Early Birds: 18 mo getting up at 4am

[Cbell]

I need advice. I need anyone who has had success dealing with this issue to tell me what to do.

Should we ride it out, he's been waking at this time for over 6 months. Will he get better with age?

Can we intervene? I tried CC two weeks ago and had some success after the first morning. We were getting wake ups 5am/5.30am but it's slowly creeping back to 4am.

I have shifted his nap to 12pm (1.5 hours -2hours). When he gets up at four he is tired and grumpy in the morning but not enough to go ack to sleep.

If we leave him in the morning he cries, if we go to him he cries.

Please tell me what to do? I am getting very cross with my little man,

This is why they are so bloody cute!

Quite often, counter intuitively, they need more naps, not less. I would try to go back to two naps or a later, longer nap. It's all a bit trial and error and you have to give it a chance to work, you can't just give it a couple of days and decide it's not working.

Milk & banana before bed too.

Good luck.

Not 2 naps - this really wont help in the long run unless you are dealing with short term overtiredness from early waking due to eg an illness/teething.

When they are long term early birds the key is to shift the nap later. This is really hard when they wake so early as they will be tired & want an early nap, but this keeps them in the cycle.

I would Slowly move his nap later by 15 mins every 5 days or so until it starts no earlier than 1pm. Once you get to 1pm leave it there for a couple of weeks & his wakeup time should improve.

Also bear in mind that at 18 months there is a big sleep regression so he might be affected by that too. Good luck. I've been there but came out the other side with a ds who is now a great sleeper & no longer wakes early. You can do it!

Many thanks for the advice.

Omama, how long do you think I should get DS to nap for during the day. I have noticed no correlation between amazing of day time sleep and morning wakings.

Also at what age did you DS early wakings improve (do we need to wait another 13 years)?

We used to let our ds nap for anything up to 3 hours at that age, esp as we were pushing his nap later as he'd be shattered. However, you do have to bear in mind that such a long nap may mean he is no longer tired enough for a 7pm bedtime. So you either shift bedtime a little later or you cut the nap a bit shorter eg limit to 2hrs. From personal experience I wouldnt make it any less than 2hrs or he will end up overtired. We did limit napsfor a while but found he was much happier if we let him sleep but accepted a later bedtime. He went at 7.30 for a while then as he neared 2yo we moved it to 8pm. It stayed that way on nap days til he dropped his nap completely.

My ds's early waking was pretty bad from 13-17 months often getting up at 4am & sometimes even 3.30. Brutal. Anyhow once we shifted the nap later things got better very quickly & by say 19/20 months he was doing something like up 7am, nap 1-3/3.30 bed 7.30. At about 2yo he started having odd days without a nap & I would put him to bed really early & he'd sleep right through, often til 9am!!! Nap gradually got later (so did bedtime), less frequent & naturally shortened. By 3 yo he was napping a couple of times per week 2-4pm with 8pm bedtime & we had to drop it completely when he started school in September at just turned 4. So basically it wont last forever & you might find you have an excellent little sleeper on your hands!! Good luck!

Our DD2 is similar so I'm interested in this too. She was a great sleeper until the 4 month sleep regression which seemed to last 6 months! She's always been awake early but for the last 4 months at least it's between 4.30 - 5. DH and I are shattered.

I'd put it down to teeth. But she seems to have got into a habit now. We've tried a weetabix before bedtime when she's at her childminder as she has tea early there but makes no difference.

Yesterday she was at home with me and had a 2 and half hour nap from 12 noon. I can't see how she'd last to 1pm. She literally crashed out before I'd even put her in the cot. She sleeps well for CM with a 2 hour nap most days after lunch. She goes to sleep about 7.30pm.

What do you do at 4am? Do you let him get up?4am is night time, at 18mo I would give him water and calpol incase of teeth and then put him back to bed. He will fuss, just go back every 10 minutes or so comfort him and repeat that it's time to sleep. Keep going until a time you find acceptable for waking up. It's a bit brutal for you but your problem will continue if you are not tough about it. You could put him to bed a bit later, say 8 so you are confident at 4am that he has not had enough sleep.