Early Waking Toddler

[Rowlie]

DS 19 months has always been an early riser, usually anything from 5.30am. But he does sleep the night. He has around a 2hr nap from 12-2 and bed at 7. Sometimes in the week though he doesn’t have his nap until closer to 1pm when with childminder.

I have tried EVERYTHING: later bedtime, stopped morning nap, he has white noise and blackout, he’s warm with a sleeping bag and heating on.

Problem is, he’s yawning a couple of hours later and if we go out in the car he’s dropping off at 9/10am. Childminder has commented that he is always very tired in the mornings, won’t settle to an activity. But what can I do? Do I just have to muddle through? I can’t force him to sleep later.

It makes doing anything very difficult as by the time most things are open/classes start he’s already been up 4 hours!

I 100% feel your pain as our son woke consistently every day at 4.30-5am until he was 5. My lesson in the end was that children sleep differently and there is not much you can do about it. I would resit trying to put the bedtime later if it isn’t having an impact. It will just leave your child tired.

We had a bedtime at 6 and just enjoyed having a few hours consistently in the evening without him. He is now fast asleep in his bed and I’m typing this because I was so trained to wake early I can no longer lie in. Sorry this isn’t much help as a post beyond saying it’s all a phase, and it will shift again when your child eventually drops their nap. Good luck

Thank you @Pippylongstock . We only moved bedtime marginally to 7.30pm when the clocks changed to try it, it seemed to work for a week but now back to pre-6am wakeup! I wouldn’t mind if he was well rested but the fact he’s yawning in his highchair at 7.30am tells me he isn’t!!

It sounds like he needs a morning cat nap? Half an hour around 9am?

Have you tired putting him to bed earlier? Counter intuitive, but I've definitely known children who wake at 5:30am no matter what time they go to bed, so you might as well put them down at 5:30/6pm so they can get their 12 hours.

Have you tried moving the nap earlier so he has more awake time before bed? Appreciate it's difficult with childminder but you could try it at home. The routine seems a nit of kilter with 6.5 hours before nap then 5 before bed.

We just had our ds off nursery for 2 weeks and realised just how much it mucks up his sleep as they do a nap at 1 there too.

bit off kilter