Solutions for a 21 month old early riser -- PLEASE

[TS123]

DS1 is now 21 months old and gets up at 5:30am most mornings despite going to bed at 7:30pm. He is tired, yawning, irritable by 9:30am. I have to "drag" him through the morning, feed him an early lunch and put him for a nap by noon -- by which time he is often "wired" and overtired. He'll typically nap 2 hours, though sometimes less. I am truly sick and tired of waking up early and having to deal with a cranky tired toddler. I already do: black-out curtains, white noise, leave him in bed until at least 6:15am every morning and STILL no improvement. Now before you suggest the Weissbluth solution of putting him to bed earlier: he has NEVER been an 11 hour night sleeper. At best he'll do 10 1/2 hours. And when I've tried putting him down at 7pm consistently, we have the same problem (he wakes before getting a full night sleep) and we just start the day that much earlier (we see 5:15am starts). I'm so tired of this since DS2 is 8 weeks old and wakes me several times per night. I lack the energy and patience to deal with my tired toddler all day. I am desperate for advice from anyone who has had similar problems with their child and if it is possible to change the waking hour of an "early riser".

hAVE YOU TRIED PUTTING HIM TO BED LATER? sorry caps. would he go for his nap earlier so that you don't have to drag him through the mornng, my dd (admittedly much younger) is only up long enough to have her breakfast and then she's straight back for an hour or two.. I hope that you can find a solution to this, you sound tired in your post?! Have you got someone else who can do some of the early starts?

What time do you give him dinner? My dd has erratic waking times (anything from 5-6.30) but I find she usually wakes later if she had a later dinner. Could it be hunger?

both suggestions might work, putting him to bed later or eating dinner later. it also may depend what he ate. other things that can affect waking up are change in temprature - is the house colder at 530am then when he went to bed at 730 pm. or light - do you have a blackout blind on the window in his room? for my dds this one had a big effect on sleep hours.
they still both wake up earlier then a full night's sleep and are quite cranky in the mornings....

Poor you. What do you do when he wakes up? Can you make it veeeery boring and keep it all dark and say it's still sleep time? We just changed ours - same age same wake up time ouchy oiuch - I think by holding off morning milk. he was pretty much waking up for first breastfeed & I did lots of talk about'we have milk when it's light not when it's DARK. This is dark. it is too dark. No milk' etc. Don't know what you do first thing though, so just a suggestion.

TS123... any news....

Not a message to give you hope in the short term, just empathy.
My daughter ( now 4 and waking 0630 ish) woke at 0530 like clockwork till she was about 3. Our son, just over 2, wakes around 0500, sometimes makes it till 6, occationally up at 0430 and not a damn thing we can do, he had no daytime sleep, goes to bed 1830....I just know from my daughter that this will pass. Many people don't consider 0630 a lie in, how life changes with kids! We do have both kids in bed and asleep by 7pm, so we have the chance for child free evenings ( tried keeping them up later to get them to sleep later, didn't work). Also we've never had the kids in the bed, so we may have to get up early, but I think we do OK overall....God I can't wait till I actually have to nag them out of bed!

Cut his nap to 1.5 hours or even an hour.... we had this problem with our dd, and as soon as we cut her nap (she loved sleeping for 2 hours or more in the afternoon), we got an extra hour in the morning.....

Also, we invested in a blackout lined curtain which cut out more light than just the blind that had been there previously.

Does he eat well at breakfast..eg is he really hungry at that time?

When we had this with dd we use dto give her supper (normally porridge) about half an hour before bedtime after bathtime. She'd eat it on my lap whilst dp read her stories...it was a lifesaver...now she doesn't need to do this anymore but for about three months it really helped.

Now she is 2.3 and if she wakes up earlier than 7 i sneak in quietly, give her warm milk and put quiet music on..then sneak back out...80% of the time she oes back to sleep the othere 20% buys me enough time to grab a shower and get dressed before she's shouting to get out!

Thanks for all the suggestions. I give him supper at 6pm and in the morning I hold off milk and breakfast until 7am and he's never very hungry so I don't think hunger wakes him. It is VERY dark in his room so not light. Perhaps the temperature is cool but I cannot adjust this as I am currently living with my parents until we move into our own home (in 1 week). I am very reluctant to try cutting his nap back to only 1 hour since he desperately needs it (not to mention I really need the break in the day) and everything I've read suggests that kids his age need at least 1 1/2 hour nap. I do not respond to him at all in the morning until at least 6:15am not even to tell him to go back to sleep since he will go ballistic if he sees us and we leave him in bed. He stays fairly calm but doesn't go back to sleep. I am just bagged all the time. I am trying to move his bedtime later - gradually. So many people have had little success with this but I'm hoping it's just because you have to stick to it for a long time (ie. at least 2 weeks) to see results. So, for now, I'm trying a later bedtime - this way, at least when he gets up cranky, I've had a little extra sleep and I might be in a better position to deal with him.

Oh, just a question to those of you following this thread. Has anyone had success with pushing bedtime later to help with early rising?

DOes he have anything in his cot to amuse him? Our 21 month DS sometimes wakes early but he has some toys in his cot he plays with till we get up.
Has it been like this all along or just since you has DS2?

No toys since he is in the pitch darkness (blackout curtains) and we want him to try to return to sleep rather than stay awake and play. Maybe this seems cruel but we don't leave him lying there crying. He's babbling to himself until we retrieve him. The problem is I can hear him babbling on and I'm awake and unable to sleep and he is very grouchy in the mornings once he's been out of bed for 2 or 3 hours and a toddler his age should not require a morning nap any longer if he's slept well at night IMO. Just frustrating as hell really

Sorry - to answer your other question -- he has always risen early, not just since DS2. I've also gone out of my way to ensure there is no way for DS1 to hear DS2 crying in the early morning since this would certainly wake him up and he wouldn't go back to sleep.