Sleep!

[Mrsjay122]

So my girl is 2 in 2 weeks time, shes always been a decent sleeper, moved her from our room to her cot at 6 months, she slept through and has never looked back.

The thing is she wakes up around 5 or 530 every morning, and its really starting to wear me down

As soon as she dropped her morning nap we got her into a little routine, so we switched nursery to mornings as she was showing preference for PM nap; we make sure shes asleep by 1.30/2, she get 2hrs nap then we wake her up (she invariably sleeps for 1.5 to 2hrs so normally awake or waking up by then anyway), then we do something active after nap to wear her out ie football in the garden or take her to the swings before dinner.

She has roughly a 3.5-4hr wake window as we put her down for the night at 7.30, but she still wakes up at 5.30 almost every day.

Shes my only, so i guess what im asking is am i doing something wrong or do i just assume shes an early bird and will change when shes ready?

I'd say her nap is too late. I'd move it to 12/12.30 ish, awake by 2/2.30. Our 11 month old needs to be awake by 2.30 for a 7pm bedtime (4.5 hr wake window).

If she's in bed at 7:30pm and wakes at 5:30am then that's a 10 hour night which is reasonable for her age. Would you consider a later bedtime? Your last wake window seems really short for her age too but if she's sleeping through the night then it must be working well for her!

She doesnt finish nursery unti 1pm, so realistically 1.30 is the earliest id be able to get her down 😩

Some kids just get up early doesn't matter what time my ds goes to bed he's still up anytime after about 4am he's been the same since he was a baby

Some babies just wake early! My older kids always woke around 630 with a 7pm bedtime and still do at 6 and 9. My 19 month old wakes around 515 and always has since sleeping through. We can't keep her up later as she's falling asleep in the sofa at 645pm! It's just how it is, DH and I take turns getting up with her so the other gets a longer sleep.

Agree that some are just early wakers. I used to make it as boring as possible with DS - there's a really dull slow program on cbeebies from 5.30am so I used to stick that on and lie on the sofa trying to summon the will to stick the kettle on. I found it much easier once he went into a single bed, I'd get in with him and he'd often nod off for another 45 minutes or so and since about 3 he's consistently woken between 6.30 and 7 except on preschool days when I have to wake him up without fail 🤦

I don’t think there is enough wake time before bed. Average sleep at this age is 11-14h total, so 10h overnight and 2h nap is completely within the realms of normal. Personally, I’d shorted the nap to an hour and see if you can get a bit more night sleep…but equally if the long nap suits you and she’s sleeping roughly the 13:30-15:00/15:30 I’d make bedtime more like 20:30 for at least 2 weeks and see if wake up time inches to more like 6:30.

I have a 23mo and our sweet spot seems to be 5.5 - 6 hours of awake time before and after his nap.

I've now started cutting his lunch nap to 1.5hrs as bed time was getting a bit late.

So he is usually up at 6.30am, nap at 12.30, awake 2pm and bed by 8pm.

He used to wake up before 6am but we went on holiday and after 2 weeks his routine had kind of shifted and hour forward to a later bedtime and since then it has kind of stuck.

Sounds difficult with nursery but could you maybe pick her up a bit earlier so the nap is earlier, or gradually shift to have a later bed time and hopefully she will sleep a bit longer in the morning.

I do think little ones do tend to wake up quite early, I don't think my boy has ever slept much beyond 7am in his life!