Can anyone help? 12mo waking early

[TennisShoes]

My 12 month old has just started waking up much earlier. He used to wake up at around 7, and now it's around 5/5.30ish. This is too early for us as we are not early birds and both wfh so no need to wake up with the birds! But I don't know if it's at all possible to tweak baby's wake up time till later? Can anyone advise please? Is there something in his routine we can change?

Current daily routine is:
6.30-7am (used to be) wake up
Breakfast / play etc

9.30 nap (I tried a shorter awake window before first nap but he wasn't tired. 3hrs seems to work).
Nap usually 75-90mins, so wake around 10.45-11am

Lunch etc
Around 2pm nap for about 90 mins approx
3.30pm wake

After dinner, bathtime is at 7pm
Followed by milk and bed
DS usually falls asleep between 7.30-7.45pm and usually sleeps through.

Eats well - 3 full meals and a snack.

This is definitely not what you want to hear, but when Dd did this (although it’s was 4:30am - yuck!) I tried everything under the sun. Later nap, earlier, shorter, changing bedtime, changing the routine, waking her up after a sleep cycle, black out blinds, white noise, snack before bed, no milk on wake up - you name it, I tried it! Nothing worked.

She just had to grow out of it I think. I ended up going to bed at 9 so I got enough sleep, and eventually she went back to 6:30-7:30 wake ups which I can cope with.

Oh dear! That sounds awful for you

I think they just aren’t tired as have long naps as well. Nhs says 11-14hrs per day sleep for 1-3 year old. So if they are currently having around 3hrs of daytime naps, they probably only need 9-10hrs overnight.

14 month old here on a good day sleeps approx 10-10.5 hrs overnight (8pm-6/6.30am), and naps for 1-2hrs daytime ( just one nap)

No concrete advice as 13 mo woke up at 5.30 this morning, but that's 2 massive naps a day.. how do you think DC would fare on just 1 nap? Mine both transitioned to a single nap after lunch around their first birthday.

I would push the first nap until 10am and wake him at 11.30 and then keep the afternoon nap to an hour. It will be hard at first and he will be grumpy but stick with it. In the morning when he wakes up don't feed him until the time you usually want to eat and keep the lights low. Then once it gets to 6.30/7am turn the lights on, say good morning, time for breakfast etc. It works a bit like jet lag, so if they get used to eating early, they start waking hungry. This worked for my little one and he now sleeps in until 7.30/8am

Yeah that's a good shout about the length of day naps. I've spent the last few months trying to extend his day naps because he only used to do 30 minutes, but now it seems it's gone the other way!

So if he had a total of 2 hours in the day that could work

I could have written this word for word except mine is 11 months and her afternoon nap is more like an hour than 90 mins (she went down at 2.20 so I’m expecting her to stir any minute!) So no advice but plenty of support. …. Ha, she just woke!

Sorry for interruption! I was going to ask, is DC going to childcare at all? DD starts nursery next month and I’m loathe to muck around with her nap routine until she starts there so we’re just powering through until then. Night time I’m not keen to change things because DH is in at 7 - so I don’t want her down before he comes in, but I’d like to have a smidge of evening with him!

I think we’re just going to put up with it until she grows out of it but I’m hoping that doesn’t take long

No childcare here

Just adding an update here that I tried the steps advised and made sure to wake him after an hour yesterday at 3pm. Bed was at 7.30pm. He fell asleep quickly and slept right through but woke this morning at 5.30am !! So it's back to the drawing board I think!

Have you thought about doing wake to sleep? I've heard it can help break a habitual early morning wake.

Again, not something you want to hear... but some babies are just early risers. Especially in the summer (even with black out blinds etc). My son gradually grew out of it from about 18 months, and now a pre 6am start is unusual. I tried everythiiiing and nothing made a difference. It might just be a phase, but it might be something you just have to get used to for a while.

Could it be your little ones ready for just 1 nap? My youngest is 13months and has just moved to one nap days, most days, odd days she needs 2 still. She sleeps through, and generally wakes around 6:15, still pretty early, but on 2 naps everyday she’d gone to waking around 5/5:30. It was tough at first as she got tired in the morning, i slowly pushed her first nap back later and later.