How do you cope when your toddler wakes at 4/5am?

[BeGreenSwan]

I'm looking for advice from parents that coped with years of sleep deprivation. It's 2 years now and my daughter has gone from hourly wakes to finally sleeping through and waking up at 4am-5.30am. She's happy healthy and low sleep needs (sleeps 10 hrs 30 mins per day).

She's currently watching some TV at 8am as I'm tired but I often limit screens. I'm a SAHM and we go to parks, play groups museums etc so she's active.

I already go to sleep at 9PM but I think I'll have to go to sleep at 7.30PM-8PM when she's asleep. I'm very tired and need 8 hrs sleep to feel good.

Also - for parents with toddlers with a similar sleep pattern, how did their sleep look as they got older?

Any advice?

I’d go to sleep as early as possible, but I’d also really work to shift her sleep.

What if you bring her into bed with you? Mine did go through phases of waking up early, but they came right into my bed if they weren’t already there. No getting up for the day. No watching tv. Boring ole lying in bed in the dark until they usually went back to sleep and I dosed.

That and what time is she going to bed? At 2, I think 10.5 hours is very normal. They don’t necessarily sleep 7-7 anymore when they aren’t babies. If she’s waking up 4-5am, and sleeping 10.5 hours, she’s going to bed at 6-7pm? That’s quite early. Mine were definitely going to bed more like 8pm at 2.

Thanks for the post.

We've been cosleeping since she was 2 months lol. She's never slept 7-7 hours

That's her total sleep. So for example she naps1.5 hours then sleeps 9 hours at night (8PM to 5AM normally). She definitely needs the nap or will nap at 4pm if it's skipped.

I'd suggest slowly reducing her nap time. She needs 1.5 hours now to catch up on the lost sleep over night. Chop it back 10 mins every few days. By 2 most kids have totally drop their naps, especially if you describe her as a low sleep need child. Even 20 mins less nap is worth way more sleep over night. Power through the 4pm grissly time and stick to a consistent bedtime. If she still needs a nap, cap it to 30 mins and every other day once she is sleeping in later. Her schedule will adjust slowly, might be some more night wake whilst she consolidates her new rhythm but will be worth it.

We introduced a Yoto and would take him back to bed saying it’s still bedtime and put a Yoto story on for him to listen to. It took a good 6 months (probably not what you want to hear I know) but now he will put the story on himself if he wakes up and wait until his light goes green which means he can get up and come to see us.

Also, cut the nap down. At 2 it was 1 hour maximum which then went to 45 mins and then to 30 mins as bedtime got harder. We are now trying to cut it completely at almost 3

So so so much solidarity. My only advice is… wait it out. I tried everything with DD1, including hiring a sleep consultant. Nothing worked, but it suddenly got better when she went to school (despite having been at nearly full time nursery before then).

Some kids are just not sleepers. It sucks, but coffee helps.

Also solidarity, my eldest was very similar and it is HARD! I agree with cutting back the nap bit by bit and if you are in any position to, take a nap during the day. Now hes 6 he just struggles with getting to sleep which is a whole other battle, and has been sleeping through for about 6 months. We also introduced 'quiet time' to eventually replace naps.

Solidarity here too! We got a Gro Clock, which changes colour when it’s time to wake up but honestly it took her to be about three before she would really respond to it. She was a 5 am toddler for a long time and then seemingly overnight at three things shifted and she suddenly needed more sleep. I’ve got no idea why it nearly drove us mad. My theory was always that she was overtired rather than under tired but who knows. I can’t say we tried anything different other than really just persevering with trying to reset her and making it clear that mornings before 7 am was too early for anything fun. We definitely caved at many points across the months and brought her into bed, things do you seem to shift as they get older.

My 5 year old has low sleep needs. She sleeps in later now until 6.30am but that has just meant she goes to sleep later in the evening. I’m not sure there’s much you can do if they just don’t need that much sleep.

In my experience they only stop waking at 5 when they stop waking at 5. It’s utterly shit and you have my sympathy!

I'd also suggest capping the nap. At 2 yrs my daughter had a 30min nap and it went completely at 2.5 yrs.

When the nap went completely, she did sleep a bit longer at night. She's now 6 and usually wakes after 6am with occasional 5:30 wake ups.

One thing that also worked for us was having a cast iron rule that the day doesn't start until 6:30. Any waking before that is treated like night time and we lay in the dark. She will generally go back to sleep if it's before 5:30, but even if she doesn't, I snooze next to her until 6:30.

I think this only works with your toddlers cooperation, to be honest.

I can do this with dd and she often will go back to sleep (she doesn’t do early wakings very often to be fair) but with ds no chance; it wasn’t a night waking, he was up and ready to start the day. If I tried to get him back to sleep all that would happen was he’d cry and try to get out of his cot.

DD needed very similar sleep as a toddler, so she slept when I did, 11pm - 8am (plus a nap in the day). If I'd put her to bed at 7, she'd have been up at 4am. I'm not very nice at 4am. I just accepted that I didn't have an evening without her, but I did at least get some sleep. Not that she slept through....

I wouldn’t be letting her nap at 4pm, recipe for disaster IME.

My sympathies, mine is like this about 70% of the time and it’s hard. Like others I do quiet in bed cuddles - no lights on, I put the radio or an audiobook (something boring and monotonous - not a kids one) on and give her a cuddle until getting up time, usually 6.30. Sometimes she creates havoc and you end up having to get up, I then am as boring as possible and only let her have books or Yoto story until 6.30. Mainly trying to give her the consistent message that This Is Night Time and no fun happens at night 😂

Did you cap the nap?

I'm going to cap it today to 1 hr.

Also just so I know what to expect - what's her bedtime now?