13mo up at 4.30am every day - help!

[sunnyfields25]

Hi

I've held off posting in case this problem resolved itself, but it's been going on for several weeks now and no improvement.

Up until recently 13mo DS did well with sleep - 2.5ish hours of napping and 11ish hours of night sleep. But it's all gone to pot! He wakes at about 4.30 every morning and will not be re-settled. Gets upset if we leave him. It's like he's ready to start the day. And yet in the day he's dead to the world once napping and I have to wake him from both naps, so he is clearly tired.

We already have a blackout blind but a lot of light still comes in round the edges. I tried hanging an extra dark sheet up which has done a good job blocking out more light, but no difference. He's had a cold but nearly over it so don't think that's the cause. And no new teeth apparent at the mo.

This may be a problem that I can't 'fix', but if anyone has any suggestions I would very much love to hear them .

The only thing left I can think is to start fiddling with his daytime routine, but I'm wary of doing so in case it messes up his naps and we go back to the dreaded 30 min nap days. His routine currently is:

4.30 - awake (sometimes then doses on and off)
9.30 - 11.00 - 1st nap
2.00/2.30 - 3.30 - 2nd nap
7.15 - asleep

Thanks!

I would try cutting the morning nap ( hell at first if he's up at 4:30 but you need to change the routine and it shouldn't take long) and having an earlier but longer lunchtime nap.

I posted about this on another thread about early morning waking the other day. Tin foil on his windows, completely blocks the light out. Did it in DS's (11 months) last week and he's been sleeping until 7am again.

Stick it to the actual window pane frame rather than the outer window so you can still open the windows. Obviously in this weather you'll want the window open at night but I've found I can leave the small window at the top wide open and put the large windows on the breather, then close the curtains and it's still really dark and not too hot during the night.

Apparently you can stick it with with water but I just taped it. Looks like we're growing something dodgy in DS's room from outside by luckily it's at the back of the house!

Watching this with interest.. I have 13mo old twins. Cut down our afternoon nap and DS sleeps until 6 but.. DD wakes everyone up at 430-5 😱😱

Sorry should have said don't stick it to the outer frame, not outer window.

Like this

@BarbaraWarpecker when you say cut the morning nap do you mean cut it out completely or just shorten it? I think DS still needs two naps a day but I had wondered about shortening the morning one. I'm a bit scared to try it though as last time I fiddled with his routine, admittedly a good few months ago, it resulted in just two 30 min naps a day. That was tough!

Thanks for the light blocking ideas @househunthappening . I am tempted to try the tin foil although I suppose I'm not convinced the problem is light related. What with the blackout blind, lined curtains and now this extra dark sheet flung over, there isn't much light still coming in. I don't suppose you know whether the foil introduces any risk of the window glass cracking? This maybe sounds paranoid but I was considering ordering one of the stick-on Gro blinds and then read a review saying it had absorbed lots of heat and cracked someone's window. So that put me off!

Wow this is bad enough with one @ellesbellesxxx, can't imagine dealing with it with twins!

@sunnyfields25 no I hadn't heard about that! To be honest if anything I think the room itself is cooler with the tin foil, I guess it reflects the heat rather than absorbs it like the black gro blind would? Wouldn't like to say it's fine and then you end up with a cracked window, but mines been up since Saturday in l this heat so I guess if it was going to go wrong it would have done by now!

Thanks @househunthappening, I might give the foil a go tonight then as an experiment. Don't worry I won't hunt you down and try to sue you though if the window ends up in pieces . Out of interest, did your DS start sleeping later again straight away once your foil was up, or did it take a while?

Good luck @sunnyfields25.

Yes, I had to wake him up the next day! I was a bit like you, didn't think it was the daylight waking him up because he already had blackout curtains and he slept in there fine during the day for naps. I think I read somewhere that at about 5am their sleep pattern changes into a very light sleep, hence why they often wake really early. I guess the sunrise coinciding with the lighter sleep pattern was stopping him from nodding back off.

If blackout doesn't work maybe try rousing him a little an hour before he usually wakes ie at around 3.30am to see if he'll go back off and sleep through then?

DS is probably at the younger end of the scale to drop the early nap completely but that is what I was thinking.