12 month old permanent early riser, any suggestions?

[Chulita]

DS is 12 months on Sunday and has rarely slept beyond 5.15am. Maybe once a fortnight he'll wake at 6am but that's usually because he's been unsettled through the night. He goes to bed around 6/6.30pm, he tends not to wake during the night or if he does it's just a grizzle and then back to sleep. His room is as blacked out as it can be. When he wakes he's not desperately hungry or thirsty. This has been his entire life, so it's not a phase.
I'm going to start putting him to bed at 7pm even though it'll most likely mean he cries for the last hour but does anyone have any suggestions? I'd like to move him in with DD but can't do it while he's waking this early and it's wearing me down.

[violetbubbles]

I've just started a different thread on this topic but since discovering yours I think I'll join your club too! :)

My little girl is 13mo. Always been a crap sleeper, especially at naptime. Has rarely had a nap that's been longer than 40 mins. On a typical day she naps for 25mins. She's shattered by the time we reach 6pm but what can I do? She's in nursery during the day but I don't blame them for the lack of naps. I could never crack naptime so why should I expect them to be able to? They were confident at the start that it was a sleep training issue and they'd be able to help her but 8 weeks in and they've given up. They've decided that she's 'just a baby who is never going to nap'. Great!

I think that the nap situation is making her v overtired and this is leading to the early morning wakeups. Every morning, 5 am screaming in her cot. Absolutely refusing to go back to sleep. I can't leave her in there crying for fear someone will call the police. I've tried leaving her until 6.30ish, giving her toys to play with, offering water, changing nappy but there is just NO WAY she is going back to sleep! She goes down at 7pm every night. We've tried a much later bedtime, still wakes at 5. We've tried an earlier bedtime, wakes at 4.30am. Argh!

It's just a phase, it's just a phase...she'll grow out of it, right?

[DesperateHousewife21]

D has started doing this too so you're not alone, he was up at half 5 this morning after waking at 2 then 4am, Im sooo tired! Hes whinging and moaning too so I know he doesnt want to wake at half 5 either and no amount of feeding would get him back to sleep.

[Chulita]

One mner said she dropped the morning nap entirely and it made a difference to the waking time I don't know how I'd survive from 5.20 til 12 with a crying little boy!
What a shame we've actually started a club, good to know I'm not alone but no fun for any of us

[ExistentialistCat]

Oh dear, you said we weren't to post if we didn't have a wonder cure, didn't you... Will let you know when I find one!

[ExistentialistCat]

Hello, please can I join this club?

My 10 month-old DD2 sounds exactly like yours, Chulita and Stansmomma. She's been waking at 5 ever since she learned to sleep through. She sleeps very well indeed from when I put her down at 6.30/6.45 and no amount of tinkering with her naps or bedtime or exposing her to late afternoon daylight has made any difference. It's so so so hard.

Like the other babies described on this thread, she wants to go back to sleep at about 8. I tend to keep her up until 9/9.30 because various sleep clinics have advised that early morning naps perpetuate early waking. I've tried keeping this first nap really short, a la Gina Ford (I know she's not this forum's favourite person but I was desperate!). None of it has made any difference.

I'm hoping that things might improve once she's down to one long nap a day. But how do I persuade her to stay awake until a post-lunch nap when she's been up for hours and hours and is shattered?!

I've also left her to chunter in the past but it just escalates. No amount of cuddling/feeding or even just leaving her can persuade her to go back to sleep, yet she spends the entire period between the 5 am wake-up and the morning nap grizzling and rubbing her eyes - she clearly needs more sleep. I feel utterly helpless, not to mention shattered.

The only coping strategy that works is going to bed at 8 pm myself. So it's a choice between exhaustion and having no time to myself at all. Sigh.

[Chulita]

whencanIsleep I was only joking, you didn't have to withdraw your message sorry if I upset you.

stansmomma DS wakes up crying. The rare times he sleeps til 6 or after he wakes up chatting so he's obviously still tired. He's always back asleep again by 8am. Might just be something he grows out of [hopeful]

[stansmomma]

i totall understand where you are coming from, my DS is trying to destroy me with the early rises! he used to wake around 6-630am but now its 5am and i really think that that is way too early, his room is also pitch black and its at the back of the house which is totally quiet. we're trying the wake to sleep method at the moment with no luck, i'm waking him gently at 4am, then letting him fall back to sleep in the hope it breaks the sleep cycle and he'll sleep past 5, so far he's beat me to it by waking at 3am! and slept once till 5:45(a good sign) then woke up this morning at 4:40!!! i'm going to stick to it all week though, so i can say i gave it a fair shot. you could try that? it sounds crazy but the baby whisperer swears by it and anything is worth a try. and as for the keeping them up later, we kept DS up till 8:15 once, just to see what would happen??? he woke at 5:05 the next day, and was extra grouchy! is your little one happy once awake in the morning? or is it obvious they'd benefit from a longer lie in? ours is a nightmare, crying and whining, untill we just have to put him back to bed at about 8am, it's not nice in the mornings in our home, we're all tired and fed up and i wont except that this is how it has to be! i'd be happy with a 6am start, as long as he's happy too not crying.

[Chulita]

not much consolation is it...really...could you not post if you've not got a wonder-cure please?