2 year old consistently wakes at 4am for the day. Tried everything, what am I doing wrong??

[Swaddleblanket]

2 year old (25 months) wakes every morning around 4am without fail and has done for as long as I can remember.

I have tried everything, early bedtime, late bedtime, completely dark room, milk before bed, no milk before bed, short nap, long nap, 2 naps.

I am so tired and so is my little one.

He goes to sleep on his own quite well at night and rarely wakes up in the night, sometimes once.

His room is completely dark we have a blackout window sticker.

We have tried leaving him to cry whilst we lie next to him at 4 to teach him it’s not the morning as 4am feels like a habit, but he gets completely hysterical and has climbed out of the cot a few times when we leave him.

What am I doing wrong?

Any tips or schedules to try - I just don’t know what I’m missing.

@Swaddleblanket how did today go?

I don’t think that you’re doing anything wrong, but I did read something recently that suggested not getting the child out of bed until the time that you’d want them to get up, maybe not leaving them for 3 hours until 7am but trying until 5 and then pushing it to 6.
My little boy is 2 next month and he has a nap about 12:30/1ish and then goes to bed between 6:30pm and 7pm. He wakes up anywhere between 6:30 and 7:30. Sometimes he stirs at 5ish but we leave him if he’s settled and quite often he falls back to sleep for another couple of hours.
We did go through a phase of him waking up before 5:30 and being ready for the day but we tried leaving him in his cot until we were ready to get him up (a more normal wake up time of after 6:30) and now he’s quite happy playing in his cot if he doesn’t fall back to sleep. I hope things get better for you soon 🤞🏼

I would guess he's had all the sleep he needs? What time does he go to bed? Before the need for a structured routine and early starts for preschool we let ours go to bed later so they got up later (usually between about 8-9pm to around 9am). Sometimes they woke up and we'd pop them into bed with us.

I have struggled for many years with my DS. He always got up at 5.30am despite following good sleep hygiene (children’s hospital advice)
However after a period of 4.30am awakenings and being unable to self settle I needed other options. I bought a weighted blanket about 6 months ago, fast forward a rested happy child.
Goodness only knows what life would have been like if someone had suggested it 6 years ago!

We used a sleep consultant during lockdown for similar issues. The big takeaways have already been mentioned on here, but basically he stays in his room until 6am, you can stay too, but minimal interaction and no lights on. At 6am, make a big fuss about throwing the curtains open and declaring it's morning. Definitely no tv/tablets or food before this time - we'd fallen into a bad habit of letting DS have something to eat as soon as he woke up and that just meant his body clock was set to expect feeding at that time!
We also had to be very regimented about his nap - only 1 nap, as close to 11.30am/12pm as we could manage and no longer than 1.5 hours.

He sleeps really well now, and has dropped the day time nap altogether.

Currently dealing with this. Seems to be going on for months. We’ve tried everything 😫 will he eventually grow out of it ? This is so hard at the moment as we have a 6 month old to.

Drop the nap! If they fall asleep by accident, wake them after 10/15 mins.

@IdgieThreadgoodeIsMyHeroine We basically have. He’s waking consistently every morning around 4 and will fall asleep again from 8-10 or 9-11 and that’s it for the day. So surely that doesn’t count as a nap if he’s been up since 4AM.

no matter what we do nothing seems to work this has been going on for awhile now and since we started putting him to bed earlier his wake up time has become early. I don’t know how much longer we can continue this way.

It still counts as a nap, I'm afraid! You need to be brutal and wake him after 30-45 mins when he falls back to sleep. He's relying on that 2 hour nap to get enough sleep so that he can wake at 4am. If you wake him long before that, he'll need more night sleep, so will sleep in later.

@IdgieThreadgoodeIsMyHeroine he’s only two since August and without some sort of a sleep from waking at 4 he’s like a crazy cranky screaming child. And you think just powering through this ? I’m at the stage where on honestly think nothing is going to work and he might just be like that. ☹️😫

I'm afraid his age is irrelevant (and besides, 2 and 3 months actually isn't super young to stop napping)- some kids need less sleep than others, and he's telling you he needs less sleep. I stopped my daughter napping at 22 months and her night sleep improved immediately. She will often fall asleep in her pushchair, but I will wake her after 10 or 15 minutes.

Remember, the long-term plan isn't that he wakes at 4am and has no nap: it's that he wakes at a civilised time and had no nap (or just a VERY short power-nap).

I agree with PP, drop the nap, because that's all you can try I think. Power through, you will need to avoid car and buggy, give it two weeks consistency but hopefully it won't take that long. My 2 kids are like chalk and cheese but both stopped naps themselves at 2 and 4 months. Much sympathy though. I once started a thread here about my 2yo walking me at 4 every morning by humming black sabbath riffs, I kid you not. All else fails they will eventually outgrow it, my sister's twins kept the nap until gone 3yo and are just stopping 4am wake ups, they are almost 4.

Don't drop the nap without trying to shift his day back by 15 minutes every sleep period - try and push his nap to at least 12:00, allow 1 hour sleep max and then give him a later bedtime, 8:00/8:30 ish, perhaps even 9 until the nap does eventually drop.
He needs to build up sufficient sleep pressure post his nap to allow him to stay asleep post 4am.