5am is the new wake up time du jour! Help.

[AnnieDelores]

My 13 month old had been sleeping wonderfully from 7.30pm to 7ish am for 4 months.......until 3 weeks ago. Now he is rustling around and shouting from 5am until I give in and go and get him at about 6am.

I thought it might be his teeth as the back ones are coming through, but it's the same EVERY morning without fail. I also thought he might be cold so ive layered him up. That hasn't worked either.

He struggles to stay awake till 11 when he used to have hs big nap and now wants to nap at 9 or 10 which is too early for him to make it through the day. This means he wants to kip at 4pm which is just too close to bed time.

Any suggestions as to how I can break this habit as I can see from his grizzly behaviour in the morning that he is not getting enough sleep overnight.

I'd love to know. We've had this for two and a half years and counting.

Personally I would take him in your own bed at 5 am and he probably will fall asleep for a few more hours.

I posted something slightly similar.... Ours have now shifted to 0545 which is marginally better. What about giving him a 15min nap at 0900/30 and pushing his big nap forward till 1.00? At least he won't be as cranky in the eve and not go to bed overtired.

Have you tried giving a bottle of warm milk and putting back down. Works most of the time for me...

Also, black out curtains may help ...

None of the above has worked for us. Not fiddling with bedtimes or naptimes, not changing eating times, quantities or balance (ie more or less protein, carb etc). Literally nothing. I'm resigned to a 5am wakeup until they're teenagers.

Zuleika I empathise. Nothing has worked for us either. We've tried all you suggest, plus warm milk (drifts off for 15 mins, to wake up again bang on 5) and bringing in bed with us (ds won't have it, not us). We've jiggled nap times and ensured first nap is after 9, we've reinforced bed time routine etc etc. some good news though; eldest ds was the same and grew out of it (by age 10 ).

This morning it was 6 which is better. Taking him into our bed doesn't work because he just gets excited and clambers all over us. We have black out blinds. I'm going to try some milk if it's before 5.30am. To be fair he is a good boy and
Goes to bed awake at around 7 and falls asleep by himself by 7.30 so can't complain too much. I do think he is just an early riser!

4.20 for me this morning. I've resorted to taking him downstairs and dozing on the sofa while he potters around in his sleeping bag. No lights on, no entertainment of any sort. He seemed quite happy. He won't go back to sleep in our bed and I refuse to start doing foodstuffs at that hour of the morning - plus I think it'll just encourage his stomach to think that's when the day begins.