very very early wakings

[wilkes]

 

Hi people, don't know if anyone can help us as we have been suffering with this proplem for a very long time, but my LO starts the day between 4.00 / 4.30am every day. His schedule is below:

Awake: 4/4.30am
sleep: 12.00 - 2.00
Bath & bed: 6.45pm

He is at nursery everyday so his sleeps are dictated to him.

Please help a very tired mom x

[Papaya]

Huge hugs, 4.30 starts are really not nice  

How old is your LO hun?

(I'm assuming here he's a younger toddler...) We haven't quite made the transition to one nap yet, but he sounds pretty OT to me - those EWs are leading to a massive morning A time before his nap! And the OT leads to a short night and another EW.

What time does he get home - is there any chance you can do a super early BT for a few days to try and get him caught up on sleep? If he can start doing some longer nights, the WU might start to creep later til he has a more reasonable A time til that nap. Or maybe trying to offer two naps this weekend, if you can, just to help get rid of some of the OT?

What do you think? I'm sure others will be along with some BTDT advice  

[clairebear79]

I'll pop by later & offer some support if I can since I've also been through a long haul of EW & it really is tough.  (((hugs)))

Will be interested to know his age as I think this may determine the advice here.

Can I also ask:
is he teething atm?
does he sleep independently at naps & BT?
is there any flexibility at all in his napping arrangements at nursery?

[wilkes]

Hi Guys for coming back to me & your support, really appreciate it. Answers to your questions:

LO is 19mths old
Teething alot
He is at nursery from 7am - 5pm as we both work full time & have no family as support.
He does sleep indepentently which is good.

He does sometimes fall asleep for 20 mins in the morning and then has his full 2 hrs sleep aswell at the weekends, but to be honest this doesn't seem to change him EW. If you could help me that would be fantastic. x

[Papaya]

Leaving this over to Claire and others who know more about LOs this age Sending more hugs though!!

[clairebear79]

Ooh gosh.  Tricky.  My LO is 17.5 months so a little behind your LO.  But as I said we've gone through a long stint of EW too, so I will try to help.

Firstly, teething is probably not going to be helping things, since if he wakes in pain in the early hours he may struggle to resettle b/c he's already had a good amount of sleep.  Have you tried giving meds at the EW & resettling him?  Or could you do a dream meds - its not something I've ever done myself but I know other mums on here administer them like a dream feed so that they hopefully won't wake in pain.

Secondly, what time do you need to get him up in the morning given he starts nursery at 7am  This is going to have a bearing on the routine suggestions I can make b/c if you need him up at 6am to get him fed, dressed & travel to nursery, then it may be he in fact needs an earlier & not later nap/bedtime.

Also is his nursery willing to be flexible with his naptimes at all - even if its just in the short term while you get him back on track?

[wilkes]

Hi, i would love for my LO to sleep at least till 6am and his nursery is only 5mins in the car away. I can ask the nursery to change his bedtime routine also. What would you suggest?

[clairebear79]

Hiya.

Right then.  First off I would probably try a slightly earlier BT just to rule out OT from the teething - it might just help him to sleep a longer night & get you back on track.  Of course, he may still wake at 4/4.30, but at least he will have had a wee bit more sleep IYSWIM?

WRT his routine, my first thoughts are that he's doing 4.75hrs A to BT, which at his age may be too short after a 2hr nap.  So he sleeps a short night as a result, meaning he's got a 7.5-8hr A time to nap the next day, which is far too long.  He needs the short A to BT b/c of the long day, but its not long enough to give a longer night so you get caught up in an UT/OT cycle IYSWIM.

So, you could try pushing his BT to 7pm, which may help nudge his WU a wee bit later.  However, I would be wary of pushing much more b/c his day is already too long & this may compound the problems if he gets more OT.

Another option, given that he needs to be up at 6am, is a slightly earlier nap, say 11.30-1.30 & a 6.30pm BT.  This gets you the extra A time to BT without you needing to stretch his day any longer, but obviously it depends on whether his nursery will flex his nap time at all.

Secondly, he's at the age where DT sleep needs can start to reduce.  So you could try capping the nap shorter.  Maybe start with 1h 45 so he sleeps 12-1.45pm.  And then keep BT at 6.45.  Then after a week cap the nap at 1.5hrs so its 12-1.30 with a 6.30pm BT - & see what happens with his WU.  The key with nap capping is to make sure he doesn't go down OT at BT, so we don't want the A time to BT to increase - hence why it has come a little earlier.  Hopefully his nights will extend to 11.5hrs & you get your 6am WU!

What do you think?

[wilkes]

Hello there, your second option seems better and i will put it into action.  Thank you so much for your support and ideas. Laura.

[aidenmc]

Hi there. Joining you here as my 19 mo has been doing the same. We have had some improvements but are still not there. Having the earlier nap and stretching bt helped although we've been dealing with nw due to the OT. Curious to see how you get on. This morning we had an we at 3:58 and those are just murder. Even with a 3 hr catch up nap he was really cranky and was asleep by 6:15 tonight.

[ZacsMumme]

(HUGS) wikes, CLaire has given you such great advice!
I just wanted to add that if you feel that nothing is working you can also try W2S to 'reset your LOs clock. This is more a way to break the cycle if your LO has begun to wake at this time habitually. It can be hit and miss but has worked wonders for some.

If you want more info on it let us know

Hang in there ....4.30 is not cool is it