Best sleeper ever to early wakings - HELP! 31 mths old

[Jemimah]

I am back!!  It has been awhile for sure.  I am hoping someone can help me fix my LO schedule a bit to make the early wakings go away!!  This is what we used to be:

Awake: anywhere between 7.30-9AM
Nap: 1-3 (or anywhere in the afternoon for at least 2 hrs)
Bed: 7.30
(so that is 14-16 hrs of sleep - and it was heaven!!)

Now we are the following:
Awake: 5.30AM  (way to early for me!)  (We try to send him back to bed saying it's still night time, but he is ready for his day!)
Nap: somewhere around 1-2 and will sleep for 2 hrs, but I have to lay with him to fall asleep.  If I don't he won't sleep, gets hyper, and the last time I let him play till he was tired in his room, I found him with his pants and diaper off about to pee on the carpet!!
Bed:7.45/8ish to bed, usually asleep no later than 8.30.

So - I realize he is getting older and may not need as much sleep, but is there anything I can tweek to make the early wakings not so early??  If we move his bedtime back, it just seems to have him wake up more at night (ovetired??).  Should we cap his nap?  I have read the early waking threads, and have attempted some of them, but thought I could get some eyes on our specific schedule.

Thanks in advance.

[j.and.e]

i would try cutting the nap to encourage more night sleep. With ds1 i used to do a car nap or a sofa nap of about 45mins, until we dropped his nap totally (at 27 mo). With ds2 i wake him from nap, but he is not such a grump if woken! With ds1 he would wake at 7am nap 2ish for 45min and then bt 8pm. If i let him have a 2hr nap he would be up until 10pm (and still wake at 7pm). Eventually even a 45min nap had him up too late, so I stopped his nap at 27mo. We had to have quiet pms (no playdates!) and his behaviour was quite challenging at times, but he would go to bed at 5.30 or 6pm and sleep till 7am or later. Hth xx

[Nb1984]

My DD is 30 months old and her 2 hour nap was heaven!! I had to cut it to an hour and it helped her night sleep, good luck!x