Knackered toddler

[OhToBeASeahorse]

DS is 2.5 and had started waking before 5am. He is then a grouchy emotional disaster and says he is tired by 9am. He naps at around 12.30 and will go for 2.5 hours if left to his own devices. We get him up at 3 if he is still asleep.

He usually goes to sleep at 7 no bother.

I dont know what to do. I wouldn't mind if he was ok but he isnt, he is exhausted. I would try moving his nap but he goes to childcare 3 days a week and I just dont think it will work any earlier.q

What do you do at 5am? I always refused to do anything until 6/7am. Even if they don't actually sleep that late, you all get a bit of quiet time.

Get a groclock sort of thing. Set it to a reasonable time. Then treat anything before that as a night waking. If you have other kids, make sure they have white noise on, so you don't have to worry about them being woken up by the 2yo.

If it comes to it, I will lie in the dark with them for hours. I don't ignore them, but the lights stay off, I stay under a blanket, and I try to stick to saying things like "it's still night time, go to sleep". The furthest I will go is letting them play with whatever is within reach (tucking teddy into bed, pretending to read books to themselves sort of thing). Nothing as fun as food, TV etc.

Nowadays, even if mine wake up early, they are happy to stay in bed reading/chatting to themselves. But mostly they stopped waking before 6/7.

Hope this phase passes for you.

Thanks. We used to leave him in his cot babbling away but the neighbours have complained.

I'll try the groclock

We have a gro clock and our nearly 3 year old cared about it for a month or two. No he just gets up and shuts it off. Didn't work for us. I'm desperate too. He gets up around 5 every morning and he's soooo grumpy

The neighbours have complained about a toddler babbling? Wow! If he is content in his cot for a bit after waking up, I would leave him in there, he might relax more than if he was up and about, plus there is a chance he will doze back off for a bit.

Personally I would keep his nap as is, as it's giving him a decent amount of sleep and he is still going to bed at a reasonable time so it's not affecting that. I do wonder if some are just early risers, like adults are. I used to use books as a snooze button, pop one in or leave one on the side and he would flick through that first thing. I found he was usually in a better mood as well as had time to wake up.

He's such a mess he has just fallen down the stairs.

Oh God

I hope he's ok?!!

He is fine, just a teary mess. He has now hit his head on the wall