Early rising- just venting really

[ShushBaby]

OK, we have tried possibly everything- blackout blinds, later naps, fewer naps, more naps, ignoring, giving water, giving her toys, wake-to-sleep, taking her outside at teatime. But apart from 2 glorious months of 6.30am 'lie-ins' between 13-15 months, and 2 days where she slept til after 7, our 16mo dd has woken between 5am and 6am for months and months.

I AM KNACKERED.

I feel annoyed every morning even though she is lovely, happy girl. I am bored of going to bed at 9pm. We want another baby, but I don't know if I could take sleepless nights plus early mornings. She's a short napper too so sometimes the days can feel very, very long...

I do know we are lucky that she sleeps 10-11 hours. But man, this early rising is getting OLD.

Our 'technique' now is to go in every 5-10 mins and tell her to go back to sleep. She often does- for 10 or 20 mins. Then she will sit there moaning, but we don't let her get up til 6am.

I don't think there's anything we can do. WHEN WILL IT END?

That is all.

How odd- we too had flukey 6.30am wake-up this morning! Well she woke at 5.15am but I stumbled in, told her to go back to sleep, and she did, til our alarm went off. I'll be blowed!

Though I too am convinced it's just a fluke....

I feel the pain too!! I have 14 month old DTs and, between them, one always wakes between 5 & 6 (and wakes the other and often our 4 year old too). I have tried taking them outside after tea and the latest that has bought us is 6.20, which is preferable to anything with a 5 at the front. I too have to try and go to bed early just to cope. I have to remind myself that when they were waking in the night, I'd have killed for them to sleep through, even if it was only until 5.45. My 4 year old wasn't the world's best sleeper but his 5 something starts only seemed to last for a week or so whereas this has been going on for months now.

i need a good old moan too! we used to have to set our alarm to wake up my ds at 7:00 now gradually it's been getting earlier and earlier. 4:30 yesterday, 5:30 today.

i know it's not a big sleep issue but something about seeing on 5 on the clock just depresses me.

3.5yrs and a consistent 5:45 here, but that is much better than when she was the age of the OP's LO. so it could improve for you...but sadly I think some kids just need less sleep??

DS2 is 15 months and wakes at 5am every morning and has done since 10 months old.

I feel like I'm the grumpiest mummy ever. Luckily, DH does get up with him when I need a 'lie in' (I use the term loosely), but my God 5am is early isn't it.

Need sleep ...

4.45 today. And wouldn't go back down. Just shouted. And shouted. Until I took him downstairs and crawled onto the sofa feeling sorry for myself. Then he was knackered by 8.30 of course. Tsk.

4.05am - CHRIST ON A BLOODY BIKE.

had to bring the screaming little toad downstairs in fear of her waking dd1

she is still whinging now and will no doubt want a nap by 7am, when dd1 will gt up.....

although for some reason i feel slightly better now it's 6am, and i can put the today programme on. makes it feel more normal to be up.
and now i hear dd1....

Oh god yes! DS is doing this too. It's the lottery element that makes me twitch. He either wakes at 4:15, 4:50, 5:20 or 6. One of those on the dot every day. He's just playing with us isn't he.

Just to say, have others seen this link. I'm going to try it tonight and will report back!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/1217485-Early-waking-revelation

i'll give it a go too - if it's not raining, and if 15-20mins is ok. Can't go for a walk with the raincover on as the time between dinner and bath is dd1's precious Telly Time, but we can potter round the garden while she's parked in front of the box.

Sorry, ladies, but my almost 6 year old has always been an early riser and was up this morning at 5.30.
Until my youngest was born, I used to get up to keep him company, but find that now I don't always hear him get up and have found him sitting watching a DVD or cbeebies, with a drink and a snack that he's got for himself. If I remember, I leave things out for him for the morning, as the thought of him finding himself food and drink was heartbreaking. Speaking to a friend with a similar early riser, she said she would be really proud of her ds if he that, but he is noisy to wake her up for company!
Got to do school run, will be back, as want to ask about 'wake to sleep'

OP here.

Sorry charlotte but I did laugh at 'screaming little toad'!

Well, we've had a bit of a revelation in our house. Turns out the poor little blighter had nits ! I'm not sure if it's a complete coincidence, but since getting rid of them she has been sleeping til the noise of us getting up at 6.30am wakes her! (Well, we generally have to go in and tell her to go back to sleep once before 6am, but she has been obeying that command straight away every morning, thank the baby Jesus).

Of course it could be a fluke, and obviously nits aren't the cause of everyone's early waking baby/toddler! But it makes sense that her discomfort was stopping her from settling again when she started to go into lighter sleep/wakeful phases as morning approached.

So I wonder whether there are other physical discomforts that could be making our little toads wake up earlier. Teething/cold/hot/thirsty etc... Just a thought.

Still no improvement, here, thank God for my lovely MIL who is staying for a while, she is taking him in the mornings.

It's not as if there is a pattern to his early rising, it just is

What do people do about naps? Do you add in an extra one when your DC gets up early?

DS was up at 5am again today - after being up for nearly 2 hours in the night too. He's under the weather though. He napped for 2 hours at 9.30am but now I can't decide whether to give him another short nap now, and have him go to bed really really late, or put him to bed early and have him wake really really early again. Normally he has just one nap. Two is too many, but one isn't enough when he gets up at silly o'clock.

We co-sleep so when he wakes early, I pretend to be asleep while he complains loudly about being hampered by his sleeping bag, then repeatedly crawls over my head and headbutts me affectionately.

Going outside after tea (and after waking) has had no effect so far here.

Right - heading out for a 20 min walk. Will report on effect tomorrow.

Totally feel your pain. DS1 has woken at 5-5.30ish since he was 1. I am glad we didn't hold off having DC2 until he slept later as we'd be still waiting to conceive now! DS2 is even worse as when he wakes he demands milk - he's 16 months and it seems ludicrous that I go in with a full sippy cup of milk at 4.30-5.30 but we all just need to have a little bit more sleep. I have surrendered to the idea that this is it and it can't be changed, I just need to go to bed at 9pm for the next 2 years until DS1 + 2 can go downstairs together and watch a DVD and leave me to sleep.

Another one with a 5am-er, but for us there has been light at the end of teh tunner. DS is nearly 18 months now and has always woken up early and not gone back to sleep, even as an infant. I accepted that for a year but then it really started to set in, the tiredness and exhaustion (have 2 other dcs under 5) of such long days and decided to be ruthless about naps, stick to 1 nap only in middle of day even if he was falling about with tiredness. The first few days was awful he was just knackered. But after a few days he started to wake later. In general he wakes now between 6 and 7, mostly around 6:40 which to us is a lie in. On the odd day if he is unwell or teething he might wake earlier, but even on those days I don't let him nap in the mornings for fear of falling back into that pattern again.
A lot of people try something but only stick to it for a few days as it's so hard to see them suffer with tiredness. Have you all tried doing it for at least a week to see if it would have an effect?
I feel for you all and we still have a few of those days and it really is just depressing to wake at 5am.. even worse in teh winter when it's dark outside.... \

Ugh. DS only had 8 hours sleep last night, was up at 5am and it's ten pm and he's still awake. I've spent 3.5 hours trying to get him to sleep so far. When he gets overtired he usually wakes lots & then is up even earlier.

Apologies for the moan: had to get it off my chest. :)

Hah - going to bed at 11pm is clearly the solution to the early mornings here as DS slept till 8.50am today

AngelDog hope you had a lie-in too? Your evening sounds tiresome, it's probably because he's under the weather isn't it.

Interesting what you say about naps. I think there's a shift when they become toddlers. Before about 1 yo too little daytime sleep always seemed to make dd wake up EARLIER; now I definitely think she sleeps later when she's only had one nap. The problem is, as you say, when they are ready for a nap by 9.30am! Also my dd is a catnapper and she sleeps for less than one hour I'm loathe to restrict her to one nap/

Touch wood, we've had 6.30am wake ups all week which is FAB. I totally put it down to the de-nitting, and am convinced her recent regression to early morning starts was down to the nits (she'd been waking up later for a couple of months up until recently). Though I have also wondered if the lavender oil I am slathering onto her head every night (mixed with olive oil) to banish the nasty nits for good, might be helping to keep her sleepy. I think though, to borrow a phrase I've read on here before, that might just be twat wankery woo!

I suppose it can't harm to sprinkle a bit of lavender on the sheets though.

Well after the half hour outside - he went straight to sleep at 7.15 - woke up at 2.30 and was awake for about half an hour and then slep until 6.50. I was so full of energy I cooked a massive pot of bolognese sauce this morning.

Onlyme1971 We were on one nap a day 12-2.30ish but then he started a new lot of teething and was waking a lot in the night and early so we had to go back to two naps as he couldn't manage. Will try to push morning nap later bit by bit.

I tried the getting outside before DS2 bedtime last night, took him out in buggy (after a day at CM, he was very tired and grumpy and wouldn't have coped with playing in garden without meltdown!), for 40 minutes.

He still woke at 5am this morning, agh! So I'm also cutting out his morning nap too, he didn't go down until 12.30pm and he slept for an hour. He is in the grumpiest mood ever today, but I'm going to try this strategy until next weekend and see how we get on.

I'll try anything!
Thanks all for others posting their ideas and experiences. Gives me hope!

sheep, it might be worth moving his second nap (and bedtime) earlier if you're dropping the first one. When DS dropped from two naps to one, he went from waking at 7, nap at 9.30 and 2.30, bed at about 9pm to wake at 7, nap at 11, bed at 6.30.

Thinking back to the last few weeks I reckon my DS just can't sleep for more than 10 hours at night, even if I shorten his nap. I just need to resign myself to not having much of an evening and/or getting up earlier than I want to.