Waking at 5.30am still tired - help appreciated!!

[Alicerose0223]

Hello,

I'm new here! So forgive me if I'm posting in the wrong area/repeating another thread!

My 1 year old ds (just turned 1 two weeks ago) has started to sleep through the night (on a good night!) after some CC we did about a month ago. He self settles to sleep in his cot. The problem we have now is that he is waking at 5.30am on the dot every day and is clearly still tired.

If he has a bottle at 5.30 he sometimes will go back off for another hour or more, sometimes he doesn't and that is it, he's up.

If he's up at 5.30 then he is shattered and needs an early nap. He is at nursery and only has one nap there at 12pm so often he is in bed at 6.30pm due to being so tired from only 1 nap.

I understand that some nights he has done 11 hours which is great but it's just that he is so obviously still tired and then cranky once he's up!!

Does anyone have any advice please?? Or tips to re set that waking time of 5.30!? We have a 4 year told and the 5.30 get ups are making me one tired mummy!!

TIA xxx

Why is he only having one nap at nursery? What does he do on non nursery days?

They really struggle to get him down in the morning, he is the only one that still needs a morning nap and he just has none of it, just plays in his cot. So he goes down with the rest of them at lunch time. If he's at home and he's started the day at 05.30 he has a nap at 10 for about an hour and a half and then has a nap at 3 for no longer than 45 mins.

I should also mention that we left him from 5.30 till 6am for 3 weeks in the hope that he would settle back off but he just cried until we eventually got him!!

It's tough when they wake at 530 and almost impossible to get them back to sleep isn't it! On the two nap days that's quite a variation between morning and afternoon length. The afternoon one is the important one as that is what he will drop down to eventually and a whole afternoon on just a 45 min sleep would make him very overtired (which leads to early waking weirdly).

I would be tempted just to do one nap everyday even on non nursery days and put him down at 12 as they do. He is quite young for one nap but he is heading that way anyway so maybe just deal with a couple of months of cranky baby? The consistency of this might stabilise his sleep a bit?

Or if you still want two naps wake him up from the morning one after 45 mins and then put him down earlier for afternoon and let him sleep as long as wants

Also have you ruled out hunger by giving him a 'supper' and some milk just before he goes up to bed?

Thank you for the advice! I will try stick to just one nap each day - it's just so hard to get to 12 when he's been up since 5.30! Or like you say, make the morning one the shorter one.

Pretty sure it's not hunger as he has his tea at 5.30 and then a full bottle and bed at 6.30/7 latest.

It's so difficult when we know he needs that extra bit longer but his body clock gets him up so early!! When he's not ready! And I'm deffo not ready either haha!

Thank you again!

I had this for months with ds (now 2.2). The only thing that helped was just having one nap (usually around 1pm for anything between 45mins to and hour and a half) and making sure he is busy between 2.30-5pm.

I noticed on days that dd did an activity that meant ds was dropped off at my.dms and played with his cousins for a couple of hours he was much later waking up the next day. Also lots of fresh air seems to knock hom out too.

Thank you bimandbam. We try to keep him busy and we're looking forward to the weather warming up a bit so we can have some afternoon fresh air!!

Thanks for your replies. What would your advice be on what to do when he wakes at 5.30am?? Ignore/bottle/controlled crying?? I'm really at a loose end as to what to do for the best

Thanks again xx

PS it was 5.12 this morning!!!!

Thank you bimandbam. We try to keep him busy and we're looking forward to the weather warming up a bit so we can have some afternoon fresh air!!

Thanks for your replies. What would your advice be on what to do when he wakes at 5.30am?? Ignore/bottle/controlled crying?? I'm really at a loose end as to what to do for the best

Thanks again xx

PS it was 5.12 this morning!!!!

I would just ignore unless crying. Remember if you are the UK clocks go forward in a month or so which may fix the issue for you

Yeh he wakes up and cries I'm afraid :( which indicates to me he's still tired!? That's a great point about the clocks going forward!!!