Can you have a stab at helping us please?

[MissHonkover]

I'm afraid to say this is another thread about early waking.

DD is just 18 months, goes to bed at 7.15. Wakes anywhere between 5 and 5.30. She has one nap in the day, at about 1, lasting from 1 to 2 hours.

This last few days she's also been waking in the night, at about 2.30 to 3. A couple of times that's resulted in her sleeping until about 6.15, but is by no means a hard and fast rule.

Any tips?

We've tried the following:
putting to bed later
outdoors time before bed (doesn't seem to work now it's dark so early)
heating is off (warmly dressed)
blackout blinds are up

Parents of early risers, was anything you did successful to combat it?

New cot toys? I had a little music light thing and some other things attached by those pram ring clip things and could hear through the monitor she was awake but she'd eventually go back to sleep.

I'll be the first to say it - its a phase and she will grow out of it!

Yes, she has a music box thing that she switches on herself in she wakes in the night and then she does go back to sleep, sometime after some talking, sometimes after some shrieking.

poor, WHEN will she grow out of it????? It's been like this for about 9 months. Disclaimer: whatever answer you give me, I will hold you to it.

Sorry Mully, I should have said, if she wakes after 5, she won't go back to sleep.

I'm afraid my DS was a 9.5 hours at night as standard, plus nap. His cousin is the same. I loved it when my sister visited as we could keep each other company at 5 am. He slept a bit more when he dropped his nap at 2.7, and now he is in school at 4 he is zonked for 12 + poor mite.

I'd be happy to accept less than the golden 12 hours if only she'd go to bed later, but I don't know how to get there, we tried for a week before and it was horrendous, waking 3 - 4 times in the night.
Anyone tried successfully to shift their child's bedtime?
Glad to hear your DS grew out of it.

Can you shift her bedtime later by 5 mins every 2-3 days?

Could you wake her from a nap earlier? A nap finishing at 2-3pm is quite late in the day. You could try limiting it to 1hr max. I appreciate it might be hard to get her to sleep any earlier.

Does she get enough physical exercise during the day? 3hrs is the recommended daily amount of time walking/climbing/running/jumping for under 5s.

Other than that, it will pass eventually. My eldest used to wake at this sort of time. Gradually it shifted to 6am ish. By the time he was 4 he was able to read 7am on the clock and knew not to disturb us before that unless bad dream or something. Once he started school his sleep improved dramatically. Waking during the night for various unfathomable reasons is totally normal throughout toddlerhood IME.

Thanks Mo, will try to monitor her exercise levels. She's only been walking for about 6 weeks so can't run yet. She toddles about everywhere, but not very quickly!
Will move her bedtime in tiny increments as you suggest.
Unfathomable indeed!

Just as an example of another baby's routine at 18 mths - DD goes to bed at 7.30, sometimes asleep by 8 (more often by 8.30). (She wakes several times during the night but this is irrelevant for this). She wakes at 6.15am for the day. If she wakes during the night, she's cranky and irritable because she wants to be asleep, but once she wakes after 6am, she's chirpy, full of energy and in great form. Like your DD, she'd never fall back asleep at that point.

She also has a 2 hour nap during the day, usually from 11.30 to 1.30.

So it sounds as though your DD is the same, just with an earlier bedtime. I'd try pushing out the bedtime little by little as suggested as well. If you could get an extra 45mins in the morning, it would make a big difference I'd imagine. I'm not mad about our earlyish starts, but I'd take them any day over the night time wake ups

Good luck

I also feel your pain!!! On a good day my DS (16months) wakes at 6-6.30, but more often it starts with a 5!

Wanted to second what MoTeaVate said about the nap finishing quite late. I am already finding with my DS that if he has a 2hr nap, if I give anything less than 5hrs between nap & BT he will wake early the next day. I am also considering capping his nap slightly shorter at 1.5hrs max, & trying to keep him to a 7pm BT. However, our nap currently starts at 11-11.30am so I need to shift it later before I try that!!!

I would say you either need to gradually increase BT or gradually cap the nap if you prefer to keep BT the same. Huh I ought to take some of my own advice eh?!

Thanks for the advice!

I used to be bewildered as to why people gave their kids lunch at 11.30, now I'm starting to see why! Trillian, does your DD have her lunch when she wakes?

Horses for courses, isn't it? I'd rather wake three times in the night than be up at 5. Perhaps we should swap children, Trillian?

Today we were up at 5.30, having been up for about half an hour in the night at 2.30 (she was just chatting, we didn't need to go in to her). Last night bed was 7 on the dot. Will try moving it 5 mins per night, and finish her nap by 2.

We had success with putting DS to bed earlier. If we try to "hold him out" for a later bedtime he will wake early. He stayed at the in laws last week and they didn't put him down til 9. He woke at half 5!

I had this for a few months but it was summer so the daylight before bed worked.I had some success with enforcing naps but also making them shorter.
Have you tried the baby whisperer method of disturbing them a bit before they normaly wake?How about giving him a bottle of milk to drink in his cot,will he go back off.
DD went through a phase of waking about 5 times a night recently,the early mornings seemed a pleasure by comparrison.
If all else fails can i suggest early nights and sky plus,im often to be found watching tv before dawn,clutching a coffee

Ooh, Jugs, I'm scared to go earlier in case she's then up at 4. I can see the logic though, I'm supposing they then go into a whole extra cycle of sleep. In theory.

Hello ledkr, I'm sorry to say I was on a thread with you in the past about this! DD improved temporarily but was soon back to her old ways.

How much before her wake time should I rouse her? That could mean setting the alarm for 4. [weeping emoticon]

We don't have Sky I'm afraid, so at that time of day there are only Zumba adverts and weird BBC World telly available. Comes to something when you look forward to the horrific Me Too.