20 month old sleep... what am I doing wrong? Please help me!!

[Lioncar]

20m old has never been an ideal sleeper, only recently slept through the night for the first time and never sleeps past 5am. For the last several months he has woken around 4am, 5am is a lie in.

I don't understand why. I've read books, spoke to sleep specialists on social media and even bought a sleep guide from one of them.

Our current routine is

4/4.30am wakes up (wakes up crying)

Until 5 we comfort him in his room and then bring him downstairs

6 beaker of milk, water and rice cake or banana

7 breakfast in high chair

11.30 bottle in bedroom

12 asleep in cot

2 wakes up

3 snack and beaker of milk

4.30/5 - dinner

6.30 bath

6.45 bed - we have to be in the room with him until he falls asleep of he cries hysterically and gets too worked up to sleep

He falls asleep between 7.30 and 8pm

Wakes up 4.30am and so on

I know i must be doing something wrong but I dont know what.

His room is silent, pitch black with a white noise machine on from bath time until he wakes up

Please help 🙏

For us, my sons sleep improved when we turned off the white noise, and now it's pitch dark room and silence. That helped.
Also we moved to one nap a day when he was around 14 months and that has also helped but I can see how he'd need 2 as he is up so early.
It is horrible, it is the worst when you don't have enough sleep. I still have nights I put him down and he'll only go down if I am lying on his bedroom floor holding his hand through the cot (but I secretly love that!) xx

I would shove them in bed with me from first wake up until 7, when they got into early waking habits. No-one is allowed up, eating or talking in our house until then. We would lie in silence and darkness. I know it seems like a step backwards to share a bed but it’s the only thing that worked for me to reset their body clocks. After that you can work on putting them back to their own beds, but they need to be sleepy for that to work.

I would suggest increasing it by 10 minutes each day rather than doing it all at once. So the first day lift at first cry, lie for 10 minutes in your bed in silence. Then increase to 20 etc. Shorten the naps by the same amount. He will be tired and grumpy at first but it worked for all of mine.

You’re not doing anything wrong, this is all normal? 3DC here and they were all like this at this age. I agree though with cuddling in their bed or yours from 5am to 6am/6.30am. Even if they’re shuffling around, they still get the message it’s not quite up time.
Then give in and get up at 6/6.30. But over time they can then start sleeping in until that time.
I would throw out the books, accept your child doesn’t follow the rules and not worry. They all get it eventually