Getting Up at 5 AM

The baby is now over 6 months old and almost 7 months. Recently, he has been waking up very regularly at around 5 am. He twists in bed and then starts to whine, wanting to get up.

My wife and I take turns taking care of the baby every night. She gets off work early and usually takes care of the baby from the time she gets home until we go to bed. I take care of the baby for a while in the morning.

There is a proverb that goes, “Better to lose one’s mother at three than to get up at the fifth watch.” 5 am is the end of the fifth watch.

When the baby first started waking up like this, I couldn’t get up. I would always linger in bed, squinting my eyes, interacting with the baby while half - asleep, and not getting up until 6 am.

Some time ago, I read a book called “52 Positive Discipline Tools in the Family”. The author, Lu Dandan, is an expert in the fields of positive discipline and parent - child writing. She mentioned in the book that most of her writing was completed between 4 am and 7 am.

She has two children. When the babies were young, her husband was still studying for a doctorate and had no time to take care of the family. They were in the United States at that time, so there was no help from their parents. Basically, she was the only one taking care of the children.
She goes to bed at 9 pm every day and gets up at 4 am. Since her children usually don’t wake up until after 7 am, the three - hour period from 4 am to 7 am is her own time. Over several years, she used these three hours to write hundreds of thousands of words of blogs, which were later compiled into a book and published. She herself gradually became famous in the fields of positive discipline and parent - child writing, and later developed her own career.

When I read this, I had just started experiencing the situation of the baby waking up at 5 am every day. I thought that instead of being drowsy in bed, playing with the baby while half - asleep, I might as well get up and have a good time with the baby.

After that, around 5 am, when the baby wakes up, I get up too. After washing up, I take the baby for a stroll in the community and talk to him.
On weekdays, I usually don’t get home until 7:45 pm. Most of the time, the baby has already gone to sleep. After 7 am, I need to feed the baby complementary food, prepare some things for my mother to take care of the baby during the day, and do many other miscellaneous things. So the time around 5 am has instead become the only short period of time in a day when I don’t have to do anything and can purely accompany the baby.

Since it’s still very early at 5 am, there are basically no people in the community, and it’s very cool, which is very suitable for a walk.
I usually use a stroller to take the baby around the community, then go out through the west gate of the community, walk to the north gate and come back, which takes about half an hour.
Sometimes I stop to play with the baby, and the baby will cooperate and laugh heartily. Sometimes he even giggles, which makes people feel more cheerful.

After I take the baby for a stroll for a while, my mother usually comes to take over from me, and then I can go home.
It’s usually only 6 am at this time, and the time until 7 am is my own. I usually go to the study. Opening the window of the study, it’s very cool, unlike during the day and at night when the study is always hot.

When we renovated the house two years ago, we installed a central air - conditioner with only 4 air outlets, one for each of the three bedrooms and the living room, and none for the study.

In the study, sometimes I write blogs, sometimes I study algorithms, or I read books. In short, during this one - hour period, I’m very efficient and my mood is very calm.
Before having a baby, I had never gotten up so early and had never enjoyed this short, beautiful morning time.

Before I enter the study, I also make a cup of coffee. Recently, I accidentally tried black coffee with ice - cold cola, and it tastes surprisingly good.

Forced to get up at 5 am, I have experienced some beauty that I had never experienced before. It can be regarded as an unexpected gain.