Early Morning Waking

[monkeyblonde]

My 21 month old DS2 has been waking at 4.30am for the last two weeks now. He's always been an early riser (5.30ish) but this is a whole new level. It's making me ratty, emotional etc and I can't keep doing it.

Advice sometimes given is to leave them to see if they resettle, however my DS1 is often disturbed by him and gets woken up, it's just not fair for him to be up that early. Therefore I normally just take DS2 straight downstairs. If I bring him into our bed he just gets cross and will again disturb DS1.

I'm convinced it's developmental as all of a sudden he has many more words, recognising colours, counting....but do I have to just ride it out? My husband helps where he can but he has to go to work (I'm a SAHM), and I feel that we are like ships that pass in the night. Before this I was shattered by 9pm, now I'm just a wreck!

To compensate he takes a massive nap in the morning, around 3 hours. I feel as though I can't wake him as we will surely get into a vicious overtired cycle. Before the EMW he was having an hour-hour and a half nap before lunch which worked well.

Anyone got any advice? Or anyone just want to hang out with another v tired mummy? So fed up of being in tears of tiredness myself before DH even leaves for work. He must dread coming home!

[Bigbagofchips]

I can sympathise as my 26 month DS sometimes wakes this early. . However, if he wakes in the night, say 2 or 3 am ish and I resettle him at that time, he will then sleep until 6am. It maybe worth trying to rouse your DS at that time to almost 'bump' his sleep cycle on. Also, as painful as it might be I would aim to try and push his nap back towards lunch and also cut it down. My DS would sleep all afternoon if I let him!!
Good luck x

[monkeyblonde]

Thanks for the advice bigbag! Have you tried the wake to sleep yourself? It scares me tbh in case he wakes up at that time instead!

[mintbiscuit]

Any chance the cold is waking him?

Also at 21 months I would be aiming for the nap to be after lunch. Could be worth trying to push this back gradually to see if it increases longer sleep at night.

[monkeyblonde]

I've put a vest on the past couple of nights, tonight we're going for the baby gro instead of pjs!

The prob with the nap is that he's always been ready to sleep, and a nightmare without it, by 10am latest.

I've tried jiggling it before and it didn't help.

Got a strong suspicion that it could be development related, in which case it'll just be riding it out.....he did similar when he started walking too.

[Bigbagofchips]

To be honest he very rarely sleeps through so I don't have to do wake to sleep, he just wakes on his own. If he does sleep through and doesn't wake till 5am, then I consider that a result!! My expectations on sleep are pretty low after having a DD who woke up at 5am until she was about 3.5 years old!

[monkeyblonde]

I tried wake to sleep last night but made no difference. Maybe because 1) I didn't rouse him enough 2) he needed to do a poo when he woke up at 4.28am again. As he was also awake from 11.30pm to 1am I thought that at least he may have slept later, but no!

How do I manage his naps? As he is now napping up to 3 hours a day to compensate I've got no idea how to get some sort of routine back. It's driving me nuts and controlling our lives even more than usual.

This morning at 7.30 am, he went upstairs saying 'sleep,sleep' and promptly slept for nearly three hours. I can't deny him his rest (even though he's denying mine!) can I?

[mintbiscuit]

It really dounds like from your posts that he is not completing his full nights sleep and missing out on the last cycle. Hence the reason for napping in the morning. Generally dcs around this age should be able to handle at least 4 to 5 hrs of awake time before needing a nap. It sounds a bit like he has shifted his time zone - early waking, early nap.... what time is bed time? Is he really crabby by the end of the day? How many hours is he sleeping at night in total?

[monkeyblonde]

He goes to bed around 6.30, normally asleep by 7pm. That's kind of normal right? He sleeps for 9.5 hours at night at the moment.

He has slept more like 11 in the past.

[mintbiscuit]

Bedtime is a sensible time for a dc of that age. Does napping earlier in the day make him really overtired before bed? Adding up the hours he is getting around 12.5 hrs of sleep a day. Which is on the low side of average.

One other possible solution is to gradually push the nap time back (say by 30 mins each day). Also gradually shortening his nap from 3 hrs to 2 might help him sleep longer at night. You would need to stick with it for around a week to see changes.

Or you could move to a country that matches his time zone! Could take you somewhere exotic