Sudden Early Wakings....

[nododo]

Hi All,

I haven't posted for a while as after a lot of hard work getting through up to 10 wakings at night I got into a really good routine with my LO and she now has two naps a day and sleeps through the night.  She is 16 months old

The problem is that recently she has started waking early.  I am about to start dropping her second nap as I don't think she needs it anymore as she only sleeps 40 mins in the afternoon and it takes FOREVER for her to settle and go to sleep in the afternoon and quite often doesn't nap at all, so I was wandering if the early wakings could be due to this??  I can't really think what else could be causing the early waking.  She has gone from going to bed at 7pm and waking between 6.30 and 7am to 6am and then slowly earlier until this morning she woke up at 5.10am.  I can't get her back to sleep no matter what I try once she is up.

I read about how an early nap in the am can cause LOs to wake up earlier in the morning as they are anticipating it.   My DD has always needed a nap earlier then the standard A time in the morning, so maybe I have been putting her down to early as this is what she was used to and she always fell asleep.  I am now finding that because of the early waking she is nackered after being awake for 3 hours and is just lying around on the floor or cuddling up to me, so I am not sure how to get this nap later when she has woken up so early.  Before the early wakings started our EASY Shedual was

7am - wake up and milk in sippy cup
8.30 - Breakfast
10.30 - Nap
11.30/11.45 - Wake up and snack
12.30/12.45 - Lunch
3.20 - Nap
4 - wake up and snack
6- Up for bed time routine
7 - Sleep

This has only been going on a couple of weeks now, but she hasn't reached any other developmental milestones and the only other thing is that we don't have black out blinds in her room.  This has never been a problem before but maybe it is worth getting them while I try to sort this out??

Any help would be great!!
 

[*Amy*]

Hi, it would seem to me that it is the PM nap that is causing the EW's. This plus the nap refusal are good indicators that your LO is ready to drop the 2nd Nap.
I would move the 10.30am nap forward until it is about 11/11.30am and then drop the PM nap altogether and aim for an early bed time until she is settled into the routine. (early meaning 5.30pm!!)
Hope this helps
Amy

[Pens Fan]

I agree - there are several ways to drop that first nap- we went cold turkey and moved to 1 nap rather than do it gradually but that worked for us.  check out some of the 2- 1 transition threads to see how to do it more gradually.

[nododo]

thanks for advice, seems I was on the right track but its always nice to double check you are thinking the right thing. Quite excited about the change to one nap as it means a little more time to do stuff away from the house!  less time for me though.  Thanks again
XxX

[nododo]

Ok i've been trying to move the morning nap over the last few days, but I'm just not sure what way to do this as waking at 5am means even putting her down at 10 is a 5 hour gap.  Also over the last two days she has only slept for an hour in the morning and not had an afternoon nap and still woken up at 5am.  I tend to panic about things like this after i hate the thought of going backwards and the nightwakings starting again because she is over tired....

[*Amy*]

Hi, I know I too hate reverting back to the old ways - this is what I did.
I let my LO have an AM nap of just 20mins - this included the time it took him to fall asleep - normally in the AM though he is out quickly! I would then lift him and have him back in bed again 2 hours later. I would also give him his lunch before this nap.
If your LO wakes at 5.15am what time do you lift her? I try and leave my LO as long as possible and then do not begin to count the A time until I lift him.
So if I lifted him at say 6.30am I would let him have a 20min nap at 10.30am. I would lift him at 10.50 am and then back in bed again at 12.50am.
You said in your post that your LO slept for an hour in the AM. This is too long when trying to transition to 2 naps and if you LO sleeps for this length of time in the morning they will probably not take a PM nap.
What time did you put your LO to bed at today? an early bed time almost always prevents OT creeping in.
xxx I know this is hard. But this is a huge transition and once you get there it is so worth it! I love having the mornings to do things and the afternoons, and a nice long nap during lunch time when I can recharge my batteries oh and do my Wii fit ))))
Amyx

[nododo]

HI Amy,
When I said my LO slept for one hour in the am I meant this was the only nap she has all day and I've been trying to push this one back so it is a lunch time nap.  The thing I'm finding difficult is that because she is up so early should I push the nap back working from when she wakes or work from when she should be waking up.  I never get her out of her cot before 6.

That said it all went out the window today.  She was up at 5.30 and then slept for 40 mins this morning till 10.30 am.  Then this afternoon she seemed so tired I put her down again at 1.30 and she was asleep by two and i had to wake her up at 4pm as she was still asleep.  So tonight we did the normal bedtime of in bed at 6.30 and she is usually asleep by 7.

I don't think the cutting her morning nap short would work for her as when I have tried this in the past she won't go down for her second nap any sooner, so I was just going to keep moving the morning nap back until there weren't enough hours for her to have an afternoon nap.  I'm also thinking about eventually changing her bedtime to 7.30 instead of 7

[nododo]

Yuck another early start....For some reason I thought things would be different today :-(

[*Amy*]

I too was skeptical about whether he would sleep again after napping for 20 minutes but he did 2 hours later. This 20minutes you can try and push forward. The 2 hours later let him have his long nap this is usually over lunch then an early bed time.
So your day will look like something like this:
Wake 6.30am
Sleep 10.00am
wake 10.20am
Sleep 12.20am
Wake when ever they wake
Sleep 6.30 pm (providing they had a good long nap)

You will gradually then be able to push that 20mins later so that it begins to catch up with the second nap.
So eventually your day will look something like this
6.30am wake
11.30pm sleep
2.30pm wake
7pm sleep

Remember this is a real gradual process and takes time to get there - it took us 3 months to make the transition it just didn't happen over night - remember no nap or lack of them early to be - 5.30pm (during the transition we did 5.15pm on a couple of occassions)

Amyxx