Any suggestions for stopping 2 year old ds waking up at 5am

[Lilliput]

It started in the summer,waking at 6.30, them 6 and recently as early as 5. I initially thought it was the light mornings but it's pitch black in the mornings now.
Now dh isn't working we are taking it in turns getting up with him because otherwise the first thing he does is disturb dd.
There must be some solution. We are galavanting around the country visiting friends and family next week and I know it is going to slightly ruin our holiday.
I realise there is probably no quick fix but some suggestions might help.

go on, someone must have cracked this problem with their lo

When you say he's two, exactly how two is he?

Is he early two, or late two?

Does he nap in the day? what time is his bedtime?
But you'll prob find his sleep will be all over the place when your on hols and he'll be so knackered he'll have some long lies.

I have no clue but if you find an answer will you let me know so I can tell my 3 yr old?

coming on to MN and venting my spleen about it helped me.
They all do it at some point, it's in their contract

He is 2 and 8 months, goes to bed at 7/7.30pm and refuses to have a nap during the day but will sometimes snooze in the car or on sofa for 45 minutes.
I want to rewrite the toddler contract, I have to chant 'I am the grown-up, Iam the grown-up' as part of it.

Is he any better or worse if he has a snooze?
What would he do if you tried to get him back to bed at 5am> would he go back to sleep?
My ds needs 11 hours sleep at least - and if he woke at 5 - a bottle of warm milk would usually get him back over for an hour or so. (USUALLY!)

He's never had warm milk really, he was bf until he was 14 months and then that was it. I think you are right MaryBleedinshelley, I was just clinging on to the vague hope that someone had cracked it. "this too will pass, this too will pass, this too will pass....."

I was briefly reading some of the other sleep post titles before deciding how to word my title but then saw this and opened it instead. Lilliput - your dc and mine are so so similar. DD is 2 years and 8 months also and back in july suddenly started waking really early (6am instead of 7.30-8am). Like you we had black outs etc so figured it wasn't the light mornings. We have tried everything! Cutting down on day time nap, having no day time nap, having longer daytime nap, having exactly as much daytime nap as DD wants or not as the case may be, having a bedtime snack, not eating too late. You name it and we have tried it. It's got to the sateg now where if she doesn't wake before 6am I feel like i have had a lie in. We too have to go straight to her because of not wanting her to wake 6 year old DS.
The other night I put a night light in her room in the hope that at least she would just wake and come into us rather than calling out but all that happened is she woken even earlier (5 am!!).

She's happy when she wakes, normally wants a wee straight away and usually asks for milk.

Please wise mumsnetters, please please tell Lilliput and I what we can do?

Later bedtime?

ds1 has never needed much sleep, has never gone to bed earlier than 8.30/9 and tends to wake between 7 and 8.30. He dropped his daytime nap when he turned 2.

we've tried that too berolina. How about you Lilliput - have you tried later bedtimes?

The nurse who was stitching my finger the other day, told me that I was putting dd (almost 20 months) to bed way too early (7.30). She said that toddlers need much less sleep than we like to think and that about 10pm was about right for this age. She reckons that too early a bed-time is probably the reason for broken nights and early wakings.

I have read this somewhere else as well (think it might have been in the LLL book "mothering your nursing toddler"). Personally, I don't know what to think and everyone else seems to think this advice is bollocks. If you've tried everything else though, it might be worth giving it a go?

Been there, done that. Approached the problem from a different angle. I told ds1 (now 4 but an early riser from dot) that he can get up when he wants, fine, but he doesn't come in to disturb me, he must stay in his room and do whatever he wants.

When he was 2, I had a night light for him with two pictures on, one a little mouse in bed and one a little mouse up and at 'em. At a preset time, the mouse in bed picture goes out and the other picture lights up - and that means that Mummy can be disturbed.

Now he's older, I have bought him a digital clock and he can come and wake up Mummy at 7.00 and no earlier.

It took some screaming, threats and withdrawal of privileges to make this work, but in the end it did. He still gets up far too early (around 5.45 some mornings) but he knows that it is not worth facing the wrath of Mum at that time of day.

I don't think you can "make" kids sleep late if their bodies don't tell them to, but you can make sure that they play quietly in their rooms.

Make sure that he has access to a potty, though!

sympathy, lilliput. Our ds was similar for a while and we got the stage where we reckoned anything after 6 was OK (aaargh!). We made him stay quietly in his room and we still do (he's now 4.5). Things that help include proper blackout (at some point we have a piece of MDF attached to his window!) but I think you've tried that. Cutting the nap made no difference to our ds. It did pass, though felt like forever at the time!

danceswithbaby - no disrespect, but I think your nurse was talking rubbish! no way would I keep a toddler up till 10pm.

I agree with you fatslag as we have a similar issue with DS but not until he was old enough to understand better and also old enough to turn the lights on and reach the toilet role etc. DD is just not old enough or tall enough to do these things by herself yet.
Also, did you have another child to content with when it happened to you?
If it wasn't for the fear of waking DS I would be much harder with DD about staying in her room (as you say, I can't force her to go back to sleep and if that's her natural wake up time there is very little I can do about it but she should stay in her room) but the trouble is she shows off, cries or screams and it's not fair on DS who has school the next day 5 times out of 7 and needs his sleep. Consequently I either go in with her and we play quietly or I spend goodness knows how long rushing into her bedroom every time she cries out and hushing her. Doing that until DS wakes is a royal PITA but sometimes it is just to darn early for me to be sociable and enjoy doing a Fifi and the Flowertots puzzle!

Didn't have 2nd child when problem started but now have ds2 to contend with as well. Sometimes it is ds2 (14wks) who wakes up ds1, ds1 is still instructed to wait in his room until 7 a.m. - a bit unfair, but necessary because ds2 always goes back to sleep. If ds1 wakes up first, he has to stay in his room.

Sanctions for getting everyone up before 7 include no dvds for the day, no computer for the day (ds1 is a 4 yr old geek). Rewards for playing nicely until 7 include a banana with breakfast (I'm all heart, ain't I?!), 15 mins extra on the computer, going to school in the car and listening to music instead of walking.

Suggest you try to tame your toddler during the school holidays when a few days of noisy mornings won't matter so much.

good idea fatslag with half term approaching. maybe DS would like to go and stay with grandma for a few nights perhaps??

I just feel so sorry for him as sometimes he has come out of his bedroom all bleary eyed saying "DD woke me. it's not fair. I don't want to be awake" but he seems unable to go back to sleep (a bit like me!)

Message withdrawn

How about forcing a lunchtime nap - ie a car drive and then a later bed time?
I used to pick ds up from nursery at 1.30 pm and drive the looong way home and he'd fall asleep by 2. Then have him in bed for 7.15pm - but know that he'll need to read etc till almost 7.45/8ish?

Doh!

I just started a thread under behaviour about my DS's sleep issues. Not too dissimilar to this one. Didn't realise there was a whole sleep topic!!www.mumsnet.com/Talk/8/402348
My DS, as you see, sometimes wakes earlier ( much earlier) and when previously it was just at the 5am/6am mark, we dealt with it by bringing him to our bed and giving him milk , that has now developed into a problem all on its own.
I suppose we should be thankful though that the putting to bed itself isn't traumatic. Thats a breeze!!

This is what we did when we had this problem:

If ds woke up before 6 am I would go in his room and tell him that it is still the middle of the night and he needs to have some more sleep. A blackout blind and dark sheets draped over the window can help with this. Then go back to your room, as the more time he has talking to you, the harder it will be to get him to go to sleep. You may have the problem of him shouting out or crying which will wake your dd, but you have no choice if you want to resolve this, and it should only take about a week to sort out. If he wakes up after 6 am it will probably be too late to get him to go back to sleep.

I found that it did not make any difference if he went to bed later. 10 pm sounds really late for a 2 year old.

So.... good luck, hope it gets better.

Hello - sorry no advice from me as I'm having the same problem with my 2.6 dd - she's always slept from 7-8am and over the last month has been waking at about 5am which is knackering me - it coincided with her starting to be toilet trained - I've cut back on her bedtime milk as I thought she was waking needing the toilet - she still has an afternoon nap thank goodness and both her and me wouldn't be able to get through the day without!

You're not alone - will keep watching this thread!

The light thing that fatslag mentioned is really good. We've got one and it's been brilliant. What was happening was that DD was wandering into our room asking if it was time to get up yet - and by the time she had done that, she was wide awake. Now she's got the light at the end of her bed, she raises a sleepy eye, sees its not time and can drop back off to sleep quite easily. I would really recommend it - apparently there are two types - a picture one, as mentioned, or a rabbit one where his ears pop up and eyes open. That one is not so good as it makes a clunk noise as the ears go up, and should your child be sleeping past 7am (well, you never know!) it would wake them up. The picture one is silent.