Wake to sleep for toddlers?

[maggie2]

Ds wakes between 4:30 and 5am these days   I can't take it anymore as I also have a 3 month old that is up almost every hour sometimes.  When he wakes, he's not happy and is screaming - I'd be okay with it if he was just playing happily, but this sucks.  Also, day light savings is soon I think and that will make it even earlier!!!

He seems really tired in the mornings so I'm guessing that it's not because he not tired   He goes to bed between 7:30 and 8pm usually, and takes a 2 hour nap during the day.

What do you all think?  should I try wake to sleep at like 3am or somthing?  I'm desperate right now.

[Layla]

Maggie - can you tell me what time the nap is?

How old is he?

[maggie2]

Oh!  I forgot that I deleted my tickers!!!  Must fix that

He turned 2 in July and his nap is usually around 11:30 or noon - closer to 11:30 if he's really tired.

[Layla]

I think what you should do is put him to bed temporarily early so that he gets a chance to catch up on sleep rather than trying w2s. W2s is for habitual waking but I think in your case its from overtiredness. He is awake for 6hrs before bed, which is too long imo. So I would do something like this:

11:30/12 - nap
1.30/2 - wakes from nap
6.30/7pm - bedtime

He will start waking up later in the day (it might only get to 5.30am) but once he's had more sleep overnight you can then stretch his nap until its constantly at 12pm & then bedtime is 7pm (with a 6am wake up). Some babies at this age also need the nap to be shortened to 1.5hrs but I would probably do the earlier bedtime to see where that gets you before you cut the nap. Give it about 3-4 days & let me know how you go

Layla

[maggie2]

Thanks so much, Layla!!  I'll let you know how it goes