2.5 yo waking before 6

[dorris88]

She has started waking before 6 (altho chills in bed playing with her teddies till 7 sometimes)

She still goes for her nap happily and goes straight off each time for anywhere between 1-2 hours.

However when she doesn't nap she can be really grumpy of an evening and we struggle to get her to eat dinner. When she naps she is happy all day long.

I'm not convinced she is ready to drop the nap, I could shorten it to 1 hour every day but she is usually super grouchy when she's had the 1 hour nap.

Her room is black our blinds, she's got the owl clock which is why she chills in bed but in recent weeks she's just been calling soon as she wakes.

She sleeps fine goes off singing to herself of an evening.

Any advice how to keep her asleep until 7?

Around this age My DD went through a phase of waking at 4am 😭 My personal experience is that it's fairly normal for kids to go through a phase of waking super early and not sure there's much you can do about it. See it as a phase, grit your teeth and know that in no time she'll be a teenager sleeping til noon. I used to put kids TV on in bed and snooze. All part and parcel of parenthood I'm afraid.

Fwiw she's now 8 and sleeps to a decent 7.30 most mornings!

@dorris88 what time is bedtime?

I agree not to drop the nap. But you may have unrealistic expectations for night sleep length for this stage of development.

Many parents assume their baby should be having 12h sleep a night. But 12h per night is just as likely (and normal) as 10h. In fact the average toddler who's still napping will have 11h night sleep. But the range of 10h-12h are all completely normal.

So if your baby is going to bed at 7pm and waking at 6am, you have yourself a normal baby. Likewise, if you have yourself a normal baby is bed is 8pm and wake up 6am (albeit a normal baby who prefers 10h sleep at night).

So the answer to later wake times is.... later bedtimes.

It takes 21 repetitions to make something routine. So expect 3 weeks worth of later bedtimes and also early wake ups before you start seeing a more consistent change in routine.