One 23 month old early riser and two exhausted parents

[sued]

I would be really grateful for some advice please as am getting more and more tired and having problems seeing the wood for the trees.

My DS will be two next month and from birth has been an atrocious sleeper but using WI/WO, a very strict bedtime routine and lots of hard work we have managed to get him to settle very easily for his nap and at bedtime and generally he sleeps okay - wakes once normally or twice on a bad night but is very easy to settle back down (we do go in and lay him back down) and for this we are extremely grateful. 

The main problem is that he normally wakes up between 5.20am and 5.50am or on very rare occasions he might make it to 6.10am - which we can live with but anything before 6am (and 99% of the time it is) is killing us.

Generally his routine is

5.20am - 5.50am  awake
6.30am                bottle
8.00am                breakfast
12.00                  lunch
12.30 - 1.30pm     nap
5.00pm                dinner
6.00pm                bath
6.45 - 7.15pm       bed

but often he is too tired to eat his lunch and ends up having his nap first.  He normally wakes up after an hour of his nap and I can get him back to sleep again but haven't been doing that recently in the hope it might help him stay in bed a little longer.

He has always been like this and we have tried jiggling his routine to see if it would help but nothing has and to be honest I guess we haven't stuck to one thing for more than a couple of days because he always seemed so much more tired or woke up even earlier.  We haven't tried W2S as he is a very light sleeper but will give it a go if that's our only option and it's not a routine problem.

He is tired again a couple of hours after he gets up so he definitely needs more sleep than he is getting but once he is awake in the morning there is no settling him again.  At the moment we are staying in bed until 6.30am and just calling out to him to go back to sleep but that doesn't really seem to be helping.

I would be so grateful if someone could suggest what the problem might be and what changes to make and how long we need to stick with them and whether or not he may seem more tired in the first few days of a new routine etc. etc.

I have avidly read all the other posts but I just don't know what to try for the best.  We would be so grateful for some pointers as we are so tired we are taking it out on each other and whereas during the week we just live with it as my DH gets up at 6.30am - the weekends are just miserable as we are so tired and irritable.

Thank you so much
SueD

[mari]

I think that he could be overtired for his nap and as he is waking so early then he should sleep earlier.
Try an earlier lunch and nap 11.30-12pm.  Then a 6-6.30pm bedtime.  Hopefully if he starts to get out of the overtiredness he might start to wake a little later and then you can go back to a 12.30 nap and 7.00pm bedtime if it suits you better.

Hope this helps.

Mari

[Stace]

Hay Sue,

First of all huge hugs to you and your DP.

I agree with Mari, that your wee fella sounds like he is overtired. You say that he's tired again a couple of hours after he wakes in the morning, is it possible to try putting him down again even if it's only for half an hour or so and have a second nap at his usual time, just to try to break his over tiredness?

I personally would try this for a week and see if he starts to extend his night sleep?

Please let us know what you try and if you have any success.

Stace x

[Carys' mom]

Hi - no advice, just hugs. We are in the same boat with our 25-month dd. So I hope you don't mind me lurking on this thread...

[mari]

Lurk away Melanie,  If you have any questions then please don't hesistate to ask or start a new thread.


Sued, how are things?

[sued]

Thank you so much for your messages.  I now feel I have some direction and a plan to stick to rather than trying something for a day or two and giving up because it wasn't working.

We started today and here is the schedule

6.25am awake (had a late nap and night yesterday - 7.30pm and didn't sleep well - 2 or 3 wakings so miraculously slept until 6.25am this morning)
6.30am bottle
8.00am breakfast
11.15 - 12.15 - nap for 1 hour (before lunch as we had a swimming lesson)
12.15 lunch
1.30pm swimming
4.30pm dinner
5.30pm bath
5.50pm bottle
6.15pm bed - asleep by 6.20pm

Was the 6 hour gap between waking up from his nap and going to bed okay or should I make his nap a little later tomorrow? 

Mondays his nap is always early because of swimming but I don't then normally give him an early night - whoops - can see now that it would be too long.

So fingers crossed - will let you know what happens in the morning.

Thanks again.
Sue

[mari]

He didn't have a very long nap really so I would say to go for as early bedtime as possible, although I can't do much earlier than 6.30pm myself.  Ideally a longer nap would give him more benefit.  Try to work towards :
wake
5.5 hours activity
Nap
5.5 hours activity
Bedtime.

This will usually kill the overtiredness.

[sued]

Thanks Mari

Well so far, so good.  Last night was the best night we've had in months.  He went down at 6.15pm and was asleep within five minutes.  He stirred a few times around 8ish but nothing major and then slept through until 5.45am when I heard him call out but then nothing until 6am.  He chatted to himself for a bit (v. unusual) and then started calling me at 6.10am. 

So for us that is already a big improvement.

Today have put him down for his nap at 11.15am and again he was asleep within 5 minutes and it is now 12.40 and he is still asleep so am thinking let him have an hour and a half and then wake him up?? Or should I just let him have as long as he wants in the daytime?  Or stick to the 5.5 hours activity as my guide working back from say 6.15ish?

Thanks again for all your help - will keep you posted and let you know how the week goes.

Love
Sue

[Stace]

Yeahhhh!

Sounds like you are having a fab result already, well done!!

I would let him nap for up to 2.5 hours.

So today roughly -

06:15 wake
Activity
11:15 - 13:15/45 - Nap
Activity
18:15 - Bath
18:40 - bottle
19:00 - bed

Let us know how he goes down later and what time he wakes tommorrow.

stace x

[sued]

Well regarding the nap he (luckily - I hate waking him up!!!) took the decision out of my hands and woke up after 1 hour 35 mins - so 1.55pm

So today went like this

6.00 awake
8.00 breakfast
11.20 to 12.55 nap (1 hour 35 mins)
2.00 lunch
5.15 dinner
5.30 bath
6.00 bottle
6.15 bed (asleep at 6.45)

He took about half an hour to fall asleep - he wasn't crying or calling out I could just hear sort of heavy breathing on the monitor.

So will let you know in the morning how the night goes. 

Thanks again for all the advice and support.

DH woke up this morning saying how he hadn't felt that good in ages and there was definitely a lighter mood in the house.  DS looks better, more refreshed and I am sure he was generally happier today.

Will see what the night brings.

Love
Sue

[mari]

Hope you have a good night. 

[sued]

Still improved - thank goodness.

I put him to bed at 6.15pm but he didn't go to sleep until 6.45 and slept until 3.10am when I had to go in but I think he'd had a dream because he kept saying he'd fallen over. Went straight back down until 6am so definitely much better than recently.

Have put him down for his nap at 11.15am and he is still asleep 2 hours later (most unlike him!!) so guess I will need to wake him up soon.

Is this typical progress?  Is he likely to go any later than 6am?  Don't mind too much if he doesn't - we can certainly live with a good night and 6am.  Will he regress at any point?  Anything I need to watch out for?

Thanks again.  Am so grateful!!

Love
Sue

[mari]

Watch out for a regression, it does happen sometimes.  Just do what you have been doing.  It happened after 7 nights with Alex, just when I thought I'd cracked it, I cracked a bottle of wine.  I don't advise the wine until Grandma comes to babysit!!!

Glad things are going well.  Good work, you might be able to adjust the 6am, but I would work on the sleeping through first and see if you can change a routine when he is more settled.

[sued]

Hi

Yesterday went as follows:

6.00 awake
6.30 bottle
7.45 breakfast
11.15-1.20 nap - 2 hours 5 mins
1.45 lunch
5.30 dinner
5.45 bath
6.05 bottle
6.20 bed - didn't go to sleep until about 7.10pm

slept right through (yippee!!) until 5.35am when he woke up wet through.

Do you think his nap was too long as it took him 50mins to go to sleep last night and he woke up earlier this morning or should I do the same today and see what happens before I change anything??

Thanks again
Sue

[Mom to M&M]

Great work so far! At his age, he probably only needs about 13 hours of total day sleep - so if he wakes at 6 and takes a 2 hour nap, IMO you want him asleep at 7pm and hopefully he'll sleep until 6 again. As for the waking wet, do you use nighttime diapers to help prevent this?