4/5 am rising, every day…

[Newperson4]

DS2 is 18m. He is a bit of a handful. Too early to say but suspect he is neurodiverse.

I am at my wits end with his sleep, its never been good but at the moment he is waking somewhere between 4-5am and will not go back to sleep whatever we try. Usually our go-to is to give him some milk which will stop him screeching and he will drink that, attempt to settle, cry, moan, sing and eventually stand up and start jumping and shouting.

He goes to bed usually 6.15/6.30, we do bath, book, milk and then pop him down, goes off fine. He will then usually sleep all the way until his wake up time of 4/5am. He has one nap a day and it has to be at 9.30/10am because he is exhausted by then. He’ll nap for 2.5/3h usually.

He eats plenty, has lovely active days, plenty of time to roam and run.

I’m fed up with such early mornings. Any ideas?

Perhaps try a later bedtime and shorter nap?

It is a killer the early mornings!

It does pass, eventually 😊

That seem like enough hours sleep for his age . I think you just need to try move it all foward. Later bedtime -later nap - later rise

Yes as above, that nap needs shortening and bedtime later. It may take a week or so to see any difference

That's 13/14hrs sleep in 24hrs the recommended sleep for 18months old is 11-14hrs in 24hrs

Is his room dark enough eg blackout curtains. This early waking isn’t unusual I’m afraid.
The early and long nap could be continuing the cycle.
@everythingisgoingup and @NGCO gave excellent advice

Definitely too early of a bedtime.
I'd try pushing his bedtime back and the nap later in the day.
It can take a bit of time so I'd try 15 minutes later each night and the same with the nap.
Should hopefully push his wake time a bit later.
The nap could probably be shorter aswell but I'd try pushing times back a bit.
My DD would only ever sleep 10 hours overnight at that age and still does actually but her nap is shorter now (22 months old)

5am isn't that unusual. It isn't pleasant either but he goes to bed extremely early. You need to try and move the nap closer to lunchtime and make bedtime a little later

Thanks everyone. He seems knackered permanently, always crying and cuddling. Hence the early bed time and long morning nap. We also have a 5 year old, his bed time is 7 so we didnt want to start putting his little brother to bed later than him…
idk what to do really.

His nap needs to be changed. It's too early and probably too long.