Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Sleep

Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler. Need more advice on your childs development? Sign up to our Ages and Stages newsletter here.

1yo waking at 4.30 - any ideas?

2 replies

Fallingfeelslikeflying · 11/08/2022 05:53

DS has always been a fab sleeper and goes down like clockwork at 7pm every night, as well as having 2 naps totalling 2/3 hours during the day. The past couple of months however, he's been waking to start his day at around 4.30am (he might sleep til 5 if we're very lucky!).

This doesn't seem to change if he has less daytime sleep, for example yesterday at nursery he skipped his afternoon nap entirely, so only slept for 1hr 20 during the day (9am-11.20am), then still went to bed at 7ish. He was still wide awake at 4.37am this morning!

We've tried doing later bedtimes too but that also doesn't seem to make a difference. When he wakes at 4.30, I feed him in the dark then pop him back in his bed with a shush/pat, but he just lies there chatting to himself then getting increasingly louder and more upset until we get him up.

DH seems keen to continue letting him sleep for hours and hours during the day (which he will at home, he'll nap for 2+ hours twice a day if you let him - don't get me started on that one!), but I've started putting my foot down and capping each nap at 1.5 hours max. But at nursery his naps are much shorter and he gets on average 2.5 hours of daytime sleep.

If anyone has managed to read this far and has any suggestions for how we can get him sleeping a bit longer in the mornings it would be much appreciated!

OP posts:
chocopuffs · 11/08/2022 06:07

We had quite a bit of this around that age. It does seem early to move to one nap, but I was told by a sleep consultant that the average age is something like 12-14 months (I'd assumed it was much later!) so you might want to try that. You could give him a short power nap in the morning so he's not awake for hours and hours, and then try putting him down at 11.30/12 to start with. Then bring bedtime a bit earlier for the first few weeks to compensate. Eventually things will slot into place and you can drop the early nap and move the others back. I suspect it's either the timing or amount of daytime aleep, but it's such a fine balance isn't it? Especially as him being overtired might actually exacerbate the early wake ups.

chocopuffs · 11/08/2022 06:07

(When I say short I mean 30 mins or less)

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread