17 month old, waking at 4.00am, help!

[snowjoke]

My DS has been consistently waking between 3.30-4.30 every night for about a month now, some nights he also wakes at midnight. Some nights we have success in settling him back again until about 5.30, but most nights he will not go back to sleep. I'm at the end of my tether, dealing with lack of sleep an energetic boy and strong willed 3yo DD. We are very consistent in our approach, never really give in, but where controlled crying seemed to be working previously, he now is getting more and more distressed at being left, ie we used to be able to put him down for naps and bedtime awake and he would chatter happily to sleep, now he stands up screaming straight away, we have to wait in his room until he s asleep or keep a hand on his back. He seems to have forgotten how to self settle, why? any ideas and any ideas how we can get sleep back on track. I am pretty sure he is not in any pain as nights when I've given him nurofen or calpol have made no difference. He always has naps in the day so not overtired, and I don't think he is having too much sleep esp considering night wakings. Any advice welcome, thank you

Hi, I have no advice but I can sympathise as my 18 month old is doing exactly the same right now, except some days he wants to get up at 3.30 am and he doesn't nap for more than 1.5 hours in the day - so he is overtired. As am I!

I keep telling myself we just have to ride this out but it is absolutely awful and I do get very down. So sorry, no advice just know you're not the only one!

I have lots of sympathy too as my DS was an early waker for a very long time (((hugs))).

I think its important to know what his daytime routine looks like because one usually affects the other and its not necessarily about how much day sleep he's getting but can be WHEN he's getting it. So can you post a typical day for him i.e. wakeup time, nap times & length & bedtime?

Not meaning to hijack your thread op but here is my routine.

On days he wakes after 6am (rare):
Breakfast 7am
Bf 8am
Snack 10am
Lunch 11.30
Nap 12-1/1.30 (he doesn't nap well)
Snack 3am
Dinner 5.30pm or 6 sometimes
Bath 6.30
Bf 7pm
Asleep by 7.15 usually

On most days when he's awake any time before 6 (can be as early as 3.30):

No lights and minimal interaction until 6am
Breakfast 6.30am
Bf 8am
Snack 9am
Nap 9.30-10.30
Lunch 12
Nap 2.30/3 for 30-40 mins
Snack on waking
Dinner 5.30pm or 6 sometimes
Bath 6.30
Bf 7pm
Asleep by 7.30

Or if he refuses pm nap which sometimes happens he's in bed by 6 pm.

V hard to stick to any routine when wake ups are so all over the place :(

How was your morning snowjoke? DS woke at 4.30 then miraculously went back to sleep (self settled) until 5.50. So put him down for nap at 11. Hoping he will have at least an hour and we can then put him to bed after 5 hours of awake time.

Thanks omama, and it is nice to know I'm not alone, everyone around me seems to have tiny babies and toddlers who sleep better!
We have a slightly disrupted routing, due to school run and activities with my DD, so 5 days a week:
dawn awake!
9/9.30 nap in car on school run approx 45 mins
12.00 lunch
2/2.30 Nap 1-1.5 hours
5.00 tea
6.15 bath
6.30/45 milk then bed
he usually chats for a while too, or more recently screams for a while.

then 2 days a week sometimes 3, this routine changes and he has to nap in the afternoon from 1.00-2.30, or in the car for a s long as we can make it.

Last night was marginally better, he did after some persuasion to stop screaming and rattling cot bars, manage to settle himself for anothe 30 mins, then awake at 5.45, I went in bright (pretending to be happy) goodmorning lights on and milk.

Does this shed any light of problems?

I have read that nightmares can be caused by a dip in blood sugar, causing the body to produce adrenolin, which, because it is the "fight or flight" hormone, causes anxiety.

I wonder if making sure his tea includes more protein might help? (Although, for all I know you may be feeding him steak every evening!)

Vix206, there must have been more of a sleep vibe in the air last night! Perhaps it is all lunar cycles? Quite honestly I'm at the point where I would believe anything if it made sense of it all!

Put DS down for nap at 11. He played til 11.30 then slept for just 1 hour. So in theory bed time is 5.30 but if I do that I'm pretty sure I'll be up with him at 3am instead of 4am. So stumped with this. All my friends have toddlers that sleep.

Having gone through the rigours of 2 children who are bad leepers, I'm hoping it will give me a new strenght in life, to be able to carry on regardless of amount of sleep I've had. here's hoping something positive can come out of this not so exciting bit of parenting!

In all seriousness, the 18 months of sleep hell (or lack of) I have been through is the reason I'm not having any more!

snowjoke - here's my take:

EW is usually caused by either too long/too early a morning nap. Too short an awake time before bedtime, OR overtiredness at bedtime due to the longest nap of the day being in the morning.

For your LO, I'd say he's probably ready for 1 nap & that morning nap is whats causing the EW. However, jumping straight to 1 nap when he is EWing is likely to be pretty difficult, & he is likely to get pretty OT. There are a couple of different ways you could approach the transition:

2. if he really will struggle with completely dropping the morning nap then I would suggest pushing out AND capping the AM nap shorter. To start with, the nap should start no earlier than 9.30am, and I would cap it at 30mins max. His PM nap will need to start a wee bit earlier than it currently does. Keep his BT the same. His wakeup should start to get later, but if its still too early, you could cut the morning nap to just 15mins from 9.45-10am, & bring the PM nap earlier still. This should bring his wakeup later still. Once you have got to this stage, assuming he is waking after 6am you will be in a much better position to drop the AM nap altogether & shoot for a single nap around lunchtime. Depending on his wakeup time, the nap may initially need to start before lunch, and then over time it can be pushed back to after lunch at around 12.30ish (assuming that fits in with school runs?).

3. push him cold turkey to a nap at 1111.30am ish (depending on his wakeup time). Let him sleep as long as he wants, and then do an early bedtime of 6/6.30pm. Then every week, push the nap & BT 15mins later & until he's napping at around 12.30 for approx 2hrs & I would aim for BT between 7/7.30 (depending on how tired he seems).

What do you think?

Omama - do you have any thoughts for me? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Although looking at it I reckon I just have an early riser because I've tried all your suggestions over the last few months and he's always woken between 4-5 am.

How was your night snowjoke? DS woke at 5 and whinged until light came on at 6am. He cried out 3 times in the night so I'm pretty tired today despite being asleep by 9. Not too bad though. I put him to bed at 6.15 last night and he was asleep by 6.30 so I think I just need to carry on giving him his nap 6 hrs after he wakes in the morning (so today will be 11am) and then bed time 6 hrs after he wakes from that as he only ever really has an hour. I'm sure for us it's a little bit of habit, a little bit of natural tendency, a little bit of overtiredness and a lot of development (his speech is amazing at the moment)...

This too shall pass and all that!

Thanks so much for all that omama. One of my main problems is having to stick to a routing with my older child, and keeping the little one awake on the school run, it makes it very hard, and today for example I have to collect DD at 1.00 then have her at a class at 2.00, home at 3.00, total disruption for DS sleep, hes had an 1.5hr nap this morning and he may snooze somewhere in between this afternoon. I shall try and implement the changes I can.
Vix206 last night I had my DD up twice around midnight and then DS awake for 20 mins at 3.30, he then settled himself after I went in to lie him down a few times and woke at 5.45, so tired as always today!
Birds don't help at the moment especially the nesting crows behind the house, get me a gun!

Yes the birds are noisy at the moment!

snowjoke - (((hugs))) it must be tough trying to juggle your DS's routine along with an older child. Especially when her schooling activities fall right at a time when he will need to take his big nap of the day. I suppose all you can do is try & juggle it as best as you can. Perhaps in the mean time if all her schooling activities are in the afternoon, a long morning nap would work better for your DS, maybe at 10/10.30am, and then give him a shorter nap in the afternoon at around tea time ???

Vix206 - looking at your routine, here's what I think (and of course you can take it with a pinch of salt if you like!):

I would actually say that doing 6hrs either side of a 1hr nap is probably making him overtired. IME with my LO (also 18months) 1hr naps for us are always OT naps. For his age, his nap actually starts quite early, which means if he only sleeps for 1-1.5hrs max, then he is awake for a long time (6hrs) before BT. The combination of early nap AND long awake time to BT causing OT is probably what is causing your EW. So, IIWM I would do a couple of things:

1. immediately bring BT earlier, to 6pm if he naps 1hr and 6.30pm if he naps 1.5hrs. This will hopefully help counteract any current overtiredness, and you may actually find he sleeps in til later in the morning. ANd even if he wakes at his usual time, he'll have had an hour's more sleep IYSWIM? This will then help you with doing the next step of the plan:

2. after a few days of earlier bedtime, then start to gradually push his nap (and BT) later. So for 1 week, put him down at 12.15pm instead of 12. Try & keep the amount of time between his nap ending & bedtime at around 5hrs, so as the nap moves later, bedtime If he sleeps 1hr, do 6.15pm BT, if he sleeps 1.5hrs do 6.45pm. If he naps for longer (allow 2hrs absolute max) then I would do a later BT of say 7.15pm.

Then push nap to start at 12.30, and again push BT later (to 6.30pm if nap is 1hr) and to 7pm if nap is 1.5hrs, 7.30pm if nap is 2hrs. And repeat this routine for a week or two & see what happens.

I would also try & avoid the 2 nap days wherever possible as they are probably not helping the situation.

Hopefully, the later nap will stop him being overtired at bedtime, and will also encourage him to sleep in later in the morning. I have actually done exactly what I have posted above with my DS to fix his early waking & I can assure you it does work, but it can take a few weeks and a lot of overtiredness to get there.

We are actually now in the position with my DS where after 2 months of 7am WU, 12.30-2.30 nap and 7.30pm bedtime, he's started to wake at 6am, so I have now started to cap his nap at 1h 45 mins & this has sorted his EW again, so it may be that your DS is now at an age where he doesn't even need a 2hr nap anymore (1hr is on the short side but 1.5hrs really isn't bad at all). The key with the shorter naps though, is to keep the awake time between the end of the nap and bedtime shorter, to avoid overtiredness. I think if you can do this you will find things get a lot better.

HTH.x

Thanks omama. That's in line with my thinking on early bed times, I guess just a bit earlier than I'd dared to try but I think it's logical. I'll definitely try it, thanks for taking the time x

So..aimed for a 6pm bedtime. Ran a tad late, was still feeding at 6 but at 6.10 I put DS into his cot fast asleep and he has stayed that way so far. So he obviously was ready for that early bedtime. Will report back in the morning :)

Good luck snowjoke, here's hoping for a better night.

Update: Ds slept silently with no night wakings and has just awoken happy (which hasn't happened for months) at 5.45! I'll be going in to him at 6. So thanks again for giving the early bedtime advice omama, earliest I'd have gone for is 6.30 but I'll follow your advice on the timings now.

How was your night snowjoke?

Pleased you got some rest Vix. Afraid my little monster was awake at 4.30, lots of in and out trying to get him to go back to sleep, but he kept up the rage until 6.00!

Oh no :(

I didn't actually get any more rest as dh was tossing and turning all night but still...

Last night DS refused to go to sleep until 6.40 5.5 hours after waking) and woke at 5.25am. No night terrors though :)

Hi, I am in a similar situation although complicated by settling DS into nursery. He is 17 months old and has always been an EW although over the last couple of months he had settled into a 6am pattern. Two weeks ago he started his settling in sessions at nursery and immediately picked up a nasty tummy bug. Following this he has fallen into a 4 - 5am waking pattern. This morning was 4.10 but I managed to get him back to sleep after 20 mins until 6am. We have tried leaving him and prior to the nursery settling and illness if he did wake around 4 he would self settle but he seems to have lost that ability and any chatting turns to screaming and then he will not be resettled.

Currently he is having 2 sleeps but this will drop to 1 at nursery and am aiming to move him to 1 nap over the weekend. His current routine is -

6am wake (in an ideal world)
6.30 Milk
8am breakfast
9.30 nap
10.00 Awake & snack
12.00 Lunch
1.30 Nap
3.00 Milk
5.00 Tea
7.00 Milk and bedtime

I am thinking of moving his nap to 11 but this is complicated by having to pick my daughter up from preschool on a couple of days at 11.40 but was thinking would give him lunch early on those days and put him to sleep immediately when we got back. I am also worrying about the nursery situation so wondering if I should wait till he starts there in 2 weeks time before messing around with his routine at home. He is not settling well and is crying a lot - so am wondering if some of the EW is linked to seperation anxiety.

Yesterday was worst day to date as he refused to sleep in the afternoon and by the time he went to bed at 6.30 he was OT and woke up 45 mins later and had to be resettled before waking at 4.10.

Sorry for long post is my first time on here, but am feeling v down about the returned EW and going back to work so any advice appreciated.