Toddler waking early after dropping morning nap

[blueberry71]

My 14 month old has just started only having one nap a day. She's napping brilliantly and going down a lot easier in the evening. However she's now started trying to wake at around 5am. I usually manage to get her back to sleep but it's still not usual for her. Before nap change she used to wake up at 8am (which I know is lucky). I don't mind her waking up earlier but 5am is too early really. Any suggestions would be amazing. Has anyone experienced the same thing? I should note that we are still in the first week of the nap change as well. Thanks

My dd is 13 months and has dropped to one/no feeds overnight but is still have 2 naps, and she has gone from sleeping til 7 to waking at 5am. I'm not used to it and not coping very well Don't have any advice, but i can sympathise!

Have you tried putting her to bed later? Leaving her in the morning until she calls for you?

Early waking can be a sign of overtiredness. Perhaps drop the morning nap more gradually, so some says with it and other days just one nap depending on how tired she is/how early she wakes up.

I would treat the 5am as a night waking and do whatever it takes to get her back to sleep. Usually everything is just a phase and at that age their sleep patterns do keep changing.

My 15 month old also went through a phase of waking at about 5am from about 13 months. He seems to be moving out of it now.. but he's still having two naps.

The lighter mornings don't help. Do you have blackout blinds? We spent a small fortune on some really good ones that don't let in any light at all and it made a big difference for us.
DS also seemed hungry when he woke and wanted milk straight away, so I sometimes give supper if he hasn't eaten much on a particular day.

5am wake ups are hard!

Thanks everyone! I am tempted to bring back the morning nap as she's really struggling to get to the afternoon nap. We only decided to stop the morning one because she was fighting the afternoon one like mad. But I may restart the 2 naps but limit them to an hour each. I don't really want to put her to bed any later as she already goes to bed at 8. I've tried getting her to bed earlier and it doesn't work. Just so annoying that you get into a great routine then it all changes!

It’s frustrating that just when you think you’ve got it sorted it all changes! I did 2 naps some days, 1 nap other days depending on what we were doing, how tired they were, etc. I then put them to bed a bit earlier/later depending on naps. I did just leave them to sleep though and never woke them up. Mine were never early risers though so perhaps I would have done things differently if they were.

You’ve just got to find what works for you for now and then if/when it stops working you can try something different. Could you try one nap and then put to bed earlier? On the days mine had one nap, they were in bed really early.

@theycallmebabydriver yeah I did think of putting her to bed earlier on days on one nap. What times were your lo's napping in the day? And what times were you putting them to bed?

Sorry meant to send that to @littledinaco

If two naps, was around 10am and 2/3pm ish. If one nap around 12pm. I was happy to be flexible though and did naps around when they seemed tired and what we were doing that day (got harder with DC2 and 3 trying to fit naps around older DC).

Bedtime was usually 7/8pm although I did lots of 6/6.30pm bedtimes when they had one short-ish nap. Did some 9pm bedtimes too on occasion when they did a long late nap. I was happy to be flexible though which doesn’t suit all babies/all parents, some prefer a much more fixed routine.

Mine usually woke up 7/8am ish. I treat anything before 7am as night waking and get them back to sleep. I breastfeed and was/am lucky that they would just have milk (usually around 6am ish) and go back to sleep quite easily (obviously not true for lots of babies!)

You’ve got to find what suits you. I did find it much easier when they went reliably to one nap.

Thanks @littledinaco! Yes I'm the same. Never been too regimented when it comes to bedtime! Although it is lovely having a bit of evening time to ourselves when she's asleep ha ha! I will keep to one nap for another week and hopefully she'll start to adjust a bit better. X