Early waking

[Hols77]

My 23 month old has just suddenly a week ago decided he wants to wake at 5.30am, sometimes earlier.
He has been normally getting up at 6.30-7am for a long time now.
I am confused as to why this is happening.
I have tried putting him to bed later more towards 8pm (he would usually go at around 7pm) but this hasnt seemed to work and he just ends up more tired as he still gets up early!
Anyone had the same?
Thanks!

How annoying for you!! A later night is rarely the answer for an early waker, in fact an earlier night is more likely to work. It is probably just a phase, I get quite a few clients (I am a child sleep consultant) who book a consultation when this happens in a panic and then cancel a few days later as their little one starts to sleep in again.
I would always suggest treating early waking as a night waking. Do not get him up, instead try and settle him back to sleep until 6am at the earliest.
Also ensure that he doesn't start having an early nap as this will certainly exacerbate the problem.
Also, look at his current nap schedule, it may be that you need to slightly cut down his daytime napping.

Good luck, Nicola Watson

Hi Hols, sympathies, it's horrible isn't it? I hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread, I have an early riser too.

DS is 8 months and although his night time sleep has massively improved (goes down an 7ish for the night and wakes up once for a bottle around 3am, then goes back down quickly), he has become an early riser (5ish). I can't function so early in the morning...

His first nap is 2 hours after waking up, and I wonder how I could ensure he doesn't nap then as suggested? Does this nap impact on the waking time? If tired he is really grumpy and cries, so the only solution is to put him back down. Nothing works when he's tired and he's very unhappy unless he sleeps, and TBH it doesn't seem fair not to let him.

He generally has 3x 30 mins naps during the day, some other times (like now) he has a long morning nap, but he woke up at 5. I do treat early waking like a night waking but he has none of it, I would have to let him scream and I don't want to do that. He self settles most of the time, so it's not like he can't go back to sleep because of that, it's more like he has an energy outburst but it's short lived.

I'm trying to count my blessings, he is generally a good sleeper and can do long stretches at night, but it's hard to look on the bright side at 5am. Again sorry for the hijack and I hope things improve for both of us soon.

Bump. 5.20 this morning. How about your DC Hols77?

Watching with interest. My 4 yr old DS gets up between 5am and 5.30am and always has done. He goes to bed at 6.30-7pm. No naps. His younger brother still has a nap, goes to bed the same time but wakes up an hour or an hour and a half later. Would love to find a kind way of getting DS1 to sleep later.

childsleepsolutions how does your sleep consultancy work? do you have ways of solving this?

Last bump...

This happened to my dd around 5 months. There was a thread on here that said about naps being important but also daylight before bedtime.It was easy then cos it was the summer so not sure how you'd manage it now,but it did work.Also i kept dd in the dark {within reason} untill a better time to wakee iyswim Got up at 4.30 but stayed with curtains shut and a dim lamp until 6ish. It did go off after a bit.

DD went through a phase of this at about 8 months, and I'm horrified to see it's returning.

She's getting earlier by the day, this morning was 5.30. Once she's awake she chats for about 10 mins and then gets more impatient until she's screaming. There's no way she would go back to sleep, we have to get up.

It's soul destroying, I'd rather be up three times in the night than begin the day before 7.

Thanks so much for all the messages and advice and support....we are now in November and to be honest its not got much better :-(
I am now going to properly try the cutting down the daytime nap (of which is currently 2 hours after lunch) with putting him to bed earlier.
We are currently moving house (and location!) hence my lack of response. It is soul destroying and today has really got me down. Im so tired by 9am!
Anyway....we shall try the early putting to bed and see what happens.
The idea of a 2nd child at the moment seems terrifying though I feel I should be thinking about it!!!

Hiya, early waking is horrible and especially dismal in the winter months. I think cutting the day sleep may be the way forward. I know a couple of 2 year olds who have no day sleep most of the time. Maybe cut down gradually eg. by 15 mins or so every few days til you get ro an hour and then see how that affects the early waking? You could then experiment a bit to find the optimum amount of napping needed! It takes a week or so at least for early waking to start sorting itself out so give it time! also you may have a few grumbly days to contend with but hopefully things will improve quite quickly :-)

Thanks mewkins, I think that might be the only solution. It was 5.13am this morning after an early night :-(

Our DS is an early riser too but has slept 11-12 hour stretches more often recently. What definitely helped was him
Learning to walk. When we can, we take him for a walk in the park in the afternoon to tire him out. I have not really had any definite result with cutting daytime sleep as he tends to get overtired. And that can cause early waking too... I am just wondering if this is something they eventually grow out of..

Hijacking this after a search. DD is 8mo - up at 5:30am every day without fail. I count myself lucky if she sleeps for a total of 90mins during the day.

Bed is 6:45pm.

Nursery have run out of ideas on how to get her to sleep too, so she is always ratty with red ringed eyes.

Ugh.

YodasMummy - I had an early waker too & I will completely second the suggestions offered by childsleepsolutions above. However bear in mind the op had a 23month old so the suggestion to cut daytime sleep would not be relevant for an 8 month old. Perhaps better to start your own thread?

I will say that there IS a very strong link between taking a morning nap too early and waking early. So if your LO wakes at 5.30am & you are putting her back down for a nap at 7.30am then the best thing you can do is very gradually push the naptime later. Do it 5mins at a time, every few days, so she can cope without getting overtired. IME you will need to have her napping at around 9am at the earliest, possibly even nearer to 9.30am if you want to see a wakeup time nearer to 6.30/7am.