Sleep/early waking/potty training?

[fifitot]

Help! My DD who is 2.5 is doing well at potty training but this has coincided with a change in sleep patterns. Could it be related?

Anyway main problems - wakes at 5am every morning and refuses to go back to sleep, either in our bed or hers or anywhere! This has been going on since she was a few months old but 5 is the earliest she has been.

I am sort of used to really early starts but now she has begun to wake up 2-3 times in the night and won't go back to sleep until we stay with her for a while, giving her a stroke on her tummy.

I could cope with the night waking or early starts but not both! Which should I tackle and how?

Re early starts - had kind of resigned myself to them as really feel nothing I do changes things. Later bedtimes don't help and cutting out midday nap just makes her really grouchy at bedtime and doesn't impact upon her night sleep at all really.

Any ideas? Oh for around 7 hours unbroken sleep!!!!!!!

Well - I am still tackling this.

DD is now 2.5 and was dry in the day mid January. However if she needs a wee at night she will often wake and won't settle unless she goes to the potty then gets in with us.

She is still in a nappy at night btw.

I have recently taken the sides off her cotbed which she loves and has seemed to help, however she is not getting out to use the potty so perhaps just co-incidence?????

This morning she had filled her nappy with wee, and told me she had "a stinky bottom mummy!" as soon as I walked in. She got out of bed and whipped it off asap. Perhaps I have trained her too well

Thanks for reply. I am sure it is connected to potty training. It may well be that she is waking in the night when she wees as so tuned in to asking for the toilet during the day. Thanks for the idea!

Might start asking if she needs to use the toilet.

Won't help with the early starts though - lord knows what I can do about that!!!!

No it won't but you could try settling her again after she goes. OK so DD insists on getting in with me but your DD might be different and settle back in bed

We are trying a potty in her room for the time being - reduce the traipse up the hall to the bathroom.

Also I just thought - it is getting light earlier - is it the birds tweeting? I know that if DD wakes up at 6 she won't go back down now whereas when completely dark and quiet still I can convince her it is still night time

No it is still pitchblack when she wakes!

4.50am this morning!

My ds1 (2.4) is waking pretty early at the moment too, around 5.30am. He went from waking at 7 or 7.30am to suddenly waking pre 6am and there is nothing we can do to kep him in bed, or get him back to sleep and it's driving us crazy. We haven't potty trained him yet so our problem isn't related to that. Anyway, just so you know you're not alone!

Thanks! It's terrible isn't it!

I've got the same early waking problems too (DS1 - 2 next week) and it's not potty training. There seems to be a lot of it going on . . . it's not the light necessarily but something is definitely in the air! Hoping that the clocks going forward next weekend might help for a while . . .

Lord I hope so, am ready for bed now!