Early waking toddler.....

[mum2sam]

My 18mth has been waking up at 5ish for the last 3 mths and now me and dh have had enough. He sleeps through ok and has done since 8mths after cc.But after a bout of teehing hes got into the habit of waking early and demanding to go downstairs. Weve left him to cry etc but he just seems to go on and on and on.It just seems impossible to ignore him has he gets older hes def getting lounder. Does cc work with toddlers or should we carry out another sleep training method? He goes to bed at 8pm and has one mid-afternoon nap for approx 2 hrs.

Is it the light mum2sam? My ds (2.9) wakes early when we forget to put up his blackout panels on the window. IME cc at 5:30am wouldn't work for ds. When he's up he's up. We've told him he can play quietly with his toys in his room (but he's much older than your ds) until his Winnie the Pooh light comes on (a nightlight we've put on timer to come on at 6:45am). Then he 'knows' it's morning. Works most days, but not all. Definitely blackout lining cut to shape and sticky velcro'ed onto the window helps loads. You can pull them off in the day. No sewing required! HTH

I think alot of toddlers wake around this time cos they come into a light sleep and can't resettle cos of the light. Or our latest is that he's in such a light sleep he feels like doing a poo in his nappy and then can never go back to sleep once that's happened. Could be this?