6am

In many ways I realise that 6am is a reasonable time to start the day. However, we struggle with it as we are soooo tired after years of sleep deprivation with Elle and now almost a year of nightwakings from Ashley. I get the feeling that Ashley would actually rather have a breastfeed and go back to bed for an hour or so than get up for solids. She doesn't seem to be adjusting well to getting up and eating solids at that time.

What do you do with 6am wakings? Do you start the day or treat it as a night feed?

Ashley is 11 months old soon so she technically should have solids before milk. However, I'm having to feed her at 10pm and then she wakes again in the night for a short time as well. Then up at 6 and through the day she only does 2 naps of about 40mins so it makes for very long days and a very tired Mummy.

Solids wise she only ever eats about 3 tablespoons at a time so is pretty dependant on milk, hence why we've been trying to do solids first in the morning.

Any wakings before 7.30am in our house are treated as night. I'll try to resettle him just like I do at night time, no talking, no eye contact. If I can't resettle him I'll feed him and pop him back into bed. Sometimes he'll sleep until 7.30am, other times he'll just chat away to himself for a while which I'm quite happy with

6am is a night feed here too. DD usually sleeps in our bed after early feeds.

In fact shes still there now

If you dont want her to get up treat it as a night feed.

Elias is over one and we still give him a bottle first .. in the mornings.

Haha yeah lilfatty I really don't want to get her up at 6 but don't want to be unreasonable.

She is still on 6 breastfeeds a day and only has about 3 tablespoons of solid food at each meal if that but she is so determined when it comes to milk (oh and short naps....20mins is quite common). Monkey. I'm trying really hard to reduce the breastfeeds so the solids intake will increase but it is not an easy task.

I have the opposite probelm - loves solids not into milk. To be honest we get our 11 month old up from 6am on, she's usually hungry and although I still DF at 10 pm, she doesn't night feeds and if she went back to sleep I reckon she'd start wanting night feeds to resettle. If she sleeps longer its a bonus and we have to get up at 6.30 am anyway. At that point she's had 11 hours sleep, which is heaps for her age. I don't feed breakfast till 6.45 as I read that feeding too early triggers early waking. So we play, get dressed etc. Sometimes she has phases of 5.30 wakings grgghhh and soemtimes doesn't go back to sleep.

What would happen if you held off doing the dream feed until 11pm or even midnight?

I find if I give Lily her dream feed too soon she will still wake 2-3 times in the night but if I hold off until 11/12 she will only wake 1-2 times.

Doesn't make any difference Lil-Nic - if I feed at midnight she will still be up at 6 but I'm even more tired! I was doing it at 11 but have just shifted it to 10 as I've been so tired I get dizzy etc. Trying to get more sleep.

Fiona, I have always given my kids their morning limk (BF or formula) before their breakfast, as otherwise we would be giving them breakfast at 6am too. I found giving them that break of an hour or so between milk and solids meant that they were hungry again anyway.

As for the sleeping thing, I would try getting her back to bed, if you think this would suit you... my kids have always been early risers, so we are usually starting the day at 6am round here anyway. BF her, put her back and see what happens...

i have always given a bf before solids if my kids wake too early... and in fact eden still has her brekkie after a bf most mornings and shes 2!

in our house i try and stay in bed as long as possible so 6am wakings we took bub into bed with us for a bf and a cuddle...and if we are lucky we all get some more sleep.