Toddler waking at 5am - HELP!

[SlB09]

We've tried everything, he's just turned two and waking at 5am. Nothing we do or try results in longer sleep, he screams if he's left in his cot and in all honesty its really getting me and my husband down now.

He goes to bed at 7pm and will go to sleep no bother but he often wakes multiple times during the night (he can go to sleep himself without milk/rocking etc) but often screams until we go in no matter how long we leave him.

What on earth can we do? Have any of you successfully navigated this?!!

Have you tried a gro clock? That worked for us when dd woke up at 4.30/5 every morning and wouldn't believe us that it wasn't morning. Shifted the morning wake up incrementally to 7am. Plus black out blinds.

Does he get tired early in the day or might he only need 10 hours sleep at night? If he's fine until a post lunch snooze, he might just be getting enough sleep. In which case maybe move bedtime slightly later?

He has around a 2hr nap at 11/12 and does need it as he's knackered and starts to get very grumpy. I have though that maybe he only needs 10hrs as he's properly awake at 5am not awake and whingy. There have been odd days where he hasn't napped and those are the worst nights sleeps!!

We have a grow clock, might persevere with it again but we did a few weeks before and it didn't seem to make any difference. Did you set it for say 5am at first then move it by ten mins until up to 7?

I don't know, where you live, but here in the North it starts to get light at 5am. It could be the light that wakes him.
Mine were the same - I covered the window with blackout curtain and that helped.
And try to delay bed time, gradually.

You won't want to hear this but some kids are just early risers and there's not a lot you can do about it! We tried everything with Dd1 (Black out blinds, clock, long nap, short nap, no nap etc etc) and nothing worked. She's 11 now and still doesn't sleep later than 6, no matter what time she goes to bed.

@LeekMunchingSheepShagger this is worse fear

@Senac32 in the north of England. We have blackout blinds etc he just seems to have his own body clock that thinks 5am is reasonable!

Sorry OP but we’ve been through a prolonged phase of this over the last year. If DT2’s eyes open after 4am, he’s up for the day. That’s it.

We are now averaging around 5:30-5:45am wake ups (but he has a whole lot of other sleep and medical issues so it’s not my main worry).

You’ll get used to it if it’s longterm. It’s actually not a bad thing to be up early, although it’s tough at this time of year when it’s so dark. You could try pushing bedtime back til 8 but I don’t know if it will change anything - can take 3-4 hours for the twins to get to sleep and they still wake at the same time.

@SinkGirl wow, you've obviously come through the other side and dealt with it really well. Even 6am we would be happy with, don't have unrealistic expectations, just not a time that actually makes us feel quite depressed the longer it goes on. Your so right with the mornings getting dark too.

Sorry your little one has other issues, you obviously are a wonderful mummy.

We’ve had a rough year, both boys diagnosed with ASD which really does affect their ability to sleep, plus other medical issues.

I won’t lie, the early wake ups were crushing at first, but I honestly found that once I accepted they were going to happen it got easier to cope. Then when they do randomly sleep until 7 one morning you feel happy that day, rather than feeling angry every other day! I don’t buy much into the whole positive thinking malarkey but in this instance it does help.

My boys have a more painful habit - being awake from 12am to 4am some days, now that makes me want to jump off the roof, but I’m trying the same acceptance thing... 😂

It still sucks when you wake up and it looks like it’s 2am but you look at the time and it’s actually 5am and you know that’s it, you’re up.

I just go to bed earlier and drink my body weight in coffee (oh and set the central heating to come on early so it’s not forking freezing)

Haha! I'm not quite at the acceptance and moving forward stage yet with 5am but I can see that it's probably going to have to happen so I'm not utterly miserable. Oh we've just got through an awake phase of 1am - 3.30am, not as bad as you but I feel your pain! Hope you find time to be good to yourself on the odd occasion.

Have you tried putting him to bed later? 7 seems very early to me but then my toddler rarely naps at all either.

We used to use a sleep chart, where my
Son got a star sticker if he slept until the sun came up on the clock. It worked great

Some children are naturally early risers. dd woke at 5ish as a baby and toddler.

We ended up just going to bed earlier so we could cope with the early starts. The only thing that worked was starting school because it completely wore her out.

Now she's a teenager, she'll sleep through to lunchtime if she gets the chance. 😊

Just turned 2? Hmmm no on the gro clock. It was a 6 month thing for me. It won't last forever but it feels like it will!

When DD was 3, she slept for 9 hours at night and 2 hours during the day. We really didn't want to be getting up at 5 am, so we put her to bed at 11pm, and she got up at 8am (which fitted well with our other commitments). If we'd put her to bed at 7, she'd have been up at 4am. Which would not have been fun for anyone. If your DS is getting enough sleep, can you change when he gets it (e.g. put him to bed later)?

What happens if you take him into bed with you? My DS wakes in the night but if I bring him into bed with us he’ll go straight to sleep and then need to be woken at the appropriate time.

A two hour nap does seem long. Could you try reducing it to an hour and see how he goes? He might be a bit grumpier to start with but then get used to it and sleep more at night. Mine has only had one half hour nap per day since about 8 months so maybe my view in this is skewed!

I would absolutely love it if my boys would come into our bed for cuddles and sleep - but they won’t even sleep if we are in the room. Can’t even get them to lie down anywhere that’s not their own cot beds.

Definitely worth trying if you haven’t though OP - getting a couple of extra hours plus a cuddle sounds lovely!

People are all different. Some are early risers and some are night owls. It's not right or wrong. It just is.

Sadly the 5am rising is in tune with the sun much of the year, and not actually a problem. CBeebies is your friend. Learn to (take it in turns to) get child up, feed some carbs and shut in safe room with you and CBeebies. You nap on sofa, child watches too much TV. Anyone who sneers hasn't had an early riser and should be ignored.

I have a child who was dx as autistic at about nine. At 16 he still thinks a lie in is after 6.30am. I've shut out how bad his early rising was at two . But he's a lovely boy, and it's nice to know someone will wake us if we sleep in .

This is my life too...SIB09. It's pretty bad isn't it? I too had the 2/3 hour mid night waking....that was a killer. Gone for now....fingers crossed.
My DS is 2 in December and we are at a loss what to do. At the moment I'm putting him in bed beside me and trying to ignore him. He sleeps in a sleeping bag so I don't take him out of that, then lay him on top of the quilt between me and DH, who incidentally sleeps through the whole thing!! How is that possible? Anyway, DS will then proceed to scratch and claw at my chest (I have skin tags, he's obsessed with playing with!), which I ignore entirely occasionally just telling him to go back to sleep. Sometimes it works (this morning it took 45 minutes), some days he stays awake till the alarm at 6.30. Oh what fun!!!???
Hoping and wishing for a miracle!! I go to bed at 9 ish to try and get a good chunk of sleep in.
Good luck. Let me know if you have a breakthrough.

I'm awake....anyone else??

Thanks all. @beckieperk yes we were up at 4.45am this morning, I have just crawled into bed now hoping to get at least some unbroken sleep. No naps today either just a day full of a screaming toddler who was clinging to me like super glue and one exhausted mummy . My husband goes away all next week aswell and I'm not hopeful for my sanity by the time he comes back!

Might try cutting his naps down or later bed time, I think we've cling to 7pm as that gives us abit of quiet time to gather our thoughts and scoff some food before passing out but might be shooting ourselves in the foot?

We don't have him in our bed as my husband is dead against it as thinks it's a bad habit (I don't care, anything for extra sleep, but I respect his opinion in this one as to be fair he's probably right). The odd times he's been in my bed he thinks it's time to play and just climbs all over us.

We occasionally give him one of our phones with hey duggee on to get some extra time but hate doing that aswell as then he ends up just watching too much TV and seems grumpy, but to be honest this method is often a life saver .

He has a milk & soya allergy which we didn't know until he was a year old also had horrendous reflux and it made him really lethargic and still does if he accidentally has any sometimes. He kind of never got the chance to sleep properly in his first year as he was mostly in pain, but then I think he's had a year to learn now!?? AHH constantly questioning where I've gone wrong today!

Sounds like you need to try the acceptance thing....its not easy I grant you, but nothing you do will help sometimes. You can drive yourself crazy, I learnt this with my first. With my second....I just go with the flow a bit more. Yes it still drives me crackers sometimes when I've got to be up for work....but being stressed makes it worse. Less sleep in the day definitely doesn't help in our house. He needs a nap....otherwise he's a nightmare. He sleeps from 11 till 1-1.30 ish then goes to bed at 7 ish.
It's really hard to know what to do....but I bet it's nothing you've done wrong.

Well, as an update, tried reducing nap to 1.5hrs max and the past two nights he's slept through the night and woken at 6am.....fluke maybe but I'll take it! Just hope it doesn't make a sleep defecit that I'll pay for in a few more days!

That's great news. Hope it continues.