12mo early wakings - spring/drop nap/suck it up? Help!

[Littlef00t]

So dd has gone from waking at 7 like clockwork to waking anytime between 5:30 and 6:30.

She's up and standing at the end of the cot bawling in seconds (like she does for naps!) and nothing I do can persuade her it's still night, she's ready for the day.

Other times in the night she might briefly cry out but doesn't need resettling.

I put her to bed between 6:45-7:15pm.

Any chance the clocks changing might sort this out?
Do I need to drop the morning nap? She seems to need it but manages without the 3 days she's at the childminder.
I put up a blackout blind last night, no effect.

I know there are lots of threads on this, I can't handle early mornings for years!

I won't try anything radical until the clocks change, but wanted to garner views and what's worked for you.

In the same boat and was wondering if the clocks going forward will mean that DD will now sleep to 7 am ( new time) or just adjust herself back to 6 am?

I know 6 am is not bad but would dearly love even another half hour!

I'd happily settle for 6am, even 5.30! 12 month old DD now waking between 4.30 and 5 ... Am hoping v much that clocks going forward might do something. I think with early wakings you often just have to ride it out ... my first DD did it for a good while (can't remember how long, but at least 6 months around 18 months) and then she just started sleeping till 7 ...

Similar scenario here with DS, 12 months.

I've been so lucky that he's slept 8pm - 7am solidly since he was 8 months and taken two naps totalling around 2.5 - 3hrs a day.

But over the last couple of weeks he's rising earlier and earlier in the mornings. It was just after 6 this morning despite not going to bed til 8:30pm last night because we were out having dinner.

I'm finding it difficult to fit in his afternoon nap as it's got later and later plus he's now starting to refuse it anyway. When I've tried to keep him up til lunch time for one nap he just loses the plot by 10:45, especially when he's been up since 6:15am.

So we're between a rock and a hard place! Two naps too much, one nap not enough.

The early starts aren't the main issue, I can cope for now - but I feel like DS needs the sleep.

I don't know what to suggest - I've starting pushing the morning naps later and later and now I don't let him go down until 10:30 and I cap it at 1.5hrs so that he can have a quick 45 minutes in the afternoon. He has a groblind so it's dark in his room. I don't think teething is an issue at the moment.

We're just riding it out at the moment - like everything, it's just another phase. At least it's not pitch dark at 6am these days

Well dd magically slept til after 7 today.

Pick one or all of the below reasons, or make up another!

Reason 1: gro blind took a day to kick in?
Reason 2: earlier nap with cm so more tired at bedtime?
Reason 3: bit coldy but coughing less so more tired and less disturbed?
Reason 4: she's a baby, it'll be 5am tomorrow to make up for it...

Waiting with baited breath for tomorrow, it's the first time in at least a month she's slept that late (apart from Mother's Day the little star) I reckon she wasn't disturbed at the crack of dawn by her cough and the blind fooled her into staying asleep.

Mine refused sleep at nursery when they tried 3 times to put him down, finally he slept 2-3 so I put him to bed at 7:15 last night. He did stay asleep until just after 6 so that's good - he obviously needed it.

Think I'm going to really try to crack dropping a nap this week by planning loads of activities to keep him busy and also my DH is away so I don't mind early bedtimes.

Interesting to follow someone else's progress in a similar boat!

Mrsmugoo, I feel like you're my sleep buddy on mn, your name often crops up when I post, I love it!

Dd is definitely great at not noticing she's tired when she's busy. The only times she doesn't have a nap is when we're too busy to factor one in.

When she's at home with me and I'm doing my best to ignore her letting her develop independent play she's often showing tired cues by 10am, sometimes by 9:30 if she's had a busy few days.

I would say that there likely to be some days that are two nap days and some that are one nap.

Haha yes I've noticed we always seem to be in the same threads!

Oh no! Please don't plant any seeds of doubt that using the clocks changing to change my DS's sleep patterns won't work! Holding out hope for this has been the only thing keeping me going for the past few weeks. DS is early to bed (6pm) and very early to rise (5:15am) and was planning on just letting the time change sort it out for me. Am I dreaming?
The next step after this is tackling the night feeds... and I don't know of any clocks that will sort that one out for me!

I'm fingers crossed the clocks will sort dd out which is why I've not pushed on the early waking.

Today was 6:20 which isn't want I'm aiming for, but im accepting that she's probably conditioned to be hungry about that time now as she's been getting up at that time for a while.

Wondering about tomorrow, as she had 3 short naps today and not v busy day.

Does anyone else find their LO will go to sleep fine after a late nap/ lots of naps/ quiet day but wake early to 'compensate'?

Offering my experience, although I appreciate it doesn't really offer direct help. DS (21 months) woke early for the past year. He woke a couple of times in the night the almost every day woke between 4 and 5.30. Then last month he started sleeping through to 6 every night. All I can say is that having tried everything at the start, and given up, we did nothing differently. Absolutely nothing. Still had nap the same length, same bedtime, environment the same. DH and I were talking about it this morning. It was exhausting and the worst bit was feeling we were doing things wrong. I think, now, that it was a combination of teething and just stuff going on in his mind/developmental stuff. Anyway. All I can think is - this too shall pass!

I think 6.30 isn't unreasonable for a one year old, personally, but maybe that's my lowered standards

6:30 isn't the absolute end of the world no, but speaking for myself - we operate a slightly later schedule than most with DS's bedtime being 8, not 7 (I can't understand why everyone is so obsessed with the 7pm bed thing?!). My DH is self employed and works round the clock, 7 days a week. I don't start work til 10am so getting up pre-7am really takes it out of me because by the time I start work I'm already shattered, I don't get any lie-ins as my DH works til 3am most days and if I went to bed any earlier we'd never see each other.

Just making the point that everyone's schedule is unique to their family situation. Saying 6:30 isn't unreasonable for a 12 month old with no context on the bedtime or the family situation is unhelpful tbh.

I didn't mean that to come across as arsey btw - I guess it's just a sore subject!

Keen to follow this thread as having same problems with my 14 month old, and I am also hoping the clocks will sort her out too. Anytime after 5 is normal for her so I'm hoping this will move to 6 at the earliest. Although this morning she decided 4 was an acceptable time to wake!! I would absolutely love a 6/6.30 start to the day and personally wouldn't expect her to sleep any longer at this age

I'll re-word - I'd dearly love my son to go back to sleeping 11 hours at night because since he's dropped down to only 10 he's a grumpy little sod.

Last night was better - yesterday we successfully achieved one nap by going to a play cafe in the morning and keeping him busy. He slept almost 2hrs in his pushchair and went to bed earlier. I think he slept 11 hours so if we can keep this up to the weekend, with the clock change he should be back to his original bedtime and a decent wakeup time.

I agree that I have it sweet grumbling about wake ups after 6, it's more that she has always slept til after 7 (there might have been night feeds but she'd go back to sleep until 7) and she's dropped an hour in a couple of months and absolutely won't go back to sleep. I'm wary it might get worse.

Wondering if her learning to walk might be a reason for waking early? not clutching at straws at all!

Well she woke at 5:56 this morning. Really hope the clocks do have an effect, but surely once she's accustomed to an earlier bedtime the earlier wake time will follow...

DS is 15 months and wakes at around 5-5.30 every day. It's knackering but it's also so bloody tiresome starting the day so early. Things I have tried so far in my attempts to eek another hours sleep;
-Dropping a nap. Makes no difference. Well except he gets grumpy.
-Cutting down overall daytime sleep. Ditto to above.
-Putting him to bed later. Nothing. Except grumpyness.
-No milk on waking- we give him milk at 5 as it used to put him back off to sleep until 6.30ih. Since this stopped working we thought he might be waking for it so said no milk until 6.30. This was not met well with the boy!
-Bringing him into bed with us-Far too interesting. Wakes him up more.
-Reasoning with him. He is 15 months old. Even we know we're idiots.

Now we are sort of relying on The Clocks Changing but I don't see how it will help beyond a day or two if he just wakes up 10 hours after he goes to bed. Anyone got any other ideas?? We're seriously "reasoning" with a 15 month old. As in "seriously baby, you're still tired, Mummy's still tired, Daddy's still tired, there's nothing going on in the world for a few more hours so how's about you just stay asleep till then eh??"

Personally I don't think it's decadent to shoot for 7am waking. Sure, there are some people who have to endure much, much earlier wakings but it's not the norm to be ok with waking up at 5am for the day!

Mine definitely isn't waking for milk or food - I leave him in his cot until 7am regardless of his wakeup time and he's fine to just murble and play with soft toys until I get him - he wakes because he's done sleeping!

Mrsmugoo I so wish dd would chat and play in her cot in the mornings. She is standing wailing within a minute.

Nicky, you say your ds wakes x hours after sleeping but a later bedtime doesn't change anything? So surely an earlier bedtime (ie the clocks have gone forward) would mean same wake time but everyone except ds would know it's now 6:30....?

Hoping for clock change for my 8 month old currently is shattered by 6pm then wakes 5-5.30 if we could move bed time to 7 then wake 6-6.30 that would be amazing!

Icklekid - what's your LO's napping schedule for her to be tired by 6pm?

Another 12 month old here that has suddenly started with the early rising! For as long as I can remember ds has usually woken between 6.30 and 7. This week we've had as early as 5.30! fingers crossed the clock change helps.
We have some teething going on which may be part of it and also the dreaded transition to 1 nap seems to be starting.
nice to see he's not the only one!

Hmm transition to 1 nap. Weirdly dd is quite happy on 2 naps with boring mummy and 1 nap with action packed childminder. I've assumed that until a nap impacts on her going to sleep at night everything is fine, but it quite possibly is impacting morning waking instead.

I thought we were good on 2 naps for a while yet but he normally naps on the way to playgroup and he was still awake when we got there so that was it he stayed awake until after lunch. Every other day has been 2 naps due to the stupid early waking though

I've found that she's not sleeping for more time overall with 2 naps so happy with chopping and changing depending on how she is.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow everyone. Lie ins for all!