My 1 year old wakes for the day at 5:30am every single day… HELP

[Rosebell100]

So here’s the thing: my 14 month old DS wakes at 5:30/5:45am every day - there is no getting him back to sleep, no cuddling in bed, he is just up and wants to get up and play. I’m desperate to get him to sleep later, even just till 6am would be a bit more civilised.

I don’t think it’s the light, because we have a blackout blind and underneath that one of those stick on black out blind to get every single gap. And he’s in the darkest room of the house which does not really get morning light.

I read that he might be getting up early and compensating with a long morning nap. We were previously putting him down at 8:45 and letting him sleep until he naturally woke up, often an hour and 20 minutes. But over the last six weeks we have been really strict with putting him down at 9am and only letting him do 1hr. But this has made no difference to the early starts.

The rest of our routine is:
5:30am wake
6:30am breakfast
9 - 10 nap
12pm lunch
1:30 - 3pm nap (this is hit and miss sometimes he’ll do 40 minutes other days he’ll do 2 hrs)
5pm tea
6:10 bath time
6:30 bottle
6:45 bed - he is often asleep by 7, but it can be by 7:30 if he's taking a while to settle. He then sleeps perfectly (most of the time) until 5:30am. We have noticed that from about 3am, he is a light sleeper and would wake from a creek of floorboard if we went to the loo in the night.

Generally he’s a pretty full on kid - i wouldn't describe him as ‘chilled’ and he was a ticky sleeper to begin with, we sleep trained at 6months which helped enormously.

My best guess is he’s waking because he’s hungry - but he was born in the 91st percentile and he’s now 98th percentile - he has a good dinner and a bottle before bed and often has big belly at that point so I don't see how I could fill him up more. And I don’t want to start a night feed.

We haven’t tried consistently pushing bedtime back, but there have been occasions where he’s gone down late, but its made no difference to him waking at 5:30am. And if we had an unsettled night, this also wouldn’t make any difference.

Really welcome any thoughts!!

I’d try reducing the naps to 1 a day, roughly 2 hours somewhere between 12-3

By that age DS was on one a day and had to be woken by 3 (gradually down to 2pm) or it impacted how long he took to settle at bedtime

It’s normal, kids wake up early as a rule.

Unfortunately some kids are just early risers. I went to bed at 9pm for years until my dc were old enough read quietly in their rooms til a slightly more civilised time in the morning. I wasted a tonne of money on special clocks and blackout curtains etc to absolutely no effect at all. My 12 year old still doesn't sleep past 6am now.

Mine did this aged 1. I read a good sleep guide that said the most common reason for early wakings in toddlers was going to bed too LATE. It means they're a bit over tired and don't sleep as well (their brains are a bit wired). If they go to bed early their brains are more rested and they sleep better. I've noticed the same with me. I always sleep longer and better if I go to bed early. Try putting your DC to bed 15 mins earlier each night (increasing it gradually if it's not working). It worked with my 2!

I hate to say this OP but my eldest did this until he was about 5 or 6- certainly after he started school. We just had to go with it and I was generally in bed early every night as a result. He was gorgeous and lively and ready for anything. It's just the way he was. He's a giant 16 year old now and I can't get him out of bed in the morning.