snuggle like that even though he is now 4.

The fact that he's sleeping that long is amazing. Do you feed him when he wakes up? If you do it in his room in the dark, he may go back to sleep. But like I said, this is amazing. And often babies go through short cycles of sleeping patterns that coincide with growing. Don't be surprised if he stops sleeping through the night for a week - and then goes back to it.

Hi
I am the mother of twin girls Arianna and McKayla who are 3 months old. They to are sleeping through the night. We recently went through the samething where one of them was getting cranky earlier. What we did was feed Arianna 3 oz around 6:30 and then feed here 6 oz at 9PM. This seemed to settle her down. I think she was just hungry and instead of giving her it all at once we gave her a snack in between one of the feedings. They are now eatting every 4 hours during the day and then sleep through the night. It is great. Does anyone know any good daycare centers. I live in Glen Cove New York. Thanks Mom of Twins.

Since you are putting him to bed earlier, he is waking up earlier for a feeding. The only thing you can do is feed him without turning on any lights or talking to him and then put him back to sleep afterwards. He is still too young to sleep straight through without at least 1 feeding. Not only that, with the season changing, it is getting light out earlier. Invest in some blackout curtains. I would not try to move his bed time later either. He will have to get used to going to bed earlier around 4 months anyway. Just count yourself lucky that you are getting this much sleep at such a young age! My son is almost 5 months and goes to bed around 7:30 or 8 and wakes up around 3 or 4 for a feeding, but then sleeps until 7 and he is considered a really good sleeper for his age. Between 3 and 6 months, their sleep schedules will not be predictable- they become more aware of their surroundings, they have growth spurts and need to eat more and some start teething- all these things can affect how they sleep. Don't be so concerned with trying to get him on a schedule. He is still way too young to be expected to have a regular schedule.

how many naps does he take during the day? when this happened with my son, i started letting him take a short 20 minute nap around 5:00 pm which then let me keep him up a little later...