How to deal with early wakings?

[iwasagirlinavillage]

DD1 is 3. She still has a nap in the day but recently she hasn't had it every day. However on the days she's doesn't have it she gets very tired and emotional. Her behaviour is really affected, negatively, by her not having that day time sleep. But even when she doesn't have it she doesn't settle to slew any better and she doesn't wake up any later the next day. Her nursery agree that she still seems to need that sleep. She also has breathing problems and a lower o2 saturation than is typical so she has to work that bit harder to breathe which is why I think she is so tired. Anyway, she wakes up between 5.30 and 6am every day. She wakes up energetic and wants to go downstairs and play right away but within a couple of hours she'll clearly be tired. If she could get an hour more sleep in the night I think it would make a massive difference but I don't know how to do that in as least unsettling way as possible - me and her Dad have recently separated so I don't want to do anything too extreme but at the same time, she needs that sleep all the more at the moment.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

I should've said - she has a groclock and she always insists on saying goodnight to the sun before bedtime but she doesn't pay any attention to it in the morning. Maybe I need to put more emphasis on that and gradually readjust the waking time once she's got the principle of it?

It sounds like she needs the nap, I wouldn't drop it in your position. I might limit it though by having set nap start and end times. Say asleep at 1.30pm, woken at 3pm.

What times is she napping currently?

What time is her last meal/snack.
Just to see if it makes any difference, try giving something more filling for dinner as late as possible. This means not having anything to eat in the two hours before, otherwise she will not have the appetite to eat a whole meal

She normally has her main meal in the evening. I did once try it at lunch but she's never that interested in lunch anyway so I went back to doing it in the evening. She tends to have dinner around 6pm and she still has milk before bed - she doesn't drink milk any other time so based on the amount of calcium she has in a day she does still need it from a nutritional point of view. She currently has her nap anytime between 12 and 1. She usually has lunch after because she always used to go down around 11am and it's gradually pushed back. Although she doesn't eat much lunch - she generally has a decent sized snack in the morning and then a small lunch after her nap (around 3pm). Maybe I should try sitting her down for a proper lunch before her nap and then just the snack in the afternoon. Although I doubt that would make any difference to the early waking - just a logical adaptation that has just occurred to me!

Sometimes a "reset wake up" can help. Just before you go to bed you go into her, wake her up, change her nappy or take her to have a wee. Then resettle her back to bed.

I could try that. Just the thought of waking a sleeping child brings me out in a cold sweat! She had been waking in the night to do a wee and she would settle back to sleep okay. But the last few nights she hasn't been dry after a few weeks of being dry at night although I'm putting that down to the break up.

It's quite a routine thing to do once they are out of nappy at night, for some children who still need a wee. So just think of it as starting the 'wee wake up' a bit early.

It may not work anyway! Was just an idea.

Sorry, I just read the rest of your post! I see she's already out of nappies at night.

In that case, could needing a wee in the morning be what is waking her? Then because its morning, she struggles to resettle back to sleep.

This was why we did the wake for a wee with my DS. If we didn't, he'd be up at stupid o'clock with a full bladder.

Definitely worth a go. I'll try getting her up to do a wee when I go up to bed and see how it goes.

If set the gro clock for 6 then make a big fuss when she gets up to it. Wow what a big girl you waited for the sunshine that's so clever have a treat etc etc.
Next day ten past 6 similar fuss but a bit less so next day 20 past then half past and so on.

May need to give a few days at a certain time to get past it but slowly should reset her body clock