Early wake-ups - just come back from holiday

[Pitkin2]

Hi

We've just come back from Spain ( 3 days ago) which is an hour a head of UK time.   My LO bedtime is now back on track 7pm but he keeps waking at 4.45 am and won't go back to sleep.   Obviously naps are earlier, 8 or 8.30 am and then 1 pm.   I thought that the morning wake-up would rectify itself as bedtime was back on track but so far nothing has changed.

Can someone give me some advice please - will it just get back on track or do I need to make his bedtime an hour later for a couple of nights?  Or do I need to push day naps back or something.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks
Emma

[Layla]

Well it can take about a week-two for their times to adjust but I would actually make the bedtime earlier and start with the morning nap (push it) along with the pm nap and finally bedtime. You really want to be able to push that morning nap to at least 9-9.30am and if he's overtired from less sleep at night then its pretty hard to do.

hth
Layla

[Pitkin2]

Thanks Layla

I've managed to get the morning nap to around 9 am - when you say earlier bedtime would overtiredness be the reason for this?  I was working on a 7.30 bedtime to try and make the morning wake-up later but I suppose if he is overtired this won't happen??

On saturday morning he woke at 5.25am which was better but this morning it was back to 4.50 am!

Emma

[Layla]

Thats right, if he's overtired, the later bedtime is not a good idea. So I would do an earlier bedtime (say 6-6.30pm) for about 3-4 days to give him time to catch up on sleep. Keep the morning nap at 9am, so if he's doing a 9am nap (wake him at 45mins) and the pm nap around 1-1.30pm and bedtime 6.30pm. Once his wake up time is around 6ish then you should be able to push the morning nap further to say 9.30, pm nap to 2pm and bedtime around 7pm. I would wait about 3-4 days to see results.....