Need a solution to morning waking PLEASE! Ha ha)

[ellensmelons]

I know loads of threads already, but has anyone tried stuff that WORKS? DD 21 months old has been sleeping till 6 / 6.30 all her life. Now for past 3 weeks she has woken 5 / 5.30. Screaming!!! Wakes the 8 month old ds too. Doesn't nap too long in day - about 1h - 1h.20. She still wakes regardless of bedtime / amt of sleep. Will try ANYTHING. Thank you!!!!

[littleboyblue]

My ds1 did this too. He was quite good and always slept until about 8ish and then all of a sudden, we were getting up and starting our days at 5am! After about a week, I just went with it and stopped fighting. It only went on for another 3 days (IIRC) and then he started to sleep until 6/6:30.
Ds2 is nearly 6 months and has just gone through a phase of wanting to get up at 4!!!!!! Again, we just went with it and it passed within a week or so and now we're on 5:50ish

[ellensmelons]

Will try the carbs - especially whole grain pasta. She does like her food, and i do tend to limit what she has, as she doesn't quite know when to stop...

Would you leave her to sob? She stops as soon as one of us goes in, so i know she's not unwell etc. Methinks she has learned this so can unlearn too?

[littleboyblue]

Could you maybe try leaving a few little toys in the cot or something, might keep her happy for even an extra 20 mins?
I might be tempted to try extending the time I get her by 5 mins a day, so not leaving her too long, but it's whatever your happy with and what you think she'll be ok with.

[Milsy]

Try and make the room really dark. Have you got a baa baa black out blind? We use one in the nursery during the summer. And (oddly) an earlier bedtime might help...

One thing I did when dd was 2 which was advice I got from [http://www.sleepytot.com/blog sleepytot]]. Black the room out. Get a timer that sets a clock to turn on to indicate it's morning. Set it for 10 mins before your LO wakes up. Do this for a few days and then set the clock for 5 mins later every day until you are back at 7am.

I got the timer from homebase. It was slow and gradual but it did work.

Good luck. It will end!

[Lovage]

We have just fixed this with our nearly 3 yo, so I don't know whether it would work for a younger child- but worth a shot. Similar to Millsy, we bought some fairy lights and put them on a timer, and gradually worked forwards in 10 min chunks to the time we wanted. He understood that when the lights came on, it's morning time, but if he wakes and they're not, it's time to go back to sleep.

It's worked an absolute treat. He often still wakes at the old time but he stays in bed singing to himself and often goes back to sleep for a bit. It's even worked on holiday, which usually completely messes everthing up.

Of course now the baby wakes at 5 every morning, so I'm still up...

[girlsyearapart]

Total sympathy from here! been up since 430 today with itchy excema dd2 10 mo. She usually wakes at least once a night due to itching but usually earlier. Anytime after around 4am and she wakes dd1 22mo so that's it day begins. With dd1 she loves books so we leave a pile on the table for her next to the cot so she can reach them. Today I first heard her at about 5am but she stayed there till 6 before calling me. When I went in there were 3 books in her bed. Without intervention from dd2 dd1 usually sleeps 7-7/8. She did spend AGES waking up at 530 though and we left her an extra 5 mins per day. Also yes I agree with the earlier bedtime thing. Don't know why it works but it does. ARGH I'm SOOOOOO tired!!

[girlsyearapart]

Also similar to some of the above my friend had something called a bunny clock which has a timer on the bunny is in bed and when the timer goes to 'morning' time the bunny gets up. Don't know if it would work so young though?