5ams and 3yr olds!

[salo]

help! my (nearly) 3 yr old has taken to waking up at 5.30 every morning. she has never particularly enjoyed sleeping, but goes to bed at 6pm (no afternoon nap anymore). doesnt seem to make any difference how late she goes to bed. any ideas?

Do you have a blackout curtain? Is there something which turns on at 5am when she is drifiting into light sleep that wakes her we found my charge was waking at 5.45 due to one of the neighbours going to work.

yes, we have blackout curtains and i dont think there is much noise from outside...
do you think we can adopt some sort of strategy to tell her the 'right' time to get up at her age?!

My dd (13 months old) has started waking at 5am in the last few days too. I'm sure it's something to do with the very light mornings, because she sleeps until seven on cloudy mornings.

my ds did this for a couple of weeks but was obviously still tired ... so we told him that if he stayed in bed until he heard us get up or until we came to get him then he would get a sticker ... and for every 10 stickers he got a treat. Worked perfectly much to my amazement!

if she's in bed by 6, I don't think it's surprising she's up at 5.30 tbh - especially at this time of year. My 3 year old goes to bed at 8 and wakes up at around 7-ish.

I think she's a bit young to be training her not to get up until a certain time. My advice would be to gradually move her bedtime a bit later. Eventually she will start waking later (I would expect it to take a while for her to settle down). Otherwise I think you will just have to find a way to live with it!

My 3 year old is closer to 4 now but we've been 'training' him over the last couple of weeks with a bunny clock and reward chart. The Kidsleep clock has a light which you set so the bunny wakes up at a certain time. It's very easy for them to understand they have to stay in bed when the bunny is in bed and can only get up when he's up.

We've been doing rewards for staying in bed also, starting with lots of easy rewards (small ones) for each morning he stayed, then spacing them out a bit.

He has not got up before 6am for two weeks now - it worked instantly... When we fully remove the rewards I guess things might change but if she can understand the concepts of the clock and sticker chart it might be worth trying.

Bunny clock, or go shopping with her and let her choose her own alarm clock.

Set it to go off at 6am to begin with (so she doesn't have a long wait once she wakes!) and tell her she is not allowed up until the alarm goes off. She can play quietly in her room while she waits, if you want her to.

Then gradually make the alarm later and later until it goes off when you want her to wake up.

My dd sleeps from 6 30pm to 6 45am, so I dont think you are expecting her to sleep for too long

thanks for all your tips!! will try a combination of them...

I think it must be because she goes to bed at 6. That's 11.5 hours of sleep which IMO is more than enough. My DS who's 2 only sleeps for 10 at night and has an hour's sleep in the day.

yes i had sleep therapist for ds who said at this age they onlt need 10 hrs sleep to move his bedtime forward

to be honest sometimes it makes no difference but i let him into bed with me as he has gone all night and he'll doze back off for a while leaving me to rest bit longer

DD1 who is 3.6 is exactly the same and I have tried everything, bunny clock, stickers you name it, putting bed time back. But in the last few weeks it has got a bit better and the only thing I can put it down was a conversation i had with her which went along the lines "why are you grumpy mummy?" "because you wake me up TOO early and that makes mummy tired and grumpy".. Since then she's been better at sleeping for longer (6 ish, 6.45 on a good day) and amusing herself quietly in her room. Seems she understood more than I give her credit for.