2yo waking up early 4:30-5:30

[Bathmatt]

Our DS was 2 in January and he has always been an early riser but it’s just getting earlier and earlier.

He is in his own bed and at anytime from between 4:30-5:30am he just pops out of bed, runs to and opens his bedroom room door and stands at the stair gate. Sometimes he cries, sometimes he just plays silently with his trucks but he’ll start getting annoyed at around 5:50 and will yell to come out.

His room is pitch black so I am not sure what wakes him. Over the past 3 months we have:

Pushed back bedtime (it was 6:30pm now 7:30pm)
Cut down nap time (from 1.5hrs to 1-1.15hrs)
Tried leaving him in his room until 6am.

This started to work and he once slept until 6:40am for three days in a row but then he reverted back to form.

We have started using a gro clock these past two weeks (I put this on the landing so he can see it when he opens the door otherwise he just fiddles with it and chucks it about in his room). He doesn’t seem to get it. Or maybe he does and just doesn’t care??

He goes to bed at 7:30pm and is really good at falling asleep on his own as he is absolutely shattered by then. He naps for around 1-1.15hrs. We cut the nap time down from 1.30 and have been doing this for 2 months but it hasn’t helped.

This morning was the worst morning in a while as he got up at 4:30am. I left him in his room but at around 5:50am he climbed over his extra tall gate and I found him on his way downstairs to get more trucks (he already has some in his room). I told him it was too early and took him back to his room and sat with him until the sun came up on the gro clock (it’s set for 6am at the moment).

I go to bed early but these early mornings are killing me (currently 30 weeks pregnant) and also having a detrimental impact on DS as he is usually shattered by about 10/10:30am and doesn’t enjoy anything during the day and wakes crying from his nap.

We recently started an outdoor toddler group which starts at 10am on Sunday and he’s so overtired and emotional that he wants to go home. His eyes are red with dark circles. He is also so much smaller than other kids his age and I’m convinced it’s due to lack of sleep.

I’m worried about how DH and I will cope once baby arrives. We take turns with wake ups but we are in a small house and cant get any rest when he wakes up crying as he is so loud. If DH takes DS downstairs, DS just runs back up to find me.

If anyone has any tips/magic tricks on how I can persuade DS just to sleep in a bit longer I would be most grateful.

Now he's that bit older when he wakes early I put an audio book on for him and go back to bed until the sun comes on his clock.

We put an alexa in dd's room at that age so she can listen to music, normally frozen or trolls!

That is still an early bedtimex could you not keep nap at 2 hours ish and then bed at 8pm or later and see if that helps?

Thank you for all the comments!

Last night was a total disaster- tried putting him to bed at 7pm - he was in his room but didn’t actually fall asleep until 8:30pm. Just kept running around. The DH does the bedtime routine and finds it hard to get him to bed early because DS runs about like a headless chicken.

Anyway, asleep by 8:30pm. Awake at 4:30pm asking for a cuddle. FML. I left him for about 10 mins then went in and made him lie down next to me which he did for about an hour (didn’t sleep though). He then got up and ran around until about 6:15am when DH took him downstairs.

We are doing a much earlier bedtime tonight. I’d rather he slept 6:30-4:30 than 8:30-4:30

I’m 30 weeks pregnant now. No clue what we are going to do when baby arrives 😩

Lol I’m so tired I can’t even remember how pregnant I am 33 weeks now so baby due soon arghhhhhh

If it was me I'd be putting him back to bed until it was not the middle of the night! How else is he going to get the message?

Oh ignore me, only the first three posts had loaded at first but I see you've been working on it for a while

I have a 10yo who's wake-up time has been 5.30am since he was a couple of weeks old. (I have a 16yo who is a 6.30am riser).

It sounds with the running about until 8.30pm, that he is overtired. There seems to be a fine line with those that have a set wake-up time - they don't really manage to catch up sleep naturally.

Personally, I would go with a shorter nap, but a bedtime as early as you can for a few nights, to catch him up. You will know when he is caught up on sleep as he will go back to 5.30am wake-ups.

Going forward from there, I would work back from that for his sleep needs, rather than aiming to push the wake-up time later as I just don't think it works with some. Both of mine always needed roughly an hour less than the "average" for their ages, so using the nap as well, I worked out bedtime - and if this is very early it can be difficult as well.

You will be better off, teaching him to stay in his bed and look at books, or play quietly when he wakes up in the morning - rather than getting him to go back to sleep.

Good luck

I would put him to bed at 5:30. Not kidding! He's probably really over tired and has run up a sleep debt.

Thank you. Going for an early bed time tonight, let’s see how that goes!

So at 2 ds was going to bed 6.30 at the latest. He was awake at 5, so I stopped trying to fight it and just went with it and accepted I could sit snooze on the sofa whilst he pottered around. Now at age 9 he is awake at 6am on the dot (he slowly got later around 4, but he has always been an early riser) he's goes to bed around 7.30 now. A lot earlier than some of his friends but it works for us as bedtime rarely affects wake up time.

Following this as I have the same problem, my little one is a bit younger at 16 months but no amount of tweaking naps or bedtime makes him sleep any later than 5:30! hoping you have a better night tonight.