4:30am!!

[MelonB]

22 month old has always been an early riser (5-5:30am) but has been waking up at 4:30 for the past month. Wakes up happy, singing and shouting so not obviously tired. Bedtime 7-7:30, goes down like a dream. Double blackout blinds, white noise. Naps 10am - 12 if I'm lucky. Sometimes will fight on until around 1ish, but then will usually nap for 2 hours. So 11 hours total out of a 24 hour period. Surely this is too little sleep to be had at this age, or have I just got a child who doesn't need much? Any ideas welcomed. I can't just leave him shouting in his room as he wakes his brother up and then I have an overly tired 5 year old to deal with too.

Is your toddler completely self settling at bedtime and naptime?

I assume he's in a cot not a bed? Is lunchtime nap in the cot too?

Do you wake him from the lunchtime nap or does he just naturally wake up after 2h?

Self settles completely at night. Not so much with the nap, will either need a bottle or a long walk in the pushchair.
Still in the cot, took the side off 2 weeks ago to see if that would help. Woke up at 5:45 the following day, so we thought we'd solved the issue, but then back to 4:30 the next morning.
Wakes up naturally from his nap.

The early mornings (after 4am) are the time when, out of all 24h, sleep pressure is lowest. The natural circadian rhythm puts pressure on the body to sleep at bedtime, this is when it's greatest. There is also pressure to sleep at lunchtime for a toddler, but the pressure is lower than at bedtime. Then by early morning, the pressure to sleep is lowest of all.

That doesn't mean he doesn't need to sleep. It means it's hard to go to sleep. So the early morning is the time you have to work the hardest to go back to sleep. It is harder for him to go back to sleep at 4.30am than it is for lunchtime nap. So if you don't have self settling nailed enough for it to work for daytime nap, then you have no chance in early morning.

You'll have to work very, very hard to get him back to sleep if he wakes after 4am. Be prepared to give milk, cosleep and cuddle yo sleep if needed. But the ideal us to try and stop him waking at this time in the first place. To do this, I would focus on 3 to 4 weeks if pushing bed time much later. You need at least 3 weeks of consistency to see a change in routine. I'd go for pushing lunchtime nap to 12pm which will then make it easier to push bedtime to closer to 8.30pm-9pm.

Forgot to say - keep the cot!

Put the cot side back on. I asked about being in a bed or cot because toddlers going into a bed too early usually creates multiple-times more problems than it "solves" (It "solves" next to nothing).

Don't consider a cot until after 3rd birthday. If you can get to 4th birthday and beyond, all the better.

Thanks FATE, i know you've helped a lot of people on this forum so I really appreciate you taking time to reply to me.
I'll get the cot sides back on today and start moving bedtime back. 🤞🤞🤞

My 24 month old is exactly the same as was my second child. It doesn't suit us to push bed time later than 7pm as we also have a baby who wakes around 5 as well.
My second ds grew out of it as he grew up and dropped his nap. He's now 3 and a half. Him and his older brother have a gro clock and understand that they can't leave the room until the clock changes.
They are already awake this morning but chatting away in their room.

Thanks THNG5. I think that's my main fear...4:30 being the new norm and we've just got to suck it up I'm going to try pushing bedtime back and see what happens