5.30am wake ups - again!!!

[sued]

Following some excellent advice on this board last month we managed to get our 2 year old early riser - 5.30am - to consistently sleep until 6.15am with a good 2 hour nap during the day.  However since the weekend he is back to 5.30am every morning and only having a 1 hour nap.  Already it is taking it's toll on us and I can't seem to fix it.

His routine had been roughly as follows:

6.15 wake
11.30 nap 11.30 - 1.30
6.30 bed

It started on Saturday when he fell asleep in the car in the morning for 10 minutes and then refused to have a nap all day.  Needless to say he was overtired so he went to bed at 6pm that night and every night since but it hasn't helped and now we are at Thursday and I don't know whether to persist with the early nights or trying something different.

Yesterday his routine was
5.40am wake
11.30 - 12.40 nap
5.50pm - put to bed but didn't go to sleep until about 7pm and was awake at 5.30am this morning.

Please help - he has been poorly over the last few weeks and I'm worried that was the only reason he was sleeping better and now he is well we are back to square one.

Many thanks
Sue

[jennyh]

i have no advice just hugs.we are fight back where we started too .india even woke imogen up this morning so i had 2 of them running around.

[Mom to M&M]

Sue - so before he was getting 14 hours of sleep/day? That's a LOT for a 2-year old and probably more than his body needs now - as the average is probably an hour less. I'd probably hold off nap until 12 and wake him after 2 hours and then do bedtime 5.5 hours later - so aiming for something like 7:30 bedtime, 6:30 wake, nap from 12-2.

[sued]

Thanks so much for your replies. 

Does it definitely look like a schedule problem? When I posted last month with the same problem his routine was

5.20am - 5.50am  awake
12.30 - 1.30pm     nap
6.45 - 7.15pm       bed

so we changed his nap and bedtime to earlier and the results were almost instant - he started sleeping in until 6-6.15am.  Am so tired and confused.

Thanks
Sue

[sued]

P.S. What should we be doing when he wakes at 5.30am?

If we go in and lay him back down or ignore him he screams so we spend 45 mins calling out to him to go back to sleep and he just calls back to us until we give up and go and get him.

Thanks again

[Mom to M&M]

Hard to say but perhaps he was catching up on lost sleep before so the early nap and bedtimes really helped. But now he may need to be switched to a more age appropriate routine. 13 hours of sleep is really average (and many are at 12.5) at 2 years of age.

If he wakes early I'd not go in until he gets upset. At that time I'd either do WI/WO until the desired wake time (for us it was no earlier than 6:30) or sit in the room with him until that time (not talking, shades drawn, etc).

[mumofoscar]

I think Marisa's Mama might have a point. The same happened with us. DS would wake early, so we would put him to bed early, and he would sleep later for a few weeks, but then he would start waking early again. I think until he catches up on lost sleep, he will sleep 11 hours at night. I have come to the decision that 10.5 hours are enough for him, all being ok with naps etc. He does have a longer nights sleep if he has a shorter nap that day, or a very busy day out. The way I judge it is that he is happy when he wakes for the day.

[Layla]

I had actually experience something very similar with Isabella once (probably 4 months or so ago). She hit the OT cycle so the early nap and bedtime did wonders for us. But once they catch up on sleep debt there is no longer a need for it. She was also waking at around 5.30am and so I would keep putting her down for the night at 6ish and her nap was around 11.30. Then I decided that her nap needed to be pushed in order to push the bedtime and have her wake a little later and we went from 11.30 to 12.30 and bedtime to 7pm (to fall asleep by 7.30 the latest). About 3-4 days later she started waking at 6ish again (which is the ideal for me).

Its really tough trying to find whats right for them and just when you think everything is under control, they go ahead and change. She used to take this great 2 and sometimes 2.5hr nap but now I am noticing her nap is no more than 1.5hrs & she'll do around 10.5-11hrs at night.

hth
Layla

[sued]

Thanks for your advice.  Have been doing the later nap - around 12ish and bedtime - around 7-7.30 for a few days now and he is still waking at 5.30pm so am about to admit defeat!!  He is exhausted by midday.

I tried staying in the room with him when he woke up but he just screamed and shouted until I got him out.

I haven't tried doing wi/wo at 5.30am yet as he screams his head off and I need to build up a bit of strength for it.

We are thinking about changing him over to a bed this weekend to see if that helps. Am wondering if he feels trapped in the morning and thought if he could get out of bed he might play in his room for a bit.  Am I barking?

[jennyh]

i personally would try anything ,i feel like the walking dead at the moment too.

[mari]

How long is the nap?

I think you are barking for wanting to put him in a bed, but it's your call!  I am too scared to do it myself, but there is a sticky that will help you on this board.

Goodluck.

[sued]

Thanks for your responses.  May hold off on the bed for a bit.  His routine yesterday was as follows:

5.45am wake
11.45am - 1.15pm
7pm bed - alseep by 7.20pm

and this morning he woke up at 5.30am

What worries me is that if he goes to bed at 6-6.30pm he still sleeps until 5.30-5.45 so now we are putting him to bed later he is losing about an hour of sleep and it is not affecting his wake up time.

I think I'm going to have to try wi/wo tomorrow morning.  Do I need to lay him down each time or just go in and tell him to go back to sleep?  Or say nothing?

We did wi/wo when he was much younger for night wakings and it worked a treat but it has never worked in the morning - but I think that and wake to sleep are the only things left to try.

Thanks again

[AliP]

Poor you   My 17 mo DD who used to sleep until 7 or 7.30am is now waking at 5.30am and it's soooo exhausting!

Your DS is older though so what's happening with him may be completely different to my DD.

I have been thinking about it a lot and doing lots of research and I think that for her it has been the transition from 2 naps to 1.  She has been refusing her afternoon nap and so is exhausted when she goes to bed.  On the off chance that she falls asleep in the car in the afternoon, she'll often sleep until 7pm.  So I'm working on pushing the morning nap from what was 10.30am to get it closer to midday so the afternoon isn't as long.

Also, if she's really tired, I put her to bed ASAP (usually 6pm) or if not but 6.30pm at the latest.  I also found that a later bedtime made no difference and meant she was even worse the next day.

My DH was going in at 5.30am and reading her books to keep her quiet so I could get more sleep, but we've now decided that wake-up time is 6.30am and leave her there to call out unless she is really distressed in which case we will go in, but will not get her up.  I also find PU/PD or WI/WO do not work at this time because she is still tired, but not tired enough to go back to sleep IYKWIM.

Good luck!

[sued]

Hi thanks for your message.

I agree with you - I have done so many different routines with him - early to bed, later to bed, short nap, long nap etc. and none make a huge difference - he might sleep until 6am or 6.15am especially if he goes to bed earlier - 6-6.15pm but that's it.

I think you are right to try and push her nap nearer midday - fingers crossed it sorts out your problem.

You sound like you have a terrific DH - letting you lie in a bit!!

Am thinking about doing WI/WO tomorrow morning but I agree that although DS is still tired - not normally enough to go back to sleep - don't know whether it would be better to put him down earlier or later this evening??  How can this be so confusing!!

Good luck - wish I had some advice for you but DS has always been a terrible sleeper!!

Sue

[Tori's Mom]

My dd has been waking early this week (transition to big girl bed  ).  I am going to do W2S with her tommorrow morning about 1 hour before she has been waking (5:45am) so I am going in at 4:45am and see what happens.  I am not looking forward to that alarm going off  but if it works in the long run, I will suck it up!
Just a thought to help you too.  I would rather try w2s before wi/wo that early in the morning!