How long did the three year sleep regression last for you?

[sendcoffeeandhelp]

For the 3.5 weeks now, my (now) 3 year old has been waking up for the day ridiculously early (4.55am today!) and I have put it down to being a sleep regression (or progression if you prefer) as nothing else fits the description (and I have ruled everything else out). It started exactly 2 weeks before his 3rd birthday and I can see he has developed a lot in that time. Physically, he is bigger, his speech has improved greatly and he has been testing boundaries too! He will sometimes wake up in the night and be awake for anything between 1 and 3 hours and this will usually mean he isn't waking at 5am but honestly I think it is worse on me! Anyway, I have come to accept this for now (what else can I do anyway) but am curious as to how long it lasted for you IF you experienced this with at this age? The longest we have had was 5 weeks (again early wake ups mainly) at 18 months old and I have been told nothing lasts longer than 6 weeks... eek!!

Never happened. DS was sleep trained from his first weeks and if he ever did wake before 7am, I was none the wiser - he was left to coo in his cot/bed until appropriate waking time, blackout blinds and everything.
Sometimes I'd go in his room at gone 7am and it would be pretty obvious he has been awake for quite a while (toys and books in his bed) but with no adults awake, he was in his bed still.

At 3 he must be old enough to understand a rule or two - like not waking the rest of the household up. But then again, it was really important to me not to be waken at a silly hour, so I made sure it never happened and I never budged.

I've never heard of the 3 year old sleep regression, but I have a 3 year old and a gro clock, and that controls the timing of my DDs sleep. Some people say that they 'don't work'. They do if you enforce them. At 3 there really is no need to be dealing with early starts - unless there is some unmentioned SEN issue, they're old enough to understand the rules