2 year old AWAKE at 4.45 am and not going back to sleep. HELP

[OliviaMumsnet]

There's got to be SOMETHING i can do to get him to understand that it's NOT MORNING YET
advice needed please Mumsnetters
very tired of MNHQ

Oh he already has blackout blinds
Is it the bloody birds?

Hi have you tried a light on a timer switch or one of the more fancy moon/sun light clocks you can get? The light coming on meaning it is morning has worked wonders for my DD (16 months) and her early wake ups. She now stays in her cot happily until 7am when the light come on. It is a miracle after months of early waking which was driving me crazy.

have you tried wake-to-sleep it worked on my ds he sleeps 6 til 7 now. also someone on here mentioned white noise which is good for drowning out morning sounds. good luck i know how you feel i had 5 oclock wakeups for months its torture

I feel your pain. Poor you, it's so miserable. DS (just 2) was waking at 5 every morning for ages until very recently, and it was a killer. We did a few different things (we were also trying to sort out his previous habit of waking up and talking 'hello teddy, oh wow' for 2 hours every night) so I'm not exactly sure what worked. But something has, as he now goes through from 7.30 - 6.30 (most of the time):

• giving him a snack just before bed, alongside his cup of milk (something like banana, or oat cakes).
• cutting back his day time nap to no more than 1 hr 15 or so
• bribing him - he gets a mini smartie or an episode of Charlie and Lola if he stays quiet in bed until 6.30
• if he wakes up before 6, telling him firmly that it's not morning (we had got into the habit of bringing him into bed when he woke up, and I think he was waking for that), being very quiet and putting some toys in his cot and an audiobook on (thomas is a particular favourite)
• Whatever time he wakes up we try to get him to stay in bed playing/ listening to books for as long as possible - eg this morning he woke just before 6, chatted, I went in at about 6.15 then he played until 7

HTH - like I say, not sure exactly what made the difference, but something did. I've also heard good things about wake to sleep, which we were going to try if none of this helped.

have you tried a groclock from grobag they can see the stars go out as the night goes on and then once the sun comes up its morning (you set the wake up time) and they can get up. We got one for our 4 and a half year old and it worked so well we have been using it as well for our two year old since he was just over two and it works for him as well

Does he still have a daytime nap?

I think it IS the light, I have been doing the same myself, even with blackout blinds, and am much older than 2!!!

When DS does this it's always the morning after he's refused dinner, and he wakes up at stupid'o'clock demanding 'ootibix', only takes a few days to get into the habit.

We had a few days where we totally tired him out, slightly later bed times, and stuffing him full of food. Seems to be working so far..

When ds started waking at 4:30 the only thing that worked was cutting out his daytime nap. He was exhausted by bedtime for a few weeks and fell asleep in car/buggy but I woke him up after 15min max. He started sleeping until 6:30-7ish.

He was 22 months . I was on my knees by the end of each day.