5am mornings

[Strawberries4days]

My 16 month old keeps waking up at 5am and we're so tired. This morning has been the worst morning as she woke up at 5 and I went to go through to cuddle her for about 20 mins and then put her down, but she's just been grizzling for the past 2 hours. I think this morning it's due to a growth spurt.

It's been happening for a few months but we don't know what to do. She eats plenty through the day, the room isn't cold and in bed for a reasonable time (7pm for her bottle and then in bed for 7.20 where she normally goes to sleep). Her naps are difficult as since she wakes up at 5, she's so tired that her naps could be from 10/11am until 12.30/1pm but then doesn't want to take another nap or the second nap is too close to bed time so I'm stuck. I've been told to push her naps to around after lunch, but I can't when she's up form 5am as it's too long for staying up.

I don't know what I'm looking for in this thread, it's an odd problem and I don't know what else to do.

Honestly I don’t think this is an odd problem, it’s very common! And other than making sure she doesn’t nap too close to bedtime there isn’t much you can do about it. Some children wake early and some children don’t. Yours is still very young and too small for grow clocks etc. One of mine was an early riser at that age, there wasn’t much we could do to change it so we just took it in turns to get up with her, so at least I wasn’t up at 5 every day. Good luck, it will pass!

I think they all go through this at that age. The only thing I think you an do is not allow them to get up at 5. Try telling them it's still night time, maybe giving milk. Then usually let them up anything from 6am.

We had this at a similar stage. I did two things - encouraged DS to stay "in bed" till at least 6am so I'd go and lie on the floor next to the cot holding hands (not the comfiest thing but only lasted a few weeks), and moved the nap back very gradually by 10 minutes every couple of days till we got to about 11.30am and then that seemed to work ok.

My eldest was like this and he’s now five and sleeps in until the grand time of 5:45. I just go to bed earlier now.

Totally normal I’m afraid. Our DS has always been a great sleeper and napper but very early riser. Don’t overthink it too much

My first was like this and stayed like this, even now in early teens it's not unusual for them to be awake at 5. It's a waste of time and energy feeling fed up so try to flip how you feel. Go to bed early so you get enough sleep. Enjoy the fact that you can go on days out arriving just as they open, enjoy whatever it is you are doing before everyone else gets there and it busy. For ours the early waking meant they were tired and went to bed early so while rest of my friends started to lose evening alone time as kids staying up later- we had evenings to ourselves.

I would only be aiming for one long nap at her age. I'd try and sort that out.

As in early nap means too big wake window before bedtime which means overtired so early waking

Oh its hard. Lots of solidarity to you.

My eldest was an early waker, also 5am from about 14 months. Didn't matter what we did re bed time timings, she was still awake at 5am.

We invested in a DVD player for the bedroom and a bottle of milk. In she came, dvd on and milk. We dozed until 6.

We did reverse lie ins once a week or so when we went to bed super early. We, like a previous poster, just went to bed earlier too. DD is now nearly 9 and we still go bed at 9:30!

She started sleeping later at about 3/4. It's a bit hazy tbh as DD2 was born then.

Just a thought, we had transitioned to 1 nap after lunch at about 12 months. It didn't help us, but it might help you?

I hear what your saying about keeping her awake long enough. I found I had to give her a super early lunch (about 11:30) and popped her down about 12/12:30. We would get about 2 hours out of her. Keeping her busy was the key, so playing outside, messy play etc. Watching TV or being in the car after about 11am meant she just ended up falling asleep!

It will pass, I promise.

It’s not actually an odd problem, there are tons of threads on the sleep section, of DC between 1 and 2 who wake at 5am. Seems to be a universal issue with holding on to two naps/too early a first nap for too long. They compensate by waking early to have enough awake time before the nap. If I was you I’d just bite the bullet - find some good activities in the morning and get out the house and make the nap at the absolute earliest of 11:30am, then try and push back to after lunch. It’ll be a painful week or two, but dropping to 1 nap at about 15 months got rid of the 5am start for us and it’s not come back, 6 months later. If you are adamant she still needs an early nap, strictly cut it off at 30 mins so you can still get a second nap in. But I think even this will lead to an early wake at 16 months, to be honest.

As a lot of PP allude to, some kids are just larks. But I wouldn’t say this is it for you until you get your naps sorted.

I'm sure it's just a phase but until then I would do her nap whenever she's tired and bring bedtime forwards to 6pm as it may be thar overtiredness is waking her so early xx this is what we were advised by a sleep consultant xx

5am used to be a win in our house when Dd was that age… most days it was 430 🤣🤣🤣
Just ride it out, you’ll be knackered yes, but it isn’t forever. Nothing you change or do will make any difference ( sorrytough I know!) you just have to go to sleep earlier yourself in the evening, it helps

Thanks everyone! It does seem to be the normal for every toddler, I can't complain as she does go down early so I get the evenings. I think I just miss those times where I get to sleep in!

Im looking for things to do in the morning, but with the daft storms weather is rubbish and not a lot of indoor places in my area ( we don't drive) it's a bit harder. May have to ride it out and hopefully back to 7am wakings.

I will try to push the nap later as some suggested. She's does just one nap so hopefully that will work🤞

Just came across this as I am in the 5am club too and my DD2 is the same age. Have you had any change to the waking times yet? My Dd has always been an early riser but recently it has got worse so I got a sleep consultant to check our routine and the main thing I would suggest you change is her bedtime, for a 5am wake the bedtime should be 6pm, and that means asleep as close to 6pm as possible and have one day time nap at 11:30, and lunch at 10:45/11.
We have been doing this for a week now and it hasn’t made the wakes any earlier (which I was worried about), some days they are a little later. At least she is sleeping 11 hours and then has a two hour nap at nursery at 11:30 (I had to get nursery to shift her routine and she sleeps whilst the others have lunch). This means she is not overtired and is happy. Then when the clocks change this weekend I am going to move her routine to an hour later. She also said we should leave her in her bed and do controlled crying until the time we want her to get up but this hasn’t worked for us, she just stands up and screams and it’s not fair for the rest of the household. This has worked for friends who got their babies to sleep until 7:30 with this method but I think she is too old to start this now. I’m happy she’s sleeping 11 hours and now we just need to move the schedule back. A 6pm bedtime is also amazing for having our evenings back! If you look on Nanit they have routines based on wake times. Good luck x