When early waking messes up the whole day...

[wineapotamus]

Any experience?
Dd is 14 months and does 1 nap a day. But she's up so early (5.20ish) that she can't make it through to lunchtime awake-she often falls asleep on the way home from school run. Then her one nap ends at 11-11.30 and she's straight through to bedtime which makes for a fraught tea time! Any thoughts? I could wake her after half a hour in the morning I guess and try her again after lunch-but I'm not keen for her to think that's her nap done and then be awake from 10-bed on half an hours sleep! 😱

When she wakes at 5.20, can you just leave her in the cot and see if she goes back off to sleep? I do this with my son and 9/10 times he’ll go back to sleep after chatting for 10 minutes?

MY DS is 21mo and is a pretty early waker (getting better thankfully), if he's awake anytime up until about 6.30am then he still has two naps. One about 3 hrs after wake up and then again 3hrs after wake up. Bed about 7-8pm depending on the day. He is starting to resist this a bit now but at 14mo was working great.

He could probably switch to one bigger nap but he would want it right when we were doing nursery run for DD after lunch so that never works. Today he didn't get up til 7.30 so no time for nap before nursery run so I'm just gonna try keep him up til lunch then put him down when we get home

I do try leaving her til 6, but she doesn't go back down, and often has done a poo for good measure. I can try a two nap day but the afternoon one is a massive struggle and a non event after we've picked up her big brother-he's way too fun! 🙄

Is her bedroom pitch black and warm enough?