Waking Early - Milk Linked? Any Suggestions?

[DebbieC]

Hi

We have a 19 month old, Toby, who goes down to sleep at 7pm with absolutely no problems. He used to sleep until around 6am (this was fine) but now he's waking, on average, around 4.30am. He is teething (molars and incisors coming through but do rub on teething gel when required) but also we have had to take him off full cows milk on the Dr's recommendations as we are trying to find out what's causing him eczema. We've tried putting him back to bed after giving him his formula bottle in the morning but unfortunately 99% of the time he doesn't go back to sleep and we've left him to cry in the hope that he'll get the message....(the only way he sometimes falls back to sleep if he comes in with us but then that very rarely happens as he's up and running about!). We've tried giving him porridge in the evening thinking he might be hungry - but that hasn't worked either. We've also tried to make sure he's got enough exercise during the day in the hope that he's worn out enough... again this doesn't work.

Generally Toby sleeps from 1.3hrs - 3hrs during the daytime (from around 10/10.30am onwards)- I read somewhere that if they don't have a sleep during the daytime that that doesn't help improve night time sleep (not that I could stop him sleeping during the day anyway - too cruel!).

So we've drawn a blank - therefore does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on how to keep Toby asleep longer?

If it wasn't for the fact that I'm a Body Shop at Home Consultant and get to bed at 11pm some nights then I'd be in bed myself at 9pm to make sure I get enough sleep, but this again isn't a real solution!

Any help will be gratefully received - cheers

Debbie

[easy]

Hi Debbie,

If I were you I'd try to restrict toby's daytime sleep to about 1 hr, and see if that works. Needing upto 3 hrs sleep from 10:30 am shows that he's waking too early for himself, and must make life awkward if you need to go out or anything.

do it for several days before you write it off, and expect him to be fairly ratty after you wake him, but I honestly think it's worth a try.

[easy]

Debbie,

Any luck in chasnging the routine

lol