Toddler waking at 4.30am - help please!!

[Wonderlusst]

Our toddler turns 2 next month and has generally been a good sleeper but always an early riser. I can take 6am or even 5.45, but she’s recently started waking for the day at 4.30am. It’s been about 2 months now, and ruled out teething, illness etc.

I am at my wits end as we have tried EVERYTHING.

Her bedtime is 7pm, and she has a 1.5-2hr nap at 12.30.

We have tried:

• moving bedtime to 7.30pm (she still wakes at the same time)
• moving bedtime to 6.30pm
• cutting down naps
• changing time of naps
• controlled crying in the morning (doesn’t change anything, she just lies there crying)
• bringing her in to bed (awful, she just rolls around and pokes you)

We do each of these for 10 days / 2 weeks to create a pattern and give it some time to bed in but nothing is working.

I am pregnant, we both work full time and these early wake ups are killing me. Especially as she’s very tired when she wakes up and grumpy so clearly still needs the sleep!!

Nothing worked but I noticed you said "I am so tired" Does your husband help? I only ask because the only thing which made it bearable was that we shared the early mornings. So when you were up at 4.30 you knew you wouldn't be tomorrow.

Yes, he’s absolutely brilliant and we do exactly as you say. We take it in turns to sleep in our bedroom with ear plugs in / doors shut while the other sleeps in the spare room and does any night wakings / early mornings then switch then next day.

Much more bearable when you have a lie in until 6.30-7am every other day!!

Glad I found this thread! My daughter is 20 months and has started to consistently waking up between 4:30-5:30 everyday for the last month. This was bad enough but for the last week she has also been waking 2-3 times per night and then sometimes taking over an hour to settle back in to her cot, I'm exhausted as is my husband.
We have tried later bed times, earlier bed times longer naps, shorter naps nothing seems to help. She's always normally woken between 6-6:30 which was fine as I was up at 5:30 to shower before work but now it's a battle to do anything.
All I can put it down to is a possible sleep regression 🤷🏻‍♀️ either way I'm tired and I feel all your pain x

So I just wanted to come back to this thread -

We had a holiday a few weeks ago to Asia which is a totally different time zone, which DD adjusted to pretty well

When we returned, we started to put her down to sleep at 8pm instead of 7pm. By an absolute miracle, she is now sleeping to 6.30-7am in the morning. This morning was 6.50am!

This is truly a huge miracle and I’m not sure exactly how it’s happened, and certainly wouldn’t recommend it as a solution (!)

I also wonder if it’s that the clocks have changed anyway so that’s her natural bed / wake up time and nothing to do with the holiday but thought I’d report back anyway! It’s been lovely!

Hi OP.
I've been reading this thread with interest as my nearly 2 year old daughter has been waking at 4.30am - 5am for ages.
Just wondering how you have got on, did the later 8pm bedtimes result in continued later waking? 🤞 and is your little one still napping?
Thanks a million in advance.
Sorry never posted on mumsnet before not sure how it works !

I know this is an old post but my daughter is also 2 next month and is doing exactly the same lately. Usually 6am riser, now 4.30. Just wondering if you could update me on how things went, did you find something that helped? Xx

Sorry to hear of others it’s happening to. We stayed pretty consistent and she just grew out of it really.

shes just turned 4 and is still an early riser (6am is usual wake up) but now plays in her room and reads books until her gro clock comes up

Her little brother is now 18 months old and has been a much better sleeper, wakes about 6.15 usually. We have been more ruthless with him - never ever comes in to our bed and is a much better sleeper as a result imo.