dd two years old - what time should be bedtime?

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please help, we're desperate. dd's bedtime is 7:30pm. wake up time should be (and used to be) 6:30am.

only now it's regularly 5am. she may be woken up by her brother making little noises and us getting up to him at 4:30ish (ds is 6 months and still wakes at night). we don't make much noise, but it's impossible to get her back to bed but she is a nightmare the whole day - overtired and miserable.

how can we change this? we are super quiet when ds wakes up, but she seems to be preprogrammed to wake up really early at the moment.

is she going to bed too early?

Is it that she is simply waking when it gets light? Do you have black-out curtains in her room?

Maybe try putting her to bed a bit later? We've recently had a bit of success with this - DS (20 months) was consistently waking at 5am, after being put to bed at 7:30pm. Now we put him to bed at just after 8pm, and he sleeps till 6am (a lie-in for us) Seems to be working!

Does she still have a sleep during the day? I can't imagine my DD surviving on so little sleep, she sleeps 12 hours at night and 1.5-2 hours in the day. If she misses a nap or sleeps badly she can wake early and be utter misery all day.

I don't think I'd put her to bed any later if she is tired during the day - she clearly needs more sleep, not less. With our 2, I used to have black-out curtains and if they went through a phase of waking at 5am, I'd act just like I would if it had been 2am - it's still the middle of the night as far as I'm concerned so straight back to bed, quiet voices and I'd act very sleepy. They did get the message and would eventually start sleeping again until a more reasonable time. 5am starts were not an option here and that was not negotiable. Just make sure the bedroom is dark enough.

Good luck.

agree, depends on whether she still naps. If she's getting a lot of daytime sleep she may not need as much as you think at night. OTOH, if she doesn't nap anymore then I agree that an earlier bedtime can work. It works for DS - something to do, I think, with the fact that he stirs in his sleep before he wakes - if it's dark, he goes back to sleep for a couple of hours; if it's already light he's up for the day.

Are they sharing a room? I had DD2 in my room until she was 20 months for this reason.

Blackout blinds are a great idea. Plus I would drop the daytime nap - which is hell for a few days until they adapt/

DS (who is 2.8) is the same - bedtime used to be 7.30pm and he would sleep until about 6.30-7am. But when he dropped his nap a couple of months ago things started to go wrong and now he is up at 5-5.30am most days. His window has a blind and curtains which both have blackout lining so his room is really dark, but it's like he has some kind of in-built sensor for when the sun comes up! We are now putting him to bed at 6.30pm. He is still waking early-ish but now more like 6am. Plus he is so exhausted come 6.30pm (and so are we!) that he falls asleep instantly. Although he still wakes quite early, he is a much happier and more cheerful boy during the day as he is still getting nearly a full 12 hours sleep. If he wakes earlier than 6am we tell him it's still night time and he has to go back to sleep etc - he usually stays awake but will lie quietly in our bed for another 30 mins or so which also helps. So - in short - if I were you I'd put her to bed earlier, not later. I'd say she is unlikely to wake any earlier but she will be getting more sleep and you will be getting more rest time too.

I also remember DS woke really early for a lot of the time last summer but during the winter we regularly got to lie in until 8-8.30am so I am hoping that after the next 2-3 months of lighter mornings he will start sleeping later again!

thanks she is still having a nap, which we have recently started limiting to 1h15m as she wasn't going to sleep at night until 8-9pm (hours of wailing at the stair gate closing off her room was misery for her and for us). nap time is 1pm to 2:15pm

we have curtains which make the room very dark, but there is some light creepage around the edges so she can tell the difference. we could definitely look into blackout blinds.

we were wondering if we should be cutting out the nap or changing the bedtime - sounds like not. she has been really tired ever since it started happening and is now constantly telling me she wants to sleep, but it's actually quite hard to get her to go to sleep (just had to persuade her to her room for her nap, which she was loudly insisting she now didn't want, and 5 mins later she was out cold).

she's also really hard to wake from her nap. sounds like more sleep rather than less is required.

the worst thing is when she does wake up at 5am, she is MISERABLE. wailing and crying and inconsolable. it's hard on us and her, seeing so upset (she is usually a sunny little thing).

Been there! My DH had more patience with it than me - he is an early riser. I just used to say "it's not time to get up yet" and take her back to bed. She knew I meant business too, but if he got up for her then it was much harder to get her back to bed :o (sucker!) We have blackout curtains but also had to make pelmet as ther was too much light creepage over the top of the curtains esp. this time of year

I am aware it is probably just a massive coincidence but we bought a groclock when ds was waking at 5.30 and refusing to go back to sleep (had about 3 wks of this when he hit two yrs old, previously he was a horrendous sleeper all night). from day 2 with the clock he stayed in bed til 7 and has even managed some 8am starts. Its now part of our bedtime routine to set the clock, read the story and let ds tell us he will stay in bed til he sees the sun. It could just be coincidence but he seems much more confident in his room, naps whether 35 mins or two hours (never longer) don't seem to impact wake up time now. If you don't mind the expense (about £30) then give it a go.

Another idea/tool you can try is this
www.goodnitelite.com

It is more straight forward than a clock, basically it is a night light that you program the times, it is blue light/moon all night, in the morning it switches to a yellow light/sun. We have our moon set to come on at 6.45pm (start of bedtime routine), and the sun comes 'up' at 7.30am.

It is not an instant fix (and you have to slowly move the wake up time over a few weeks) but we have used it for nearly a year now (brought it after a few too many 6am starts), and DD (2.8) understands that it is not morning until the sun comes 'up' in her room. The odd time she wakes earlier we just go in and reminder that the sun is not up yet and she must stay in bed.

Even with the lighter mornings she has been in bed till past 8am the old time recently so I am sure she wakes at 6 or 7 and see the moon is still on and goes back to sleep.

The trick is to be consistant with it or they won't take it/you seriously.

My DD also still naps for 1.5-2 hours a day but I know this varies with different children.