Toddler Sleep - Help

[LilyDaniels]

My son has always slept very well at night since about three months old. Her would usually sleep from about 730 until 630/7. Of course now and then if he is under the weather he may wake up a little earlier.

At the end of March we moved into our new house and coincidentally the clocks changed at the same time. My son was sleeping so well until 7 am and napping two hours during the day for about two weeks. His naptime has always been around 1130/12. He is always very tired by this point.

however the past two weeks my son has suddenly started to wake up at 5 am. I attempted to lay him back down without success so he now gets into our bed. He will occasionally drop back off, but not always. The trouble is I find it hard to fall back to sleep as Ive never co-slept. I don't know what's changed! I don't want him to get into bad habits. I'm not sure how to fix the problem and I don't think he's ready to drop his nap as only five months old and as I say he always seems tired coming up to naptime. His naps have now been around 30/45 mins max. Any advice please.

Exactly how old is he? Just because we had similar with our son last year between the age of 2.5 and 3 and a bit. Started around April when the clocks went forward, he was taking much longer to settle to sleep in the evenings - like a hour when he's previously been down within 15 to 30 mins - and waking earlier. He would still nap at nursery for about an hour or sometimes two. We thought that he was probably ready to drop a nap. Nursery were reluctant to reduce naps, I suspect because a sleeping toddler was easier for them to manage. But gradually we cut down on the naps to the point of no napping at all by the end of summer last year.

We also moved him out of his cot bed, in our box room, and into a big bed in our second double room. This was its own whole thing. He was getting out of bed and coming into our room at all hours and we were just getting no sleep. It was worse than then baby days in some ways! So we ended up putting a mattress on the floor and alternating who slept in with him in the big room, with the adult going in the double bed, toddler on the camp bed. This worked well for a bit, he seemed happy, everyone was getting adequate sleep. Next step was to get him to sleep in a bed of his own, all night, and for us to be back in our own bed. So we moved him up to the big bed, and moved the camp bed so it was in the corner of the room. He knew someone was there if he needed them. When he got to the point of not waking up much at night we retreated from the room completely.

He's now a reliable 7pm to 6am sleeper. I'd love him to sleep longer but hey ho.

I'd also say that behavior over this period was quite intense. Went through HUGE tantrums, which we are getting there with now - slowly but surely. The improved sleep helps.

Sorry huge post but I guess my advice is don't rule out dropping naps, need to make a shift in sleeping arrangements. Give it time. I found that there are no super quick fixes. And also that toddlerhood is a bit of a wild ride.

What age is your son?
A toddler or five months old?

Could sunlight be waking him?

Apologies - he is 25 months old (typo).
@WhatColourIsThatBalloon thank you for your reply! I assume it's a phase, I just don't want to get in to any bad habits. He is clearly so tired with the lack of sleep now, especially only have 30 minute naps in the day!

@bedtimestories I have thought of this but his room is pretty dark and as I say, he slept like an angel when we first moved, it was just as light then! It's like an alarm clock goes off every day at 5am and he's up!