16mo up at 4am everyday and it's starting to break me

[MinisterforCheekyFuckery]

I have a 6 year old DD and a 16mo DS.
DS has never been a great sleeper. He wakes a couple of times a night but usually just a case of putting dummy back in, patting his back for a couple of seconds and he's back down. But for several weeks now he's been waking at 4am every morning. He won't resettle, either in his cot or in our bed. He's wide awake and ready to start the day.

DH and I are both completely exhausted. My job is full on, always busy and can be emotionally draining. I'm starting to struggle to keep on top of things and make on the spot decisions (essential in my role) as I'm permanently knackered. No one seems to have noticed so far but I worry that I won't be able to sustain this. DH also works full time, he has a long commute and has to travel frequently. It's affecting our relationship as we're snappy and irritable due to tiredness. I'm impatient with the kids in the mornings. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be enthusiastic about playing with them, taking them out etc as by the time I finish work I feel like I have nothing more to give, then I feel guilty for being a rubbish mum .
I feel bad for DD as she's often woken at 4am too and sometimes can't get back to sleep so she's overtired and emotional later.

DS has a blackout blind, white noise and room temp is fine. He has a good bedtime routine and goes down at 7pm. We've tried putting him to bed later but it makes no difference.

It's really starting to get to me. I ended up in tears at about 5 o clock this morning as I was so tired that the thought of getting through another day feeling like a zombie and everything we need to do before going back to work on Monday (just normal house stuff, food shopping, laundry, kids swimming lessons, homework etc) seemed overwhelming.

Any advice would be very much appreciated as I just don't know where we're going wrong.

When does he nap in the day?

From 12pm- 2pm usually.

Ok i'm watching this eagerly as my 13 month old is exactly the same! We also have blackout curtains, a room thermometer. She has her nighttime bottle at 7, usually goes down by 7.30 (like you we've tried later, makes no difference). She wakes in the night for a nappy change and another bottle and most often goes back down without a fuss but come 4am wide awake and wants to get up and play. Stood up in her cot, chatting away. I'm absolutely exhausted too, I feel your pain. You're not alone if that helps.

May sound extreme but could you not all go to bed at 7? Or take it in turns? At least then you’d not be so tired. And it wouldn’t be permanent

Of course putting him down to sleep later will make a difference! you just need to persevere. It won't happen in a day or even in a week ir two but it will happen. Sadly with some children you can't have both an evening to yourself and waking up at a decent time.

I've heard this so many times before here, moaning about children waking up silly early. It just doesn't happen in other countries, at least not where I'm from, where no child would ever be put to sleep at 7pm!

Try putting him down earlier. We started putting our daughter down at 6.30 to try and combat overtiredness and it really helped. Overtiredness contributes massively to early wakings. Don't be scared of an earlier bedtime, you've got nothing to lose right?!

May sound extreme but could you not all go to bed at 7?

DD already goes to bed at 7pm. DH often doesn't get home til late, on a good day he's back just in time to read DD a bedtime story. We're both in bed by 9pm as it is, if we went any earlier I'm no sure when we'd get anything done as we're both at work all day.

Sending sympathy. DS2 was exactly the same, but from birth. You seem to suggest that something has changed in the last few week, which is good, as things may therefore change back. Could be teething, could be one of those phases.

With ds2 it was personality. He was a very happy, sociable chap, who was and still is, awake the moment he opens his eyes. He used to bellow "Mummy! I awaaaake! I plaaaaay!" at 4am. Any attempt to ignore him, he got louder. Any attempt to go in and settle him, he leapt to his feet with a huge grin and was ready to go.

To survive, I taught him to whisper. "Its nighttime. We have to whisper," had a snack and a drink ready alongside gentle dvds - which calming rather than stimulating ready by the TV, and a box of quiet toys - ie no duplo to crash around - ready to put out on the floor, and a blanket to go over my head on the settee. The lounge was babyproofed and I snoozed whilst he played, interrupted occasionally, but resting. I also went to bed very early.

He gradually improved, but it was by half an hour at a time.

Best of luck.

My DD is an early riser on the whole but she goes through phases. We had months of 5am which turned to 4am in October with the clocks but the last couple months, it’s suddenly between 6.30-7.30am.

If it helps, the clocks are changing fairly soon which will push you on an hour at least!

Some kids are just horribly early risers, it’s tough. We take it in turns as to who gets up. Every other day, my OH gets up & takes her downstairs while I roll over & go back to sleep until my alarm! And on a weekend, we give each other a proper lie in on alternate days! It really helps! Could you do something similar?!

It's a notorious sign of being over tired. I would bring bedtime forward to 6.30 and see if that makes a difference. You could also try 6pm. I've done a lot of reading recently regarding baby sleep and this is always recommended by the 'experts'

I'd drop the 2 hour nap.Wake him after an hour and see if it makes a difference.

LaCerbiatta we tried keeping him up later for over a week (I can't remember how many nights we persevered for) and it just resulted in him being miserable and overtired in the evenings as well as being up at the same time each morning. He is always very tired and rubbing his eyes/yawning by 6.30pm and this pre-dates the early waking so I don't necessarily think his bedtime is the problem. But I'm getting pretty desperate so we may have to revisit the idea. Although we do have friends whose toddlers refuse to go to bed until gone 9pm and are still up at the crack of dawn so the idea that if you keep them up they will inevitably sleep later obviously doesn't hold true for every child.

My second dc did this for a pretty much 2 years. It was bloody awful. Now it's between 6.30 and 7am and life is a lot easier, even if the other child is up and down in the night.

I'd drop the 2 hour nap.Wake him after an hour and see if it makes a difference.

We tried this too! Sorry, should have said that in my OP. Made no difference other than he was really grotty all afternoon once I woke him.

I agree with limiting the nap.

I also think that if you persisted with a later bedtime it would work eventually. Like with jet lag and clocks changing, people do adapt in the end.

Oh, cross post.

It’s partly age and it does get better, but I really would persist with shortening nap or later bedtime.

Bol87 Taking turns getting up is an option when DH is here, we've done it before but not consistently. He's away a lot for work so then it's just down to me.

If he is rubbing his eyes by 6.30 them I would do bedtime at 6.15pm. Give it a go for a week. It is highly unlikely he will wake earlier so nothing to lose. I know earlier seems like it will cause even earlier waking but it doesn't if it's what they need. I wouldn't try later again as you've said it doesn't work.

Oh my god me too me too! My 16 month old has always been the most amazing sleeper (was so smug about his 7-7 sleep)... but the past 2 weeks he's been waking progressively earlier and we are BROKEN! It was 4:50am today but it's been as early as 3:30 which is hideous. We thought we'd nailed the baby sleep thing but now we realise we are at the mercy of our child sleeping when he wants and it was him not us 😭
We give out son a 1.5-2 hour lunch nap.too, usually 12:30-2:30. I'm so reluctant to cut that down as it is my only respite - he is so full on. Um.also hesitant to put him to bed layer, partly because he's tired by 7 and partly because we get lots of our work done in the evening (teachers).

The only thing I am wondering is if he's scared... the past 2 weeks he has cried when we leave the room.at bedtime unless we sit there on the chair in the cot we while he falls asleep. He's never done that before. I'm wondering if that's connected.

Anyway, hope you have some improvement soon... it's torture isn't it!

Bit of an update: based on some of the advice on this thread we decided to work on the premise that DS is overtired and put him to bed earlier as this is the only thing we hadn't already tried! I put him down for 6.30pm instead of 7pm and he slept til 5.30am! Of course, DH and I were both wide awake at 4am anyway as we've gotten used to it but it still felt like a luxury to be able to stay in bed and rest for that extra hour and a half! Who knows, it may be a fluke, we could do the same thing tonight and it may not work but the important thing is I actually feel hopeful for the first time in weeks knowing that he can sleep past 4am

We are going through the exact same thing with my 18 month old, been a good 3/4 weeks now of this, we tried the late bed, early bed, cutting naps etc but nothing seems to have worked yet.

There does seem to be a sleep regression this stage so i’m just putting it down to this, last time we went through a regression it lasted a good 6-7 weeks so if this doesn’t improve in a few weeks i don’t know what i’ll do 😫

Hopefully your DS will sleep later now that you changed the bedtime