How stop baby waking at 5am

[jellybelly22]

We are on our knees. It's actually getting earlier, today it was 4:30am! She goes to bed relatively early at about 6pm but she no longer has an afternoon nap and is absolutely exhausted by this time. I push it as long as I can in the hope that the later she goes to bed the longer she'll sleep in in the morning but it's been 5am or before religiously for weeks now.

She is 14 months and co sleeps with us. Any ideas?

'I’m not tired. 🤷🏻‍♀️'

Ok so you don't need to go to bed early then?
OP is tired, I'm suggesting to go to bed with the kids as a solution.

@GCWorkNightmare

It seems your LO sleeps 10.5 hours per night, this is more than enough. Many online sleep schedules assume a child sleeps 12 hrs per night. Unfortunately, this is far from standard.
Our child consistently sleeps 9, max 10 hours per night. I used to think I'm doing something wrong, but apparently, some children only need as little as 8 hours of sleep per day.
She would be up at 3-4 am if she went to bed so early.
We prefer to "sleep in", so her bedtime is 9 pm in summer.

I'm afraid it's one of those things. My children have been up earlier and earlier. We've tried black out blinds etc but the birds are noisy and it warms up fairly quickly.

14 months is too early to drop an afternoon nap, mine were just past 2 when they dropped theirs. Give her a short nap after lunch and then between between 7 & 8pm. That's what I did with mine and they woke up between 7:30 and 8am.

It should read and then bedtime between 7 & 8pm.

The morning nap is too long so she doesn't want a later nap. Cut it down by 10 min increments and go and wake her from it. Try and implement a midday nap.

You will probably find she drops the morning nap pretty quickly.

That said, my first DD had given up all naps by 18/19 months so the idea that toddlers continue to nap until around 3 or 4 is not always the case.

I'd put her in a cot. Bed time at 7, will probably sleep to 7. Around this age I think about 12 hours is 'normal'. Also try feeding more at night, they may be waking because they are hungry.

Agree. I never co-slept (too scared), but slept with DC in the same room, after 8 months it disturbed him. As soon as I moved out of his room he slept better!

Oh this is what is probably screwing it up. At this age you should drop the morning nap and keep the lunch nap. So wake at 7, nap 12.30-3.00ish (wake by 3.30), then bed 6.30/7.

I had 5 am wake ups until about 17 months and then it suddenly changed to 7am. Now it can be anywhere between 6 and 7.

I hear what you're saying about the afternoon nap but if she won't sleep then what can I do? The timings are all totally messed up. Because she's up so early she's knackered and wanting a sleep by 10. This nap seems to be enough to see her through the rest of the day (well until 6ish) and she doesn't want or need an afternoon nap. I wish she would but I can't force her to sleep! I put her in her a cot, shush her, soothe her, play white noise like we do at other bedtimes but she just don't have it.

I think I have to try getting her to bed later so I'll try and make the morning nap as late as possible so it falls around lunchtime.

It'll all just feel like a distant memory soon. Keep it up

6pm is just too early. Lots of toddlers don’t need 12 hours sleep so you likely will never see her sleep last 5am while you put her to bed at 6, that’s already 11 hours.

At that age I'd rework the nap schedule to get bedtime later.

If having a morning nap, push it to noon. If you are struggling to move it later start by cutting it shorter and shorter until its 20 min max and reintroduce a post lunch nap then drop the morning one.

Also 1 hr is a really short nap. At that age you should be at peak nap, when you put them down at noon and get 3 hours on a good day!

Don't feed more at night. All that does is reduce daytime calorie intake. Offer more solid food during the day to prevent them waking hungry.

You could also try blackout blinds for the windows (the stick on ones) and white noise to cancel out the birds waking noise...

Here's an odd idea, if little one always wakes at 5 and wake then yourself at 4.55 for a couple days so they get used to sleeping and then being woken by you, then do a couple days 5am then 5.15 then 5.30

That did work on mine actually as he stopped waking himself up and seemed to sleep deep until I woke him, actually got us to 6am in the end, but I did a later bed time each night I moved it back by 15 mins :)

I think you might need to pop her in her own room and work on her settling herself. Maybe not at the moment with the heat and light mornings. But can you set up her own room, start to introduce that to her, put black out blinds up etc.

My dd was a natural early riser, always has been, but 4.30am would have done me in (you have my sympathies). My dd would go to bed at 6/7am too, I found if it was later she'd still wake at the same time, just be mega grumpy as she was tired

I don’t know how two adults and a 14 month sleep in one bed without waking each other. Especially in this heat.

I would make the transition to her own room now and roll with the punches for a few weeks till you crack it.

I meant to put 'then wake them yourself at 4.55' not whatever I put lol

Yes we found co sleeping was disturbing my DD's sleeping, and she slept much better in her own room!

I have a 14 month old. The past couple of weeks she's been waking at around 5am.

She's always (ALWAYS) gone down 8.30/9pm, and slept until 7.30/8am.

I'm blaming the warm weather and sun. We have blackout blinds, but brightness still creeps in. She did the same on holiday in April.

She was up at 4.55am this morning, wide awake. Bought her in with us, she spent half an hour clambering over us, before DH and I got sick of feet in our eye sockets, relented and got up. She's asleep on me on the sofa now, but is about to be woken up for nursery, so that'll be fun!

No idea what the answer is... pray for rain?

We used some suggestions from the book No Cry Sleep Solution, can’t remember exactly what we did but one of the things was treat it as though it really was the middle of the night - if she woke up at 2am, what would you do? It might take ages and involve short term pain for both adults (as you will both need to stay in bed and ‘pretend’ it’s the middle of the night)

Agree with pp about sacrificing mornings or evenings, my dd woke at 5am from a baby untill 3/4years, she went to bed at 6 every day no problem, the early mornings were a killer but I had every evening free so I couldn't complain

Slowly move the nap later and layer by 10 minutes until ita closer to 12.30. The wake windows are important. I'd say your baby is waking so early because they are overtired. Day sleep affects night sleep.