Ds 3.5 wakes at 5.20 am still!

[whoamiiam]

Does anyone else have this early waking at this age. I have tried so many different things and contrary to what many suggest to me he wakes just as early if not earlier in dark winter.

He has sleep trainer clock where 'sun' comes up at 6am but often sits and calls or keeps padding in til then.

Ds has epilepsy (absence seizures) which i suspect he has through nite, and is undergoing tests for other possible conditions also as has DD, but when wakes in morn is happy and not disturbed.

I accept and go bed early but do get concerned about his tiredness. He goes to bed at 7.30 and still has short (30min) nap at lunch time.

is it just his make up or part of whatevers going on with him?
Any suggestions?

Honestly? At his age I'd try cutting out the nap & going with a much earlier bedtime instead ie 6-6.30pm. Once he's used to no nap you should be able to shift bedtime back towards 7pm.

Thanks i have not tried that. Will do!

Don't want to be the bearer of bad news but we also have a 3.5 year old DS, no nap. He goes to sleep at about 7.45 and still wakes up at 5.38 when he hears us moving around as the alarm has gone off in our room. He actually slept a little later last summer, in the lighter mornings.

We can't do earlier bedtimes, I don't get home from work until 6.10 and we try to eat as a family then, but I am concerned that he isn't getting enough sleep. It's a killer isn't it?

We're in the same boat - 2.5 DS always woken early, between 4.30 and 5.15am, tried every method you can think of, sleep specialist, the bloody lot! She also said an earlier bed time can help but like Fire, it just doesn't happen due to family stuff. DS generally asleep by 7.30pm, so it's not horrendously late.

A friend said that school often helps them to sleep a bit more, but the best advice I ever had? Go to bed early too and accept the fact you have a lark for a child!

It's torture, it really is, you never dare have a late night, the price is too high the next day!

Not really bearer of bad news either of you, am actually reassured i am not only one in this boat. I try all sorts of different things and sometimes its better for a couple of weeks and then he reverts to waking at 5.20. So about every six months i think argh what am i doing wrong? So nice to know Im not the only one.

That said i have not tried losing the nap to earlier bed time yet as have always been scared of him waking even earlier! But i will try that as i can feasibly do it as am a lone parent to just the one dc and can adjust to suit us at the moment!

Fire like you say just worry about ds getting enough sleep as for him if it gives him more absence seizures if tired which clearly affects his development! Doc tells me its enough but i do disagree. But what can you do!

Shark totally know what you mean about late nights also and know i will struggle next day if not in bed on time!

Ta

I agree, bin the nap no need any this age.

All I can suggest as the parent of a very early waker is persevere with the sleep training clock...we got one for ds1 when he was about 3.5 as he was getting up at 5.30 and waking his baby brother up, and eventually he learnt not to wake us before the light turned green at 6.30. We tried everything to make him sleep longer and at 7 he still wakes before 6 most mornings, but now knows that it's antisocial to expect everyone else to be awake too!

Mamaduck can i ask you what rules you applied to what your ds could do when he woke before the green light came on the sleep trainer clock, if any!?

Because I've been unsure whether to let ds get up and put light on in his room and just play properly before 'sun' comes up at 6 as only time I've tried it he got up at about 4.30 to play!

Currently he has to stay in bed with just the night light from the clock to play by until the 'sun' comes. The night light is just enough light to 'brum' some cars around in bed that he's usually fallen asleep with the night before!

I made this rule because i was worried about him getting enough sleep and wanted him to understand night time doesn't end til 6am. But i does seem tough to expect him to play in semi darkness for forty mins and I've been doing it for nearly a year!

What was your experience or opinion of this may i please ask?

DD is 4 in a few weeks. She got up at 5.30am pretty much every day. Until she was 3 and 3/4. And now, she wakes us at 7am. Our secret, I'm not ashamed to say, is bare-faced bribery.

She has a gro-clock so around 6am it only has 1 star showing and at 7am the sun lights up. She knows that if she wakes up and there's more than one star on the clock it's still the middle of the night and she needs to stay in bed. If there's one star she can play quietly in her room (put light on, 'read' books, play with toys etc).

If she stays in her room until the clock comes up she gets a sticker on a chart. If she fills up a row she gets a gift (a sheet of stickers or magazine/puzzle kind of thing). Any time we get a bit forgetful about the stickers she slips back again. And she does get up early and play in her room (usually around 6.30, which seemed late a few months ago not early!). But she also now gets into little runs where she's actually asleep until 7am.

She dropped her nap at just over 2. We tried everything before the bribery chart combined with gro-clock. We put her to bed later (and did so consistently for a few weeks) we put her to bed earlier and NOTHING made a difference to her 5.30am starts. Our 16 month old has also just reliably started sleeping through the night so we're actually getting a full night's sleep on a regular basis for the first time in nearly 4 years.....

Good luck.

Thanks chaos i will try this approach had thought this must be a good use for the counting down of stars!

Its bit tricky with ds as he does have developmental delay so on alot of things although he is 3.5 on paper is often more like a 2-2.5 year old, and because his speech and language is quite delayed can be difficult to know what he understands.

That said i don't think he is as behind with his understanding as with his expression of speech and bribery already works with many other areas for us (i like to call it incentives!)

Got to be worth a shot too! Thanks all for great advice.

Also didn't nap yesterday and went to bed at 6.50 and was out like a light and slept till 5.50 which was slight improvement! Sure that was a flukey morning but fingers crossed for a combination of these suggestions!