5:30 am

Once upon a time, I had a little girl who slept like a teenager. She would wake up between 7 & 7:30 every morning, and then be ready to nap again at 10, and still take a good afternoon nap at 2. Now, I have a little girl that is full of energy and a zest for life. Lately she has been waking up sometime between 5 & 6 a.m. Now, sometimes she'll cry and I'll turn the monitor off. Five minutes later, she'll be back to sleep again. Sometimes, though, she cries until she's so upset she can't go back to sleep. So I trudge myself out of my warm bed (because I am NOT a morning person). And then I go through the mental debate every morning-- do I try to put her back to sleep so she's not grumpy all day? or do I go ahead & give her her morning bottle so she stops crying and then lay down on the couch with her for a little while? or will she be ready to play after she has her bottle? I wouldn't worry about it so much if she didn't have to go to school at 9:45 (right around the time she starts getting ready for a nap) and doesn't get a nap until 2:00! She's exhausted by then.


I have tried everything I can think of to get her to sleep later-- she has a snack before bed so she's not so hungry (and I usually try to wait her morning bottle until at least 6 so her body is not trained to be expecting it before that), she wears a bigger diaper so she's not soaking wet, I put her to bed later, put her to bed earlier... Apparently she is just a morning person, or it might just be another phase we have to get through.


I see it as another obstacle to getting rid of the bottle, too. When she wakes up, she's steaming mad & will continue to cry until she gets her bottle. (This applies for the afternoon nap too.) 5:30 is too early for a regular breakfast, and anyway, if I tried to stick her in her high chair with food in front of her, she'd get mad & push it away. (I know, because she did it after a nap once.) The bottle is a completely different story, and I do have some other ideas for getting rid of that, but I'm not sure she's ready yet.


It seems this 5:30am thing will never end. But, hopefully, I will come back & look at this post in 2 weeks and wonder why I ever bothered to worry...