Trying to alter early rising, now naps a nightmare!!

[bluesmile10]

1 yo ds is a 5 am riser. We are trying to push him a little towards 6 as he was trying to wake earlier and earlier, and have taken the plunge just to go in, lie him back down and come away. It is having some success, although not going back to sleep, he appears to be dozing on and off.

However, he has become incredibly clingy at naptimes - whereas he used to go straight down and sleep soundly, he now wants to be held and the very least have me in the room. As soon as I put him down and leave, he stands up and screams. I'm worrying that its because he gets distressed in the morning because we dont pick him up and so he's fighting to be close all the time. Even once he's gone off for a nap, he's waking frequently and crying so sleep is very disturbed.

What should I do? Do I perservere with the mornings and hope that nap times will just improve? Is he telling me something else like he doesnt need as much sleep? I just dont know!!!

[monkoray]

What time does he go to bed? We introduced an evening nap at 5pm and pushed ds's bed time back to 8.30pm and it meant he slept through til 7.30am.
Might work for your ds but unfortunately all kids are different and yours might just be a morning person.

[bluesmile10]

He goes to bed between 7 and 7.30. Its more the nap times that are becoming increasingly difficult now and I'm not sure how to deal with them.

[sweetuphoria]

He might need to cut one of his naps, or shorten them?

[Octaviapink]

Seriously - go back to where you were before. Early wakers are early wakers are early wakers, IME (not just my own DCs). Sounds like the different approach in the mornings has indeed distressed him about naptimes and you don't want this to become a permanent state of affairs!