Shorter naps but ds still getting up far too early

[wools]

Just wondered if any of you mums could shed some light on this for me. My ds is 2.8 and sleeps from 7pm approx to 5.30am. We've recently cut down his lunchtime nap so it's no longer than 45 mins to 1 hour. He used to sleep anywhere from 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours. It hasn't made any difference to his early waking whatsoever. Has anybody else had this problem and if so how did you resolve it.

Anyone?

Sorry you're not getting anything on this, wools.

What do you do when he wakes up at 5.30 a.m.? Do you go in to him, or do you just ignore him? What are your views on just leaving him to get back to sleep?

And does he have blackout blinds as well as curtains?

We have this problem with our 2.8 DS too. I have no idea what to do. I especially hate that most of his little friends regularly sleep until 8 or so.

Have you thought about putting him down later? Ds goes down about 8:30 and sleeps until 7:30 am.

I think if you are going to do later bedtimes you have to shift them very gradually and shift everything else too - tea, bath etc.

But it might work. My DS3 (20 months) goes to sleep at about 8 - 8.15 p.m. and sleeps until 6.30 - 7 a.m. which is about the same length of sleep in total.

Same here, my ds (2.2) never sleeps later than 6am. I have found that it makes no difference if shorten his nap or cut it out altogether, put him to bed later or earlier, it's when he wants to wake up and he will not go back to sleep - he is all smiles ready to start the day. I've just learned to live with it, have thought about introducing bunny clocks etc but can't be arsed. I prefer having my evenings to myself ie. having his bedtime at 7.30pm and not later. When he's a sulky teenager it'll be payback time and wake-up calls at 6am. So in a long-winded way, sorry no advice here.. everyone says they'll sleep later when they are older!

My dd (2 1/2) also has approx the same amount of sleep but goes to sleep around 8pm and wakes around 6.30am (give or take 15/20 minutes). She also has around 1hr of naps a day. All I could suggest is moving the bedtime slowly later to give your lo's body clock time to adjust and see if you can get him to go to bed later so he will sleep later in the morning.

why don't you put him to bed later? My ds sleeps around 10.5 - 11 hours a night, but he goes from 8.30 till 7 so i don't mind. like you, I find cutting the map makes not difference (unless he has more than 2 hours, in which case he'll wake up earlier).

kg - you've said you like your evenings, but if you did want to put him down later, the trick is to make the whole day later - naps meals etc, and to use black out blinds or at least very heavy curtains.

Thanks everyone...I think I will try putting him down a bit later and see what happens.