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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

DD 2.5yrs waking at 5.30am. Is it the nap?

19 replies

bumbums · 22/09/2011 07:15

Hi, DD who is two and a half is now waking at 5.30am pretty well every morning. As you can imagine this is getting rather old now and I hope to do something to correct her waking time.

She still happily naps for up to an hour and a half after lunch and then goes to bed at 7 with out fuss. I do cut the nap to 1 hour some days depending on what we've done.

I always presumed that when she no longer needed to nap she would start having trouble settling at bed time. She is my second DC and that is what DS did.

But am thinking now that it is the naps that need to stop? Or is this a phase with her that is to be got through?

Any suggestions gratefully recieved.

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Nevercan · 22/09/2011 09:37

My DD is also 2.5. She is the same but wakes at 6am and having an hours nap in the afternoon. However she was at nursery yesterday and didn't want to have a nap and she was v tired and didn't wake until 7am. I think it would be worth trying reducing the nap to say 40 mins and see if that makes a difference or drop it all together for a couple of days and see what happens

Original poster

bumbums · 22/09/2011 11:20

Yeah, I guess it is the beginning of the end for the nap. Just got the eldest dc off to reception and kind of wanted to enjoy the peace of the afternoon nap for a little longer!

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Nevercan · 22/09/2011 13:23

Too true. I would love for dd1 to keep hers too as it would give me an hours peace with baby

kblu · 22/09/2011 13:29

My lo is 3.5 years now and he's always been an early riser, whether he has a nap or not, it's normally 5.30 on a bad day and 7.00 am on a (really) good day, more often than not between 6-6.30. To be honest i've found the putting to bed later/earlier/not having a nap/reducing the nap a bit of an enigma when it comes to my son. Nothing seems to work to change his habit of waking up early. I don't tend to try and reduce his naptime now as waking him up before he's ready just means an hour's worth of grumpiness from him!

You could try it though and see if it works for you. Every lo is different.

Catsdontcare · 22/09/2011 13:32

Could it be hunger? I know my ds went through a spell of early rising that seemed to correlate with him not having eaten well at tea time.

Original poster

bumbums · 22/09/2011 14:18

I'll see if she can have some cereal at bed time and see if that makes a difference. Thanks Catsdontcare. She's not having a nap today so we'll see how she sleeps tonight!

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Jesusgirl · 23/09/2011 03:37

Dd is an early waker too- 6:30ish. When she's asleep at 8am (very very rarely) we all start to wonder!!

It doesn't really matter how late or early she goes to bed, if she's had a nap or not. It's just her cycle I guess.

Look on the bright side, once school starts, no school morning struggles. My ds year 3, had always been an early bird too and it's so nice as he's up and ready sometimes even before we wake up!

olibeansmummy · 23/09/2011 22:03

Ds is 2.3 and was the same so we dropped his nap and he now sleeps til 7-8 am :) sometimes he's grumpy late afternoon/ evening, but not enough to have a sleep. He does tend to have one nap a week though on a sat/sun to recover from a busy week at nursery.

BsshBossh · 24/09/2011 22:02

At 2.5 it still could be teeth. My DD (3) had stopped napping at 2 and it did extend her sleep but around 2.5 her molars started popping out and we had several weeks of pre-6am wakings. Her molars are still popping out (very very very slowly) and we still get a few early wakings still (though rare now) but it was particularly bad around 2.5...

Original poster

bumbums · 25/09/2011 07:12

Thats interesting BsshBossh. Could she be waking early because of her teeth and be showing no other teething signs? She's eating fine and isn't showing any signs of fever or pain in her mouth.

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MrsFletch · 25/09/2011 09:22

If this has just happened recently could your daughter be a bit cold? The temperature drops lowest around 4-5am. This always affected my two who are now 11 and 9. Even now I know when it's time to change to the winter quilt when they start waking earlier than normal.

Octaviapink · 25/09/2011 11:55

IME all toddlers wake at 5.30.

brettgirl2 · 25/09/2011 14:08

Is she waking up because she is doing a wee? I am having issues with my daughter demanding her night time nappy off at that time to use the toilet. She goes back to bed till.the sun comes up on her groclock but I'm awake gah!

brettgirl2 · 25/09/2011 14:09

Oh and she doesnt have a nap!

BoysAreLikeDogs · 25/09/2011 15:30

think about what environmental things could be disturbing her - heating/hot water clicking on, milk being delivered, lorries to supermarket?

BoysAreLikeDogs · 25/09/2011 15:31

yy to being cold - once we got our heating on in winter our kids slept in big time

BsshBossh · 25/09/2011 16:58

My DD didn't show any other symptoms when molar teething except early waking. It does pass so don't worry.

BsshBossh · 25/09/2011 16:59

Dropping the nap, though, made my DD sleep a reliable 12 hours though...

Sleepglorioussleep · 25/09/2011 19:35

Our ds is nearly three and still naps for an hour to two and a half hours. I figure that it's worth the early start and relatively late bed ( reads in bed til eight or half past ) to get some time to catch up or be with dd 2 (12 weeks). And tea time is he'll if he doesn't sleep!

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