Early rising toddler- wake to sleep? Yes or no?

[TerrifiedMothertobe]

He's always been up early 6am was the norm, 630 was a lie in. But now we are seeing in too many 5/530's and yesterday was 430.

The room is dark and quiet so he has clearly got in a bad habit. He goes to bed at7 and asleep no later than 730, ever. We tried a later bedtime, no difference, and same for an earlier one.

We tried knocking out his remaining 1 hour nap (he's 2.5) but he's very full on and can't cope. He also falls asleep by9am within minutes of being in car if we go off for the day, so clearly is exhausted.

We also have a 5 mo old I am still feeding at least twice a night, so I need some sleep!

Tonight I am planning in waking him when I feed the baby, probably around 2/3 am. Am I mad?

I am getting very desperate.... Help!

Will he accept being told that it is still night time and he needs to stay in bed? If do you could try a gro-clock, or similar and tell him he needs to stay in bed quietly until the sun rises on the clock. He may then fall back to sleep. Set the clock for gradually later times until he will stay in bed until a reasonable hour! Did you wake him in the night? Let us know if it worked.

I have tried the fro clock for a while to no avail. I wasn't brave enough to wake him last night, but as he was again up at 530 and then eyes started rolling at 830 in the car.... I have nothing to loose!

I'm sure I'll be told off but my nearly 2 yr old started doing this and I just let her cry, she fell asleep and the re woke at her usual time of 6.30 ish (she normally wakes around 6.30 and down at 7, but started to wake at 5 to 5.30)
It worked!

Don't let him nap. We had exactly the same problem wit our toddler and have a new baby too so need toddler to sleep! We cut the nap and now just have 'quiet time' lying on the sofa and watching a Disney film after lunch. Gives her a chance to re charge her batteries and then by 6 she is very ready for her bath, bed by 7

Yummymummy. We did try the no nap route and it was meltdown hell and he still woke up at 530. We only lasted a few days before we went back to a shortened nap (he only has 45 min/1 hour). How long did it take to break the cycle?

We would quite happily leave him to cry- we know the difference between crocodile tear and real despair, and have tried this. Sometimes he goes back to sleep- but it's a poor hit rate and he wakes the whole bloody house!

It's hard without the nap even after a couple of months. But we just make sure that we are not overdoing it during the day, so she may not nap but is still resting. We don't go out and do activities at that time and also we try and have a quieter afternoon than morning.

Oh yes, I forgot about how the crying would wake the whole house....
We bring our little one into bed with us if it's early o'clock and sometimes she goes back to sleep, sometimes not!

Hi All, my friend Dee Booth (a sleep consultant) has a protocol on her website for an early riser - here's the link sleepfairyparentrescue.co.uk/blog/2014/02/23/fixing-early-rising-in-1-3-year-olds/

I haven't tried it personally but hear that it works well. Good luck!!

Caroline- thanks for the link. We are near Dee so if I get really stuck....!

He slept until after 6 this morning- I briefly woke him at 230 am. He hasn't napped today (he resolutely refused- I found him half nackedooking out his window) so I will see how we get on tomorrow.... And Sunday...

He woke at 330 this morning.... But did coincide with baby being fed- so he may have woken him.

I am following the advice on the link Caroline posted. So, by Wednesday I will either have a sleep deprived mess to deal with (me/ him) or we will finally have got some early morning shut eye!

Keep going, sleep is for the future!

It's been. Hideous hideous few evenings, but this morning he slept until 630. I hope it's not a blip..... So, naps have gone and I think bedtime is now 730, unless he's a zombie.

Time will tell!

I'd try dropping the nap and putting him to bed earlier. I've had two early risers and their routine has always been wake at 5.30/6 and go to bed at 5.45/6. I've tried fiddling about with bedtimes and naps etc but they just seem to get overtired and fed up and not sleeping as well.

I tend to feed them (born 11 years apart!) at 5ish so before the rest of the family and then do our dinner etc when the toddler has gone to bed. Works for us.

I've given up trying to get a lie in!

How's it been OP? Watching with interest!!!

He fell asleep in the car on way home from nursery on Friday, but couldn't wake him. So he went straight to bd at 520. Was awake and raring to go at 4am on Saturday, no way to get him back to bed.

Short 1 hr nap on Saturday, 730 bed, up at 4 am again.

Tried to keep him up yesterday but he fell asleep on the sofa at 3pm, we woke him after 45 minutes, bed at 730 last nught. Up again this morning at 5 am.

Nap today for one hour ( he woke himself) then bed at 7pm.

Let's see tomorrow, I'm at my wits end, it's killing us. He is so badly behaved as he is so tired. I desperately want to put him done for a really long nap so he can just recover. It's horrible.

I've decided to reverse it all and get him to sleep as much as possible. He's obviously overtired and then when he's back on form, look at dropping his nap.

Sensible?

Watching this thread. I'm so fed up of the 5.30 wake ups. Occasionally we get a later wake up, we had a 7.30am on saturday, bliss. But I can never figure out what the cause is and how to replicate the situation.

We are now using a sleep consultant. I shall see how we get on. This morning was 5am and we ignored him. But he trashed his room for two hours .... Well played, but it was a tip by 7am.

Good luck terrified. Any progress as yet? We seem stuck on a 5.30 Ish wake up although every so often it will be after 6- when he is up at 5.30 he often resettles for a bit - it just means I'm awake from then on- agh!!! Any one who has any useful tips please let me know

Nope. Sorry, we have reverted back to routine after 10 days of trying lots and his sleep has improved. The 3am and 4 am starts have gone and it's a constant 5am. I am now taking the approach of getting as much sleep- daytime naps into him as I can, as I'm thinking he's so much more active than in winter, maybe he's overtired.....

I too am desperate and will try anything!

We too had an early riser, 5-5.30am, 6am on a good day. Occasionally we would have a blissful 7am wake up but there was no pattern or link to daily nap times or bed times.

It started to improve around Xmas when we were away at the GPs for two weeks (dd was then 19 mths). We were putting dd to bed later than normal every night as she was napping later than normal and we were often out late afternoon. Dd started waking later and later and since then on the whole (though not every morning) she wakes around 7ish, sometimes even later. We now put her to bed around 8pm (it was previously 7.15pm).

It could just have been a coincidence but we'd never consistently put dd to bed later before (we'd tried the odd night but not every night for a week).

We've also completely blocked out the light and have white noise on (damn you early morning bin men!).

Thanks millionprammiles. Actually last summer we had the same issue and then we went on holiday we did everything a bit later and he definitely improved. The challenge is that he's in nursery 4 days a week, so kind of at their mercy :(

Hi terrified, just read ur thread and my we have had the exact same with r ds from 22 mth he is now 26mth and he went from goin to bed at 7pm til 6.30ish he would self settle and then he started getting out of bed soon as we put him down and it would take numerous attempts to get him to stay in bed and then he would get up in night anything from 1am - 4am and then was awake at 5.30am, after mths of trying all sorts, we was exhausted so me n hubby said 3 wk ago that we are going to ignore him I told nursery to only let him have 1hr nap as some days he was having 1.5 to 2hr and the 1st night was horrendous he was up and down what seemed like every hr, he woke at 5.30 am and we ignored him and he slept til 7am. He had trashed his room a bit lol. The 2nd night he cried for 10mins wen we put him down and woke at 9.30 but then went back to sleep til 7am, 3rd night went straight down and didn't hear anything til 6.40 although he started dragging all his bedding off and sleeping on rug but he was warm and completely gone, we have moved his bedtime to 7.45 and he has been brilliant this wk he had stayed in bed all week, the sleeping on the floor is quite common and I think he's got it from nursery as they have little mats and blankets what they put on floor, I know ignoring them doesn't agree with everyone but we tried everything and it stared being a game and habit with them you can only try it. Good luck plz let me know how u get on. X

Hi Grimsey.

We do now just ignore him, he spends two hours playing in hislop/ trashing it, and we have yet to have found him asleep.

However ...... We think we may have solved the problem.... I will give it a few days to see, but we think it may be hunger!

Hi it's so hard coping with no sleep, we give porridge r weetabix and he still has a 9oz btl b4 bed. Hope it gets easier 4 u. X