Two year old suddenly waking up really early

[ElizaDoolots]

My just turned two year old has been a pretty good sleeper for the last year at least, sleeping from around 7:30pm to 7:00/7:30am. In the last 2-3 weeks however she’s suddenly decided to start waking up super early, like 5:00-5:30 (sometimes even earlier, today she had me up at 4:45!)

What gives?! Is this just my life now or is anything we can do to get it back? We haven’t really changed anything - naps are the same, bedtime is the same, she has a blackout blind in her room so don’t think it’s the daylight waking her.

I have a second baby on the way in a couple of months so would very much appreciate her stopping this nonsense.

Give up the naps? 12 hours a night plus naps is perhaps expecting too much.

Try a Gro Clock. I didn't think my 2yo would understand it but he did.

Or is she ready to drop a nap?

Def a gro clock-game changer!

Time to Karoo or short men the nap!

Really didn’t want to give up on naps just yet. She also does seem to get really tired in the middle of the day, but perhaps that’s just because she’s awake so early.
Perhaps I’ll try the gro-clock first and then look at shortening the nap/dropping it altogether as a second option.
For those who have used a gro-clock, how have you explained it in a way that a two year old will understand? Her communication isn’t very good yet so it’s hard to know how much of what I’m saying she is actually taking in.

It'll be the nap- fairly common for 2yo to drop the daytime nap, as inconvenient as that may be. They just don't need the same amount of sleep.

We just said blue means it's night time, orange means it's morning time. You have to set it for the time they actually get up at first so that they get the idea that yellow means it's time to wake up. Then you move it slowly later.

It comes with a wee story book which is quite good for explaining it. We used to just say it’s not up time until the suns up. Sometimes if she was awake earlier we’d hear her lying there singing a song or telling herself a story then when the sun came up she’d shout through to us!
Like a previous poster said, we started it earlier and then moved it forward by 15 mins each night.

Thanks all. Will give the gro clock a go first and then look at dropping the nap if no improvement in a few weeks, as much as I don’t want to!

It could just be a phase, mine is nearly 2 and a half and has twice gone through random phases of waking about 5am instead of 7-8am. Bedtime still 7-8pm so that hadn't changed. He's also been through phases of refusing to nap or only having 30-40 minutes but he really does need the night sleep and nap or after a couple of days he's just wired and a nightmare. Can't offer much help other than solidarity and to say it lasted about 2-3 weeks for us then seemed to snap out of it. Personally I think 2 is very early to drop all naps.

@bumbledeedum - that’s really good to know. Hopefully it’s just a phase for us too. I’ll give it a few more weeks at least before making any major changes. Would hate to push her to drop her nap altogether if it’s not necessary, and she does seem to get really irritable just after lunchtime when she’s getting tired so feel like it would be quite hard to get her to push through until bedtime!