DD won't sleep past 5am

[MBM18]

DD 23 months sleeps straight through until 5am ish, then wakes and is so hard to get back to sleep. She's definitely tired still and needs more sleep.

Currently sat on the floor next to her cot where I've been for the last 50 mins. She wakes up, cries, I go in to settle her and she wants me to either hold her hand or rub her back and any attempt at stopping or moving away, she cries again.
She's only just gone back into a deeper sleep where I'll be able to sneak out of the room now, but she won't fall back into a deep enough sleep that she'll sleep undisturbed for another hour or 90 mins. She'll stir and wake up again in 20 mins.

Any ideas or tips on how to get her sleeping until 6/7am, or falling back asleep quicker when she wakes at 5am??

So as not to drip feed, she is still breastfed a few times a day (usually first thing in the morning, once I finish work and before bed) but I haven't fed her during the night for a while now.

She falls asleep in her cot with either my partner or I in her room, or alone by herself with us watching on the video monitor. (I thought self settling was the magic key!)

If she wakes any earlier, it only takes a few minutes to settle her but anytime after 5am it takes at least 30-45 mins!!

Thanks for reading.

Hi

Feeling your pain, my 11 month old is the same and has been wakening at 5am for 3 months. We are exhausted! He then has a marathon first nap. Im feeling like its just habit now as we have tried everything. We are going to leave him until 6am and hopefully he will learn to go back over.

Going through the same thing at the moment! I’m trying to rectify this by rejiging bed time. No idea if it will work!

@CSMD have you tried cutting the morning nap? Might be that your little one is transitioning from two to one naps or is making up for lost sleep in the morning nap

Thanks for your replies and sorry you're going through the same.

@GreyPanther bedtime is a whole other story! I seem to fail there also, sometimes she'll fall asleep quick and easy, other times it can take over an hour. I think I miss her tired slot sometimes, evenings always seem to be a rush.

This morning she woke at 5:15 and was literally screaming for 15/20 mins, every time I went in to settle her it seemed to make her more angry. In the end I just left her to cry and when it got quieter, went back in and laid her down and sat with my hand on her back for 10 mins until she went back to sleep. So far so good!

Tbh I think that is what I need to do, not go in there as quick and often and let her cry it out a bit. I just hate doing that, I'd happily sit in there and hold her hand back to sleep if it took 5 minutes. But I think I am noticing if I leave her to cry a bit she does settle quicker once she stops (probably knackered herself out!).

If I was to feed her back to sleep or bring her in our bed, I know she'd happily sleep for another couple of hours, but the problem with that is she starts waking earlier and earlier through the night to come in our bed, I've made that mistake before 🤦🏼‍♀️

My two year old still wakes by 5.30 at the latest. Weve tried it all...earlier bedtime, later bedtime, earlier nap, shorter nap, sitting with him, leaving him to cry. Literally nothing has worked. We've now given him a gro clock and he is at least quiet until 6am when the 'sun come up so I get up'

Only thing i haven't done yet is drop his nap. It may work but I'm not willing to sacrifice a fairly civil afternoon/evening for one spent with a feral toddler who won't eat/walk/converse because he's exhausted. Might try it in a few months when he's a bit older. I kind of take the 6.30-5.30 as a win though. My 6 month old is definitely not winning at sleep. Good luck!

@saywhatwhatnow I came across gro clocks before but didn't think my DD would understand the concept of it yet. How old was your DS when you got his?

I think 6:30-5:30 is a win too tbh! DD fell asleep at 8pm last night, so getting up before 7am just isn't enough sleep. On average I think she manages 10 / 10 and a half hours at night, I really need to work on getting her to fall asleep earlier.

Interestingly, there's an old thread on here called 9pm bedtime vs no nap, or something along those lines, which is very similar to my DD. If she doesn't nap she'll go to bed easily very early and sleep for around 13 hours but like you said, dealing with a tired toddler who won't eat etc and wants to fall asleep from 3pm onward really isn't enjoyable!

DD woke at 3am last night and I settled her within a couple of mins, then woke again at 5:40am (so later than other days) and let me lay her down pretty much straight away and stopped crying, I was only in there 10 mins. Hoping this is progress and not a one off....

Our son did this. We bought him a gro clock and explained that it was nighttime until the sun came up. When he woke at 5 we went in and repeated this. If he cried we went back after a while and repeated it again. We continued with that until 6 when he was allowed to get up. Think it took a couple of days for him to get it but once he realised he wouldn't be taken out of bed until then it worked!

5.40 is good this morning! Long may it continue. I've stopped checking on the baby monitor now, I'm sure he's up beween 5.15 and 5.45 but he stays quiet now so I leave him. And lots of praise when we go in!

I think he was the same age as your DD when we got the gro clock, definitely under 2 and he did understand the concept after one night/morning. He's now nearly 2 years 3months and it's definitely improving. His molars have just come through which I don't thinks helped, could your dd be teething too? We gave him calpol a few times when he woke in the night more recently and he settled very quickly.

What is she like when she's up in the morning, and during the day. I find DS is fine on 10 hours a night (with a nap in the day), even though the books etc say they need more than that. If he has less or is up in the night then his behaviour and mood deteriorate.

Hi OP, we’ve only just managed to get our 22 month old sleeping though until 6.30-7 in the last few weeks. Him self-settling without us in the room has, without doubt, been the key for us. We now just put him down at night and walk out - inconceivable before! He doesn’t always go straight off but chats to himself and then goes off. We used to have night wakings still and often bed-shared at some point during the night. 4.30 starts weren’t uncommon. Now any wakes before 6 we just don’t go into him. We leave him to sort himself out. Mostly he just grizzles intermittently and goes back off. Today he woke at 5, grumbled for a few minutes then went back off until 6.30. We’ve definitely realised that going staying with him/going into him was making worse and less likely to back to sleep.

He’s now sleeping 7ish until 6.30ish most nights. Before we could sit with him an hour before he’d fall asleep and he’d be up at the crack of dawn.

@Scubalubs87 thanks for sharing this! What would you do if your little one woke up hysterical? Would you still leave him? That’s what our one does and I’m convinced it’s because he’s still tired.

My 16m old is the same. He wakes everyday around 5am, has his breakfast (I never let him have this before 6 to try and keep his bodyclock in a good pattern).

He naps fine, goes to bed fine. Just an early riser.

Ours did that @GreyPanther. I couldn't leave him hysterical so would go in every 5-10 mins. Less if quiet. It was annoying as we were all awake but I kept persevering because I was adamant that in the long run I don't want him thinking we get up and play at 5.15 every morning. It's frustrating, and went on for ages, but does seem to have worked now in that he stays quiet.

I had this for a while with both of mine in the summer. Make sure you have decent blackout curtains as the light wakes them. I persisted with resettling, as I didn't want them thinking 5am was normal wake-up time. I probably did a lot of what you are doing now with the resettling for a few weeks. At 23 months, I would definitely stop any morning nap as she is probably using that as catch-up sleep. You might have to try pushing it back gradually if she's really tired at that time, but at that age they really only need one afternoon nap. One of mine gave up naps altogether as soon as they turned 2.

@GreyPanther ours used to cry hysterically which is why we’d gotten into the pattern of always going to him or bringing him into bed! We started with the settling to sleep at bedtime and just went into him every 5-10 minutes or so to reassure him we were still there, stroke his face etc. We actually only had to do that for a few nights. Then we had a few nights where he would cry for 5 minutes and go quiet and then cry and go quiet again. This was followed by a few nights of him crying for 5 minutes max before going quiet and babbling to himself. Now he literally goes down and we walk out no fuss. We did similar over night but have found we just haven’t needed to go to him overnight anymore. He does still wake every night but he puts himself back to sleep. Quite frankly we’re in shock after 2 years of very broken sleep.

We’d tried gradual retreat several times before which just didn’t work at all for us at all. He’d scream for hours happily so we always have in. Now, in hindsight, it’s so obvious that us being in the room just made him so much worse!

Wow okay so I'll definitely invest in a gro clock then!
I think I underestimate DD sometimes, she is my first & definitely understands a lot more than I ever thought.

@Scubalubs87 how did you get your little one to self settle? DD falls asleep in her cot mostly with one of us in the room, but some nights completely by herself. Right now she's in her cot standing up crying, I keep going in but she still cries.
Also when she wakes at 5am, she stands up and really cries.
I think I have noticed, like you said, being in there with them does make it worse, it sort of encourages them. I think if I take away the entertainment of me being in there, she'll get bored and will want to sleep / not wake up until morning time.

@saywhatwhatnow tbh she does always wake up happy and is fine throughout the day, she naps at 11am for 90 mins usually. I find once she wakes in the morning, she's ready for a nap 4-5 hours later, then after her nap she's ready for bed 7 hours later.

She's stopped crying now and is lying down cuddling her lullaby teddy with her eyes closed (I'm not in the room either, watching on the monitor). I think sometimes it's the initial thought of going to bed that gets her worked up, but after a while she will settle.

@MBM18 we literally cracked it by walking out and letting him cry - unpopular strategy on Mumsnet I know. The first nights were a bit rough, and I had to fight the urge to go in, but honestly he got it so much more quickly than we would have believed. We’ve been quite stunned with how well it’s gone. I’m pretty sure that for us me not being in the room has been critical. He would stand up, scream and reach through the cot bars for me as he wanted to me to hold his hand. He cried far more hysterically with me in the room than our. But, I’m currently heavily pregnant, and one night I’d just had enough of holding his hand through bars uncomfortably sat on stool so walked out and left him to get on with it (going in reassure him periodically). When he was younger we’d rush to him, as if we could settle him quickly, he’d go back off. In his worst phases of sleep, we’d have 2 hour wakes which were just awful. In allowing him the chance to get himself to sleep, he shown us he can do it.

My two year old does exactly the same and I actually asked for advice on here a few weeks ago. Every so often a poster will come along and say “they grow out of it by 3” and I CLING to that! That age seems to be a bit of a turning point for sleep issues. From what I’ve read, most kids go through this early waking stage and there is no magic wand, all we can do is discourage it with the tips given above (blackout room, leaving them to it a bit, not giving breakfast too early). It’s definitely the worst bit of parenting

Wake to sleep method

I’m in the same boat with my 20 month old. No amount of black out blinds or whatnot help.

The only things that’s helped a little bit is to put her to bed at 8pm. But then you get no evening.

My 7 year old still gets up and 6am, even if she’s up until late on a weekend. Although now she has to stay in her room and read until 7am.

It’s really tough. I can only offer moral support I’m afraid.

Sometimes I just get in her bed and snooze while she climbs all over me. And sometimes she goes back to sleep for half an hour 🤷🏼‍♀️

Thanks for all your replies, I really appreciate them.

@Foxinthechickencoop we used to do this, bring her in with us when she woke at 5 and she'd go back to sleep happily, but then she started waking earlier & earlier until she was coming in our bed from 11pm 🤦🏼‍♀️ that was a harder habit to break.

I've ordered a gro clock, will see how she gets on with that!
@saywhatwhatnow how did you explain it to your DS? When you went in to him in the mornings, would you just point it and say no it's night time still?

Not gonna lie, I don't even see 5 at too bad. Mine does 630-5 ish (can be later if lucky).used to go to bed at 730 but when started waking at 5 I thought would see if would go to bed earlier since waking so early so now he does get a little more sleep even if I still don't get to sleep in. Could try that so she's not waking too tired? Obvs it could have opposite effect and she could wake earlier but I doubt it, she's just programmed to wake at 5 so may as well try and work to that

OP

I'm 53, 6.00am is a lie in for me.

I agree with the clock, I've heard good things.

As a small child I was not allowed to get out of bed early but had toys within reach.

One of my cousins had similar rules, It impressed the midwife delivering child number 2 that although she was clearly awake she didn't attempt to get in to the room. Cousin is about 3 years old when her sister was born.

It's not the waking that is the problem but the wanting attention and the crying.