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Both my children are waking before dawn
Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2019 11:16 am
by Guest Posts
I have 2 sons aged 8 & 7. The 8 year old started waking up before dawn crying in mid May this year. He had no sleep problems prior to this. He has been sleeping in my bed with me for almost 5 months now, but still wakes up before dawn every morning.
To make matters worse, my 7 year old son has started waking up before dawn calling for me, so I have to go over to his bed to lay with him & then go back to my bed when he has fallen back asleep!
This is making me so sleep deprived, as I now get woken up twice in the early morning every morning and it is affecting my mood.
Please help!
Harmony
Re: Both my children are waking before dawn
Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 10:20 am
by Vicki Dawson
Hi Harmony,
This sounds exhausting for you. When we do a one to one assessment it takes around an hour to really unpick cases. Giving information online makes it tricky as obviously we can't do this so I can give you some general ideas to try.
First of all we need to try to understand why they are waking. Our temperature drops in the early hours so this may be a factor, it could also be around hunger or light. It is interesting it started in May when the mornings were starting to get lighter.
Light conditions needs to be consistent throughout the night so blackout blinds and curtains can really help. I also am a big advocate of ensuring children have a way of checking if it is time to get up or not. We all wake at points in the night and need to have a checking system such as a clock. You may use a clock in the room and let them know what time sleep time is and what time wake up time is. You could also try a lamp on a timer switch and let them know that light off is sleep time and light on is wake up time.
It is also around how much sleep they are having so it will depend on what time they go to sleep at night time. Is it that they are having enough sleep and are waking as they aren't tired any more? If so then you can look at making bedtime a little later.
Hope that helps
Vicki