2-year old wakes anywhere between 4 and 5.30 - anyone got any ideas?

[marfa]

Hi there,
this has been going on for ages. He's a lovely little boy but has never been too hot at sleeping. He has slept through the night for a year but more often than not is up super-early.

He used to nap around 2 hours in the day and go to bed at 7.30pm. Lately we are putting him to bed at 8pm and keeping his daytime nap down to 1.5 hrs max - often an hour and sometimes nothing. And it's now 5.40 or 5.50am that he gets up. But if you do the math you'd still hope he'd get up a bit later than that - and before 6am is still too early.

I can't leave him to cry in the mornings - my partner is often asleep as he works shifts and sometimes a grandparent is asleep in the house too, and beyond a certain point (after about 5am) that's it, he's awake, no going back.

He goes to a childminder 2 days a week but that doesn't seem to make much of a difference - even tho recently she's been clamping down on his sleep too.

Will this change? Has anyone else with a slightly older child found the secret of getting them to sleep later? is it just a question of waiting till he's in nursery full time? (that worked for my nephew, he wasn't an early riser but he was a fitful sleeper).

You could try half-waking him just before he'd usually get up for a few days. I've never been brave enough to try this but some say it works. However, IMO he's bound to be overtired because he's having very little sleep in a 24 hour period. I'd either reintroduce a nap or put him to bed earlier, or both. Sounds odd but it works for them when they're exhausted - takes a few days of perseverance though.

We have twins (now 3.7) who have been like this for a while. What used to work for us was to make sure their rooms were utterly dark at night - we've stuck cardboard over all the windows.

These days it's starting to get light by 6am and that can set them off.

I get up about 6am for work and creep about the house like a church mouse, though with our floorboards this still sometimes wakes them. But like you, once ours are awake in the morning, they're on 11 and that's it.

I am having the same problem with my nearly 2 year old and I am shattered. Was going to try the Baby Whisper Wake to Sleep method last night but he woke up before my alarm!!

Having looked on lots of forums it seems it is very common. My little ones room is dark so I think he just wakes up lonely and struggles to get back to sleep as he crashes out in the car at 8am when I take my older child to school.

We just stick him in our bed now (something I thought I would never do) but it is the only way to get sleep!

im having this too i have ds 7, 3 and 2 yrs in the same room and as soon as one of them is awake they get out of bed a wake the others its driving me mad just lately its been before 5.

my eldest used to wake early before i had ds2 and 3 so i bought him a sleep clock whick seemed to work until he broke it. im going to try and get a gro clock this weekend in the hope it might help!

My ds is just 2 and day after his birthday stopped napping. He now sleeps a bit longer at night but nothing like the recommended amount. Thought he might be overtired but honestly think some children need less sleep in 24 hours than people realise.

It's far harder work but we can reassure ourselves they are using their lives well and hopefully learning a lot!

blimey what a response! i thought mumsnet would email me if anyone replied so i thought i was being ignored!

lots of food for thought here. he rarely sleeps past six, like yours, peetle, and he doesn't go to sleep in our bed at the critical hour (5-6am) - if he's up then, he's up.

doricpatter I have tried the 'more sleep' approach and it doesn't work. but then the 'less sleep' approach doesn't work either - he still gets up early and is knackered. it seems either route makes little diffference - he is just set to sleep a certain length at night and it's about 9.5 hours.

what has worked -gradually - is putting him to sleep half an hour later at 8pm - it means very small window of time before my bedtime but better than nothing.

now i've decided to shift the whole thing on to him playing with his toys when he first wakes up. nothing happening so far - they're in his room, i'm talking to him about them, about the morning, about us being asleep, about him not waking us, about the lovely toys. No luck as yet but i find it is very mysterious how things move on.

xx

have you tried a gro clock? amazon sell them. You explain when the moon is there it's the middle of the night and time to sleep / rest quietly in bed. if the sunshine is there he can call you / play in his room.

He should understand it at 2 and you start by setting it really soon after the latest he wakes naturally and then increase it by 15 mins every few days.

the clocks are fab and also have a digital display and an alarm function so it's still a useful clock when they're older.

Ah marfa it's funny that our toddlers do almost the exact same thing - 9.5 hours. If he takes no nap it can be longer but that is not yet a pattern. If hd does nap he will sleep from after 8pm til around quarter to six.

More sleep and less sleep don't work here either. My ds is rarely grumpy so I don't think is over tired!

Annoying isn't it?

Groan! I totally sympathise!

We have had this from DD for a year now and shes 2.7. We have the Gro-clock and have tried a reward system but the bottom line is she wakes up at 5.30, is lonely and bored, and wants cuddles with us.

Totally understandable IMHO, but once shes wriggling around in bed thats me awake and theres no way she'll go back down. Its fine if I'm off and able to join her in an afternoon nap but most days am at work and the long days are a killer.

We've tried cutting out her daytime naps but then shes asleep by 5.30pm, we've tried lengthening them which doesnt work either! The only way I survive is very early nights! I wish someone would find a solution; I just keep telling myself to hold out til shes at school then she'll be properly knackered!

yes - last night i tried rewards - put food in his room. didn't work.
early nights are the only sure way of dealing with it, and i haven't had many of those this week so am knackered!
i will try the gro-clock. i have found that if you keep trying eventually you hit on something that works - or the penny drops with the child. It can't always be like rapid return (that worked like magic).
I also think part of it is being willing to put up boundaries - very hard to refuse the cute little fellow when he gets up. What doesn't help is my partner is a) a monophobe himself so fears for our son being on his own for any time and b) takes his crying too seriously sometimes.
ladylay couldn't she got to nursery or preschool and get knackered that way? my nephew was a disastrous sleeper and then preschool turned it all around.
I am alarmed to think this is going to last to 2.7 months! big sympathy all round to all fellow sufferers.