18 month old waking at 4.30am every day - help!

[Lsarahk]

I know there are lots of posts on this but a lot of the time the response is just ‘ride it out’ and I was wondering (hoping!) if anyone had any positive stories or success stories on how they got over these early wakes.

My DS has always been an early riser but he has recently started waking between 3.30-4.30am every day. He wakes up standing in his cot screaming and he’s often rubbing his eyes still and clearly still tired.

His current routine on nursery days is:
4.30am - wake
11.45/12 - nap for 2.5 hours
6.30pm - bedtime

On days he’s not at nursery it’s:
4.30am - wake
8.30 - nap for 1/1.5 hours
2 - nap for 1/1.5 hours
7pm - bedtime

We find on non-nursery days he is so miserable, exhausted and whiny that he has to have two naps to recover. He often goes into his room and starts pointing to his cot and crying to get in for a nap.

I have tried:
Bottle in the morning and trying to resettle (he just cries hysterically)
Letting him cry it out in the morning (he just gets absolutely beside himself and starts hitting his head against the cot)
Bringing him into our bed (he never goes back to sleep here, just thinks it’s fun play time)
I have even tried getting IN the cot with him, this also didn’t work.

He is absolutely exhausted by about 7am most days. I am working full time and it’s just exhausting having to go into the office after being awake since 3/4am and trying to focus. I go to bed early but feel I have no quality of life or time with my partner. We are both miserable.

Sorry for the long post but I am just getting so depressed and I feel like it’s really effecting my child’s mood too, he is constantly miserable and overtired. I just want my happy boy back.

Hmm that's tough. He's too young for a grow clock and is obviously tired if he's napping again before the day properly begins. Can you try and inch him forward by not blowing him to be get up at 4.30? Anything before 5.39 initially ( and then push back to 6) treat as a night waking and no lights, no interaxtion other than check nappy/ hand dummy to him and then leave the room. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. He'll get it eventually. It will be awful but worth it in the long run. He's clearly exhausting himself getting up so early.

He's getting plenty of sleep, he's just on the wrong time zone. I'd cut the naps to 45 mins on the days he has two, and push bedtime back. Just fifteen mins every few days as he won't cope otherwise. I'd aim for the same amount for total sleep but only 1.5 hours in the day rather than up to three and a 6am start and 7pm bed for instance.

It sounds like you’re doing everything right OP and he is a super early riser. My oldest DS went through the same thing and it sort of evened out and now he’s up around 5:45-6am. What time is his last meal before bed? Could you push bedtime back 30 mins and offer a supper (toast, milk, fruit or a yogurt) incase it’s hunger waking him?

I dropped all naps at 18 months. I couldn't be doing with them as both my dc needed movement to nap so it was hours of me pavement pacing. I figured if they were really tired they'd either nap without movement or stay up. They stayed up.

Night time sleep improved a lot.

Back in the dim and distant past (12 years ago) I tried ‘wake to sleep’ with DD, where the thinking was you disturb the sleep cycle before it got to its natural end. So, I would go in and wake DD - just enough to disturb her sleep a little, about a hour before she would wake up. Sometimes I’d change her nappy. The theory was that a new sleep cycle would establish and take them through their normal wake time.

I haven’t heard it recommended on here for years, and it feels like a hell of a gamble when you’re in the thick of it, but it did work for DD.

Thank you everyone! I think I will attempt the wake to sleep, I have heard a lot of people had success with this (I’m just terrified he will wake fully for the day when I do it!)

I can’t see us dropping all naps any time soon, he absolutely loves his naps and often cries to get into his cot during the day (I know it might reset itself and this could be because of the early wakes) but I actually find he sleeps better on the days he’s had more daytime sleep!

I did wonder about hunger so do give him more food right before bed.

He also seems to have developed really bad separation anxiety since these early morning wakes started and is clingier than ever. I do wonder if it’s just a regression?

Thank you for all the replies, I will attempt all the tips!

My initial reaction is that 6:30-7pm is a very early bedtime. Mine were going down at 8pm by 6mos old. Early to bed, early to rise is a true saying.

is he light sensitive? sunrise now near 5am (but sky starts to get light before actual sunrise) so any ounce of light starting to creep in could be telling his body it's time to get up.

Black out blinds

large supper right before bed

google the wake to sleep
method. Seems crazy but was a complete life saver with dad who was an early riser but clearly still
tired. You need to commit to it though for the full 3/5 nights to get the full effect.

That was my first thought. Black-out curtains in a dark material are great and cover any leaks of light, on blinds or curtains. The Dawn chorus can also wake a light sleeper so if there’s an option to move the cot from the window, even better unless you have triple glazing

I had a melt moment as you describe how he “asks” to go back to his cot when he needs to sleep. Adorable

Thanks all, we have industrial strength blackout blinds with blackout curtains over the top 🤣 nothing coming through those.

We have tried the later bed time and that resulted in more night wakes and extreme overtiredness so I don’t think that’s for us. I will definitely try wake to sleep and see how that works out!

Does he have a proper blackout blind? Does he ever wake in the night before that and you resettle?

I agree you need to tweak the naps, he is getting a lot of sleep but just not at the right times. How long is the bedtime routine? When is he actually asleep by?