Toddler suddenly waking very early. So miserable.

[ibajlp]

18 month old suddenly waking at 5:55 without fail. Used to sleep until gone 7. I’ve tried everything in the last two weeks and nothing is changing it! Slightly earlier bedtime, slightly later, more exercise, more food, less food, more drink and less drink etc. The room is pitch black so it’s not a light issue. I’m a lone parent and this feels like the worst thing as it’s making my days seems even longer. Please help

It's simplistic to say go to bed earlier. People have things to do in the evening or they maybe cant sleep early. Im never asleep before midnight, it's just not how my body clock works. 6am is horribly early to me. We're up at 7:30 for work/school and nearly always have a lie in on Saturday. So the OP has my sympathy.

I have never ever ever understood how “longer nap” is actionable advice. Of course I’d bloody love him to sleep for 2 hours after lunch, but if he doesn’t, I can hardly force him can I?

Make sure the nappy is thick enough to absorb all night time.
Ensure babyy is receiving enough Milk / milk products.
Reducing Milky foods / drinks is a mistake.
Give rich foods at supper time to see baby though.
Give Banana ( magnesium rich)

Are you setting him down too EARLY at night????
......speaking to friends years ago when mine were little and the mums who put their s down to bed at 6 pm were the ones complaining baby was up at 6 am.
I was fortunate, I never had this problem .
Most times they went to bed around 8 pm.

Haha so glad I’m not the only one who does this! The fake sleep works everytime! Well it does with my toddler, the baby is up at 5.30 regardless of how much I pretend 😅

I found with my toddler it was a phase when she woke early, she’s reliably a 7am girl but occasionally will have a month of earlier wakes, and conversely a month where she sleeps later. I’ve just tried to keep bedtime consistent (she dropped her naps by 18 months so that wasn’t an impact) and make sure she was fed and exercised well, and if it was too early would bring her in with me and pretend to be asleep until she also fell back to sleep.

Two kids. First one was a 5.30 am sort of boy. Everyday, wide awake at 5.30. I hated it but…. I put him to bed by 6.30 / 7ish every night without fail & I learned to embrace the 5.30 wake up. I did my washing, cleaned stuff whilst he beetled around under my feet. I also went to bed about 9pm myself!
second son…. I was ready for the early mornings! Knew how to deal with it. He’s 2.5 years and has literally never woken up before 7am.
Good news is the 5.30 stint didn’t last forever…. About a year, which sounds like a long time, but really wasn’t!

Around 6am is normal for a toddler to wake. 8pm sleep is late. On top of that you’ve lost most of your evening.

Ots swings and roundabouts, but the scenario posted seems largely normal.

Unless they do shift work, if they are both at home working till 1am there is something fundamentally wrong with their work/life balance.

My grandson has always stayed over one night a week. As a toddler he'd share my big bed and at 5.45am would sit upright and press the duracell button and we were off! Moved in to his own room at about 7yrs old - came running in at 5.45, go Granny, go. Now he's 15 he lies in bed in a darkened room with an ipad and doesn't emerge until I encourage him out from under his rock with food noises. How does he go 12hrs without a pee? Anyway, hang in there OP, just give it time 😁

6am is a normal wake up time mitt that early.

This might not help , but my son started this at the same age . Would wake up at 4:30/5 and continued to do this until he turned 4. I’m also a lone parent. This is how I managed it (I tried EVERYTHING before landing on this as the best way to ensure I manage to get enough sleep) :
my son slept in my room, so I made sure it was safe for him while I carried on sleeping.
I made a Spotify story playlist and as soon as he woke up, I’d put it on. He could get another 30 mins or so lying down listening.
I’d have one of those baby cereal bar thingies for him to eat if he started moaning about food.
I’d also have a small box of toys (rotated every night) that he could play with in bed

Now he’s older , he wakes up around 6, which is slightly better. I let him play some phonics games on the iPad in bed next to me. It’s not ideal, but it works for us. He’s just a natural early riser , and I have to work in the evening, so not possible for me to go to bed earlier

hang in there, lone parenting gets easier as they get older

But every child is different and it often isn’t as easy as putting a child to bed later.

I tried over the course of a year to get my son to sleep in later , with one of the strategies being to put him to bed progressively later over a few months (I think I did it over almost 3 months ). I moved bedtime to 8pm and kept it there for over a month. My son was still waking up at 4:30, but the difference was that he was an absolute grouch because he wouldn’t nap any longer in the day and was getting fewer hours of sleep in the night.

it’s often not as easy as saying ‘put the child to sleep later and they’ll sleep later ‘

6am is pretty average tbh. What do you do through the day? Do you have to go to work? Stay home?

That would have been way too early for me! We had a groclock which definitely helped, think that may have been when they were a little older though. As others have suggested I used to let them come in with me and, more often than not, we went back to sleep for a bit. I always encouraged longer sleep as I am not an early riser. I have to get up at 6:30 for work now and I hate it!

They do alternate shifts. Called not having to pay a fortune for childcare.

8pm sleep is hardly late after you collect a child at 5.30/6 from nursery then get then home and do dinner bath and bed.

As for 8pm leaving no evening for the adults? What time are you going to bed yourselves. Say going at 11pm still gives 7 hours sleep till 7 am

Mine was up by 5am from about 18 months until halfway through reception. There was nothing I could do, so just altered my day around it. I was working for myself and there were no other kids to consider, so it wasn’t really a problem. I just got used to getting up earlier and going to bed earlier. The hardest thing was having to wait 4-5 hours before anything opened.

Our youngest was 6 never changed alternating nap and bedtime made no difference
he didn’t need that much sleep never cranky or tired just didn’t need a lot of sleep

just got used to it 6 is a normal start really

What happens if you scoop him straight into bed with you?

My alarm for work goes off around that time 😢. It is too early!

I think mine tended to wake between 6-7am when they were little. I’d either let them play for a bit (room was safe) and carry on dozing or if they got fractious give up and start the day. They were always in bed by around 7pm though (after CBeebies bedtime hour) so at least it felt like I had an evening.

Definitely shorten the daytime nap and see if that helps.