What finally helped your toddler stop waking so early each morning?

[alittleconfused1]

Hello

I am looking for the tips that finally fixed your toddlers sleep - that one thing that made the difference.

My daughter is 3y2m and since moving her to a bed in March sleep has been a nightmare. She is finally back to sleeping through but early wakes are insane. She gets up anywhere between 4.15 and 5.30. She is wide awake and doesn't go back to sleep. At the moment I make her lie in her bed, with me on the floor, until her gro clock comes on at 6. She fidgets and faffs but I don't want to reward the early waking. Trouble is I am exhausted, and she is by 4pm too. She doesn't nap and hasn't since she turned 2.

I have tried leaving her in there room with her Yoto but she puts it on so loud, bangs and crashes and faffs and then comes in to ask for help etc., so we are all wide awake.

I have tried/I have:

• Black out blinds
• White noise
• Red nightlight
• Gro Clock (she sets it every night as part of her bedtime routine but ignores it in the morning)
• Heating on/off dependent on temperature
• Played around with sleeping bags thickness (duvet just comes off and she gets cold)
• Different pillows and no pillow
• Limiting fluids at bedtime so wee doesn't wake her
• Incentives - she has a star jar and even promised a sticker book if she stayed in bed until Gro clock came on but she still piled into our room at 4.30 the other day
• Tea later/tea earlier in case it was hunger
• Naps - have tried naps in case she is overtired, but she just goes to bed later and gets up at the same early time, so gets even less sleep
• Have tried putting her to bed anywhere between 6pm and 8.30pm, she still gets up early so at least with early night she is getting more sleep.

We have a steady bedtime routine and I sit with her til she falls asleep, I did sleep training at 2 and she can fall asleep independently but since a holiday when she got scared she needs me to sit with her to fall asleep, luckily when she hasn't napped she's so tired she is asleep within 10 mins.

It all unravelled when we got the new bed. She started getting up as they do, I would just walk her back to her room and put her back to bed. That quickly became about her wanting to wee in the potty so she would get up to wee several times a night. She has since stopped doing that, and for this week at least sleeps through until wake up time... but on Sunday that was 4.15!!!! She comes in, announces she isn't tired and wants to start the day!

Any clever ideas that worked for your children you can share with me? I am at my wits end. Thank you x

Tbh it quite normal. My guess is you can't do a lot.

I had to feed mine later. He was having tea quite early. Started having tea later or having supper, problem solved.

I recently had this with my little one and when I researched it, it suggested that it was how they’re going to sleep that may be the issue. So I was also sitting in with them until they went to sleep and every night there would be a wake up, sometimes multiple and sometimes wouldn’t go back to sleep at all. So we spent two weeks altering how we put them to bed. At first we’d sit on the floor instead of on the bed and over the next two weeks we inched closer to the door. Day one - next to the bed on the floor, day two a bit further away, day three a bit further away until we were outside the door and we then stayed outside their door for weeks. We’re back to doing lovely bedtimes now were we can stay until they’re asleep again and it isn’t causing any night wakings or early rises now.

We use clocks that open their eyes when the child is allowed out of bed. One child has a dog and the other has a sheep.

If the doggy clock is not awake we take them back to bed, again and again and again. It is not time to be awake until the clock is awake. They eventually learn.

Some of it is personality, my son is much more of an early bird than my daughter but a 3 year old should be old enough to understand the boundary.

Thank you, this is what the gro clock we have does, an owl wakes up. We put him to bed when she goes etc., it worked for a week but now she just storms in no matter what time and seems to completely forget about him in the mornings x

Thank you, we did sleep training before and I used to be able to put her down and walk out of the room! I will try this again when we are back from holiday in a few weeks x

Thank you, I did wonder about this! Will give it a try again x

Honestly, we had to wait it out and return firmly to bed for years. DS1 was 12 before he stopped waking naturally at 5am. (Obviously he hadn’t disturbed us for years at that stage). It’s innate, I swear, even as a teen his late mornings are 10am and he gets grouchy past 10pm. DS2 on the other hand would prefer to stay up until midnight (not happening, he’s 10) and get up at 11.

I would try to get back to her falling asleep independently. It’s worth it because there’s many more years of this to come.. my DS is 5 and sometimes he still asks for me to stay. (I don’t stay… I tell him I’m going to do some jobs in my room and will come back in a minute.. and repeat).

Does she listen to the yoto when she is going to sleep? We had an awful period of a few months where we let DS listen to it to go to sleep and then he’d wake up constantly asking for it.

The gro clock thing… the problem is if they wake up so early they never actually see the sun coming up, so it’s meaningless. We set it really early, like 5.30am so that when DS woke up the sun was actually up and he was really excited. (We hyped it up a lot). And then gradually started pushing back the time by 5 or 10 minutes a day so if we told him he had to wait for the sun, it was only a very short period. That helped him get used to the idea of waiting for the sun, and gradually started sleeping later.

But also I think it is an age thing unfortunately.. mine was much better when he turned 4.

Nothing. We started the day at 5 30 and when they were older they came down and switched the TV on and had a drink and snack we'd left out while they dozed. Even as adults they get up early as a rule.

Nothing worked for me. My early riser is now 14 and takes himself for a run before the rest of the house is up. He then spend 30 minutes on Duolingo before making everyone a cup of tea. It is payback for years of getting me up before CBeebies had even begun for the day!

Id move bedtime later but you have to stick with it for a few weeks. Weve gone ti 8pm bedtime and helps mine sleep til at least 6. Dont just do it once then write jt off

Nothing worked for us either. We tired everything. Had minimal success with a snack before bed (He's then need the toilet at like 2am).
It improved when he started school and in the week he will lie in until 6.30am now. But weekends its still pre 6am. He's 8 now.
Our only rule is not going downstairs and no screens. Now is will read in his room or on the floor of our room if he wakes before 6am.

Some children are just earlier risers. Luckily my youngest is not!!!

My kids got older. Simple as that - nothing we did made any difference, they both eventually grew out of it.

Nothing worked for us. When the clocks changed and 5am became 6am then it was marginally better for 6 months. Then the clocks would change back again and we'd be back to 5am starts.

We just had to accept that he was an early riser. He still is. He's a teenager now and usually up at 6.30.

Once he got old enough to read to himself then he was happy to stay in his bed and read early morning which helped.