waking up too early

[jennmaag]

Hi,
My 17 month old is waking up around 6am, he's tired and cranky when he wakes, so I know he needs more sleep. He usually lasts until 9am and then has a two hour nap. He drinks tons of milk during the day, so I think that might be part of the problem. How much milk should a 17 month old be drinking? He sits in his high chair and eats a small breakfast (usually doesn't want to eat much since he drinks a bottle of milk when he wakes up and he's too tired to eat), eats a good lunch, and a good dinner. I think we need to cut out some of the milk and get him to eat more. Anyone have any thoughts?

[creations]

Hi there
I'm assuming he is on one nap per day is that right?  9am is really early for a nap, I see he sleeps well for it but it would then leave a very long time awake before BT.  Going to be over tired can lead to early waking.  It could be that if you gradually move the nap later each day to balance up the A times a bit more (they do not need to be exactly the same, some like a shorter first A but some a shorter second A, it depends on the LO) he may sleep better at night and wake a bit later in the morning, more refreshed.

Milk is a 'drink' rather than a 'meal' at this age and large quantities are not needed, large quantities might also make him too full to get the nutrients he needs from varied solid meals. As a very rough guide it would be 4 servings of milk/dairy per day but a serving size is small, 1 portion would be roughly:
half a cup of milk
or
half a cup of yoghurt
or
1.5oz cheese (a 1" cube)

I know mine took more than that, it's just a guide not a strict rule.

Perhaps if you served up breakfast first rather than the bottle of milk he would get a better breakfast.  If there are other bottles/milk drinks in the day you could switch them for a snack instead. At this age often 1 or 2 milk drinks, 3 solid meals, 2 snacks would be common.

[jennmaag]

Thanks for the reply! He is still taking an afternoon nap as well. We were trying to push the morning nap later, but he just got more and more exhausted, so we just let him sleep now. It usually ends up being 2 two hour naps. I started replacing the bottles with snacks today, so hopefully that will help!

[creations]

In that case I would think waking earlier in the morning is more to do with having 2 long naps.  Maybe time to cap one of them.

[claredm]

In the US, I was told 16-24oz of cows milk a day (no more). They can get anaemic / constipated I was told.
I give food all day, and only offer milk before nap/bed. 10-12oz milk ~30 mins before nap (it's a lot of milk so he normally has about half then the rest 5 mins later). This way he's filled up with food first, and milk tops him up. Then the other 10-12 oz just before nighttime bed.
This has really helped mine stop waking prematurely due to hunger.