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Parenting

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3 year old early wake ups

5 replies

Ellie1311 · 24/03/2021 06:54

My 3 year old went into a bed a few weeks ago and has been waking up ridiculously early (anywhere between 4 and 5am) and just trashing his room, until he gets bored and starts banging on the walls or rattling the gate to wake us up. We didn’t know whether this was coincidence with turning 3 and his naps are now very up and down (some days he’ll sleep for 2 hours, other days he’ll refuse) but it doesn’t matter if he’s in bed asleep for 7.30 and we’ve also tried putting him to bed a bit later around 8.30-9, he’s still up stupidly early.
I’m feeling terribly sorry for his older brother who’s 6, he LOVES his sleep and we generally used to have to wake him up most mornings. Now he’s complaining that his brother is waking him up (their rooms are next to eachother) so he’s losing out on up to 3 hours of sleep each morning and is coming home exhausted from school.

Has anyone gone through this stage? Is there anything I can do to stop him waking so early and making an absolute racket in the process ? Believe me when I’ve tried various briberies/threatening methods in terms of taking his toys/dummy away but he just could not care less.

He has blackout blinds but also has a nightlight on which I think could be a hindrance but we’ve tried without that and he’s been up in the night crying saying it’s too dark.

We’re all pretty exhausted 😞

OP posts:
Thatwentbadly · 24/03/2021 07:42

Get rid of the naps.

Ellie1311 · 24/03/2021 09:38

@Thatwentbadly

Get rid of the naps.
With him waking up so early he’s exhausted though! And even if he refuses his nap he still gets up at 5. Can’t win :/
OP posts:
SeaToSki · 24/03/2021 09:41

Empty his room, and I mean empty it. Just a mattress on the floor and his bedding and one teddy. He will get bored and probably go back to sleep. It may take a couple more mornings for him to give up though, 3 yr olds are pretty strong willed. Can his big brother camp in the living room for the nights when you are working on this?

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Thatwentbadly · 24/03/2021 11:24

Try it for a week and see what happens.

Get a black out blind and curtains which start from the ceiling.

itbereet · 25/03/2021 00:06

Yes, my eldest was like this and we tried everything. For us, nothing worked but I know other parents who had similar issues around this age and dropping naps helped, but it took a bit of time.

We ended up taking it in turns to get up when she did to keep her occupied and eventually she stopped doing it, but only when she started school Grin

She's 12 now and still doesn't need as much sleep as other kids.

Hope he settles down soon!

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