2y/o waking at 4-4:30am- help!

[LBEB]

Hi,

My almost 2 year old has always been an early riser (5:30-6am). However, for the past couple of months he’s woken between 4 and 4:30 most days. He naps 12:30-2:15 usually. He goes to bed at 7, asleep 7:30 latest. Things we’ve tried:

• shortening the nap (not sure if we tried at a bad time but this just made him extremely irritable as he would still wake at the same time after a week of trying)
• food before bed
• getting him up for a wee and putting back down, but he doesn’t go back to sleep. We recently potty trained the past few months too, but not at night.
• making sure the room is completely blackout

any advice appreciated from a tired parent! Thank you

Time to ditch the nap completely.

Probably not what you want to hear, but it’s probably time to get rid of the nap. Replace the nap with quiet time (30 mins of tv works for us). Will take a few days/weeks for the mornings to right themselves.

That's 11 hours of sleep, he won't sleep more than that because he doesn't need it. Like others have said, ditch the nap

Less or no nap I’m afraid. I’d try capping it at an hour first.

i wouldn’t ditch the nap, my 3 year old sleeps 7-7 and still naps. Are you putting him straight back to bed when he gets up in the mornings? No cuddling, talking etc. straight back to bed and we don’t come downstairs until 7. That worked for us

I’m in the ditch the nap group! All of mine (I have 4!) dropped their naps around 2 ish - they used to go to bed around 6 and then sleep until at least 6!!

Thanks all. Unfortunately, when I’ve cut the nap much at all he’s not coped (tried for a week) and just been exhausted.

When he wakes we leave him as long as possible (unless he’s really upset), then I go in and explain it’s night time and ask him to lie back down which he does and then he just lies there talking to himself but happy for another hour or so.

the last few days I’ve tried keeping the lights off etc, but getting him to have a wee in his potty which he does immediately like he’s desperate then I put him back down without saying much

I may need to try shortening the nap again!

I would cut the nap down to 40 minutes max as that’s a sleep cycle. Or it may have to go altogether!

It's all about sleep in 24 hours. Could you see if pushing back bed time a bit helps? My 19 month old sleeps 1-2:30pm then overnight 8/8:30 until 6:30/7. Then I imagine bed time will shift earlier again when no longer napping.

Update: I pulled the nap earlier and he now sleeps 11-12:30. It took a few days to take effect but he’s been waking between 5:30 and 6 for the past 5 nights!