Even earlier wake up since daylight savings!,

[Jodileen]

Hello, I know I am a regular on this complaining about my 31 month olds early rising. Since the daylight savings we have now gone to waking at anything from 5.05 to 5.30. His routine at the moment looks like this:

5.10-5.30 awake
I try my best to keep him in his bed till his gro clocks sun comes up at 6.20 but this involves me lying in bed with him which he is getting a little to used to, I used to do it for 5 minutes before the sun came up but over an hour is a bit much.
12 lunch
3 sleep for 45 mins to an hour,
5 dinner
6.30 a snack of fruit or breadsticks etc
7.30 bed with two books

Any advice is truly grateful x

[HenaV]

Hi!

Well the first thing I would do is move the gro clock earlier. We had a similar thing with R (I think around the same age - may be closer to 33m). In order not to undo all the great work of the gro clock I set it to 6.15 am in the first instance (WU was 5.30) and re - in forced the you have to wait for Mr Sunshine rule.

I then tried to fix her sleep and I thi k the solution for us was to cut the nap back by 15m. It maybe an issue re: clock change for your lo or simply a coincidence  that you need a routine e change and the clocks have changed too. The only thing I would query is whether your nap being as late as 3pm is interfering with your night? Myndd likes a short A to bed and I always aim to have her up no later than 3.15pm (BT 7pm)

Hth x

[Jodileen]

I have tried an earlier nap . Two days ago he actually fell asleep early at 12.30 amd I woke him at 1 but it made no difference. He occasionally refuses sleep but generally he needs one. He is very grumpy and hard to wake when capping the nap. I just feel like I have tried everything now and don't know which way to go next

[HenaV]

I have to cap the nap - have had to since R was 2.5y and she is a beast woken. I tend to have her favourite programme and a few snacks at the ready and gave some snugly time on the sofa to soften the blow. At this age R was napping at around 1.30. I would try something along those lines, bring the Wu time on the gro clock earlier and hold for 3-5 days and see how things settle.

What do you think?

Hena

[creations]

IME routines can change very suddenly. My DS dropped his nap over night. He was also very unhappy to have a nap capped (I did try for a while) and didn't recover until almost BT, it was awful. So we continued with a long nap (2hr) and short nights (10hr) as he was well rested...until one day he was ill, slept a 2.5hr nap and never napped again.
It could well be that your LO is ready to drop the nap (which avoids capping and dealing with the awful consequences)?
Or, if your routine was stable before the clock change, he could need a strong push to shift his body clock. You could try 30 min later to bed night, another 30 min the next night (don't let him make up for the lost sleep at nap time though), and that ought to force him to sleep past his body clock WU time and shift to the new time. After he's shifted his WU you can bring BT earlier again to increase the night length back to whatever his normal night is.  I did this last year at a similar age, moved him 1.5hrs instead of 1hr, broke his body clock and then brought BT earlier to give him a full night.
Just a couple of ideas x

[Jodileen]

Thank you to both of you. I know he definitely isn't ready to drop the nap completely. Some dash even
If he refuses to go to sleep in the bed he will be found passed out on the couch. Snacks and favourite TV programmes definitely soften the blow. How long of a day should a child be awake at this age? For today and the next few days shall I offer naps at 1 let him sleep for an hour 30 and then try a later bedtime. I have tried a half hour later nap so might go a full hour later? What do you think? X

[creations]

How long of a day should a child be awake at this age?

About the length of a pieces of string they are all so different at this age. Some have naps, some don't, high sleep needs, low sleep needs. Mine doesn't have high sleep needs but needed long nap and short night which another LO wouldn't be able to cope with.

[Jodileen]

This could be mine also it's just trying to figure out if he is