Please help my toddler sleep!

[Onceuponatime56]

I have an 18 month old who is on one nap after lunch, around 12.15 to 2pm or sometimes a bit shorter. Bedtime is normally 6.30 as she can’t stay up later, later means more night wakes. The issue is morning wakes can be as early as 4am and she is wide awake ready for the day. If we persist it can take us 2 hours to get her back to sleep for 30 minutes. We’ve tried a later bedtime and it made no difference at all. Any suggestions please?

I feel for you as we were exactly the same.

You no doubt will get replies on here and advice in real life saying her bedtime is too early.

For us the early bedtime came secondly. Child was waking up at 4 so we made bedtime earlier as that's the only bit we could control and I wanted to make sure they had the right amount of sleep.

I'm afraid we didn't find a way to solve it but around 22 months they just started to sleep longer. Things will get better for you.

What do you do at 4? Can you child proof your room and stay in bed whilst the play on the floor? You can doze a bit.

Do you treat 4am as a night waking? No attention, just say it’s still night and tuck her back in (repeat 4 million times if necessary).

A gro clock also helped my 2yo. We have a Mella. Somehow he is more inclined to believe the clock that it’s still night time :)

I just remembered what else I did.

I decided that 4am was night time and 5am was more thing time, so I let her cry. I know that's not for everyone but I was desperate. She was nearly 2. I stopped any morning milk so there was no incentive to get up. I stopped bringing her into bed at 4.
Two days of 4am crying and she started waking around 5.

Just to add to all the above: I decided that 6am was “getting up time” and I made a big thing of it: look your clock is green! It’s getting up time!

He tested me for about a week or two, attempting to get up at all possible hours, and attempting to press all the buttons on the clock to make it wake up, but finally realised it wasn’t worth it as he didn’t get anything in return other than being put straight back into bed.

Does she go to sleep? Do you lay with her till she falls asleep. I've found that can be a problem as they then don't know how to get back to sleep themselves if they wake up.

We also used a gro clock, still do in fact and he's 5! Started at 6am and gradually moved it back to 7am. Anything before then is treated like any other night time waking.. so it's not time to get up back to bed etc

I really feel for you as we were in an identical situation. My DS started this when he was around 13 months, and we tried everything. I mean everything. We paid two sleep consultants and still nothing changed. It was awful and we were exhausted! So unfortunately although I have no real advice, you’re not alone and it will definitely get better - DS began to refuse his nap just after turning 2, and dropped it completely at 2y3m, which instantly improved things. Almost overnight he started sleeping 7-6.30! We also got a groclock which has worked wonders. He’ll be 3 in March and now usually sleeps 12 hours, if he wakes early he just hangs out in bed waiting for the clock to tell him it’s morning. Really hoping things improve for you soon!!!