15 month old waking early!

[GSA2019]

Hi. I was just wanting some advice on the below.

My 15 month old is waking up between 4.30-5.30 every morning. I leave him to see if he settles but he never does, even with Ewan the sheep on! We were giving him milk, he did sometimes go back to sleep but most of the time he didn’t, but then I think he got in a routine of having milk at that time so we stopped. We then started to give him a drink of water and try to rock him back off but he just kicks off and never goes back to sleep. His routine is below:

Breakfast- 7am
Dinner- 12pm
Tea- 5pm
Nap- He usually naps for 1.5-2.5 hours, anywhere between 11am-2.00pm.
Bed- 6.30pm (bath, book, bottle, bed)

We are wondering if there is anything we can do so he doesn’t wake as early on a morning. I know he is sleeping 10/11 hours solid, which is good but would love it if he slept till 6/6.30! I know some babies are early risers, but I would like to try anything to see if we can change his routine. We were thinking of trying to put him to bed later but he is shattered by 6.30!

Any advice/help would be much appreciated!

His bed time is very early.

Could you try to make his nap a little later, then he might have enough energy to start away later in the evening and do a bedtime at 7:30?

We could give that a go, happy to try anything to see if it works. He was going to bed at 7pm but we changed it to 6.30pm as he was shattered, so we thought he was over tired. Ill see if I can get him to nap later. Or would 2 smaller naps work, one in morning and afternoon? I don’t like waking him up as he gets so ratty!

Do you see any improvement on the days that his nap starts later? I remember when mine were about that age, I started putting them down from 1-3pm, as my understanding was a nap that was too early was making up for nighttime sleep.

Plus it meant that they were moderately refreshed for the afternoon.

I agree, maybe try pushing bed time by 15-30 mins over the course of a week until dc is down at 7 or 7.30. See if that makes a difference. In the meantime, you may need to embrace the early starts and get yourself to bed early.

Mine was up at 5 today and I’m exhausted because I went to bed late...

Thank you. I will try putting him to bed later and see if that works (hopefully!). It would be nice to have a lie in!

Thank you all for commenting.

A later bedtime will only make him more tired. The map seems early to me. If he is waking super early he will likely need a morning catch up - around 10 but only for 30mins Max then back to bed at 1/1.30/2 until 3/3.30. 4hrs awake time is a really long time for a 15month old in the afternoon.

I do try and keep him busy and distracted for as long as I can before putting him down for his nap, but he’s usually that tired I can’t really do a lot about it. I did try to shorten his naps but he kicks off if I wake him up so I just leave him to sleep as long as he wants to now.

I’m in exactly the same boat with my 15 month old waking between 5 and 5:30 every day. He’s only just started sleeping through so whilst I’m delighted he’s now getting a good 10 hour block of sleep, he seems to be struggling with the early mornings!

He currently naps 2 times a day, when he’s awake from 5/5:30 he’s ready to sleep again around 9. We’ve been advised to let him sleep 45 mins in the morning and then he has an hour usually around 1:30/2. Bedtime is usually around 7:15. I would try later but he’s so ready for bed by then! Has anyone got any advice?

Sorry for the late reply! So my little one has cracked the sleeping, just by changing his bed time to 7.30pm. He sleeps through now till between 6.15-7.00am, which is fab! He naps usually once a day anywhere between 1 hour and 3 hours. We don’t wake him up from his naps. He had a 3 hour nap the other day and didn’t wake till nearly 6pm, then went to bed at 7.30pm, then slept till 7am!

Have you tried just letting him nap for as long as he wants?

I honestly cannot imagine him sleeping for hours in the day and then going to bed well at night. Before he night weaned it seemed to be the longer he slept in the day the more he woke at night!

When he’s on one nap a day I will trial letting him sleep as long as he likes but he doesn’t seem to be ready for that yet.

We’ve had some progress with the mornings, some days he now wakes at 6:30. But there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to it, today for example was 5:15!

I’m glad you’ve found something that worked for you, did the 7:30 bedtime work from the first day or did you have to do it for a few days before it made a difference? x

We pushed his bedtime back by an hour straight away, he wasn’t tired so thought we may as well try (instead of 10mins each night for a week). It worked from the first night, he was a little unsettled at points during the night for maybes 4 days but now he doesn’t wake up unless his teeth are bothering him.

I hope your little starts to sleep longer on a morning, I didn’t think I ever would get there but posting on here has been a big help! X

We have this problem now with our 16month old. Read need to put him.down earlier but not sure about bed before 7 which is current bedtime. So might push it back a bit. Keep seeing things online saying babies should sleep 11 to 12 hours. But maybe my baby isn't one of those. Also because of lockdown and WFH we had to move him to one nap from 13 months which is quite early. So dont think will move back to 2 naps. Will try moving his bedtime back a bit to see if that does anything.

How much light do their rooms get in the morning? Have you tried black out blinds and curtains?

Yes we have blackout blinds...just been through another rough night having to continually put him down again and again

We have black out film and curtains. Doesn’t make any difference to the time he wakes unfortunately :( the clocks changing this weekend might though?