13 month old waking at 4:30 AM all of a sudden

[TylerBug]

My 13 month old has been sleeping through the night (7:30PM - 6:30AM) since he was 9 months old thanks to Tracy's book and this board!  In the last month he has gone down to only one nap a day, but they are 1.5-2 hours, so I wasn't too worried about this.  However, for the last week and a half he has suddenly started waking up very early - 4:30-5AM.  We have been able to get him back to sleep, but it takes about half an hour or so until he goes back down.  What should we do?  Should I make his bedtime later?  He won't take a second nap during the day, so I am concerned that he won't get enough total sleep in a day if we keep him up later.

Thanks for your help!

[Layla]

Can you please tell me what time the nap is & what time bedtime is?

Before you put him on 1 nap did you try shortening one of the naps (say the morning nap) so that he would take the afternoon nap more readily???

Layla

[MommaHolmes]

I'd think you need to move bedtime earlier, not later - as back to front as that may sound!

How much daytime sleep was he getting before the transition to one nap? Even though he's taking a decent length nap now, I would guess that he is probably getting less daytime sleep than when he was on two naps and it sounds as though his night sleep has not increased to compensate. They still need overall the same amount of sleep (13.5 hours or thereabouts) but just in a different arrangement.

Suddenly starting to wake early is a fairly good indicator that your LO is getting OT. Bringing bedtime forward will help him overcome that - if he's getting 1.5-2 hours during the day then he needs 11.5-12 at night. If normal wake is 6:30am, I'd have him in bed by 6:30pm at the latest.