Support and Chat thread for moms of early waking toddlers

[LisaM]

Good luck Cats - let us know how it goes.  I don't know how you cope with lack of sleep, the only way I do it is by going to bed by about 9.30-10 every night.  If I go to bed later now I can't sleep because I guess my body clock is set for early bed - no social life to speak of!

[DanielandHarry]

Ahh back to square one with H he went to bed early last night about 7.20 then he was up at 4.45.
Do you think he's too young to drop his nap all together, maybe he only needs 10.5/11hrs sleep, Dan seems to be thriving on that amount of sleep now he's a compleatly different boy in 8.30 bed up at 7.00.

[newmom11]

Hello...I'm not sure if my ds is too young to be on this thread, but he is 13 months old and an early riser and am wondering if any of you have any ideas on how to fix it or are we all in the same boat and stuck with getting up with the roosters?  he will sometimes do less than 10 hours of night sleep.  our current schedule goes something like this:

5:45-6:30 - wake-up - try to leave him in the crib until 6:45
6:45/7 - sippy cup of milk, play until breakfast
8 - breakfast - solids, finger foods and water
play until lunch
12- lunch - solids, finger foods and water
12:30 or 1 (depending on how early he woke up that morning and how active we have been) begin the wind-down routine for nap-time...yep we are already on 1 nap a day and have so for about a month now
1-3-nap (about once a week this nap is 3 hours, but usually it's only 2, sometimes as little as an 1.5 hours)
3:30 - bottle of milk and formula
4:30 - snack
play until dinner at 6:30
6:30 - dinner - solids, finger foods and water
play until bedtime routine begins about 7:30
7:30 - stories, bath, changing of pj's in the dark
7:45 - bottle
8 - asleep (usually falls asleep in less than 5 minutes after I put him down)

Please help if you think my schedule needs tweaking.  I realize my ds won't ever sleep until 7:30 or 8 like most of my friends babies, but I'd like to at least get to 6:30 and more than anything I think he probably needs more than 10 hours of sleep at night.  I will say that his whole life he's never slept 12 hours at night...not sure if that's just him or if I've always put him down too early or too late?  any sugguestions would be appreciated.  he doesn't take a paci or suck his thumb, he's a spirited lo, but a very good baby.  he's also walking and doesn't seem to be having teeth coming in at the time.  thanks. 

[Cats]

Your lo's schedule sounds exactly like Liam's at the same age, almost to the minute.  He has a similar schedule still (at 19 mths). He only ever slept 9.5 to 10 hrs overnight, very occasionally 10.5 hrs.  His naps were always pretty consistent, which made the early wakings a little more bearable while I was at home on mat leave and could rest--not so helpful now that I'm back at work.  At about 15 mths, he suddenly started sleeping 8 to 6:30 on his own --it lasted about 6 glorious weeks, then he went right back to his old schedule.  I think all this tweaking we do to our babies' schedule is more for our benefit than theirs--I'm not convinced it makes any difference (at least not for my baby anyway).

To update you all on our little experiment with an earlier bedtime -- for a number of reasons, we haven't been able to try yet.  BUT Liam has been "sleeping in" until 6:15 - 6:30 am (so 10.25 to 10.5 hrs overnight).  We saw a story on our local news station Monday night about how even the smallest LED lights in our bedrooms can disrupt sleep -- my husband put black electrical tape over the light on the smoke detector and baby monitor in Liam's room, and he suddenly started sleeping later.  Could this really be the solution?!?!  I'll let you know if he keeps it up.   I'll absolutely kick myself if the little light on his monitor had been the cause of his wakings all this time!!

[LisaM]

Wow Cats, lets hope thats all it takes to sort out the EW.  Actually, Grace has a light coming off the plug point so might try that tip myself and see how it goes.

We are still having a bit success with longer lie-ins but it is only because bedtime has been 7.30-8ish each night cos DH is off work and we've been out for days.  It goes to show she can sleep in later in the am but will still only do about 10-10.5 hrs most nights.  Doesn't work every day though as yesterday awake at 4.20 and then took ages to go back off so not so good.

Anyway, hope everything improved for you now.

Lisa

[newmom11]

Cats - I was reading thru some of the previous posts on this thread and you sound just like me.  My son has only ever slept 10 or 10.5 hours at night.  I can recall once or twice where he actually slept for 11 hours, but I am constantly wondering if that is all the sleep he needs or is there something that I can do to help him sleep longer.  I mean everybody that I know has babies who are sleeping 12 or even 13 hours at night and I can't help but wonder if there is something I am doing wrong.  Every morning (5:45 this morning) when I hear him on the monitor I'm reviewing in my head whether he went too bed to early or too late, is there some way to fix this problem.  I just wish I knew and then I would have an easier time coping with my early riser.  It's just weird for us that two weeks ago he was sleeping till 6:30 or 7am and then this week we are back to 6:15 or even 5:45.  I'm not sure that I totally understand what causes the early rising.  It's totally random.  I also took your advice and covered the light from the alarm clock that is in his room hoping that would help, but I didn't see much difference since he was up by 5:45.  If I could just know that 10 hours was all he was ever going to give me then I would try to tweak my schedule from there, but I just keep hoping that he'll start sleeping longer at night.  We only average about 12 or 12.5 hours of total sleep in a 24 hour period.  Isn't that what they are supposed to be doing at night alone?  How did your earlier bedtime work out?  Any luck?

[Cats]

We still haven't had a chance to try the early bedtime yet.  By the time I get home from work, make dinner, have a little play time, etc., etc., it's a challenge to even have him in bed by 8 p.m..  It seems so many of your LO's have such early bedtimes (6 to 7 p.m.)-- I'm not sure how you guys do that, and get to spend any time with your babies.

DS did, in his very early days, sleep until 6:30 to 7 a.m.  But each time he dropped a night waking, he'd wake up 30 minutes earlier in the morning.  By the time he started sleeping through the night (at about 5.5 months or so), we were getting up at 5:15 to 5:30.  We were on a 7:30 p.m. to 5:15-5:30 a.m. schedule for almost a year.  Earlier/later bedtimes did not affect wake-up times at all, until at about 13-14 mths when we tried a later bedtime (8 p.m.) one more time, and he started sleeping til about 6  His daytime sleep doesn't ever seem to impact night time sleep -- at least not as far as I can tell, but perhaps I haven't tracked it closely enough?

I guess the reality is that no-one can ever tell you whether your child is sleeping enough.  Liam has always had really good sleep habits (in that he falls asleep on his own, in his own bed, w/o any props).  I know he's perfectly able to put himself back to sleep, so I've got to figure that if he's awake at the crack of dawn, then it's because he's slept enough (which is what DH always says!) but I can't help obsessing anyway (probably because I'm so sleep deprived myself!).  We're starting to think about baby #2, which is terrifying in some respects. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get 8 hrs of sleep a night again.

[newmom11]

I hear you about baby #2...we too are starting to think about that and I'm terrified that baby #2 will want to sleep until 7am, but my early rising ds won't ever let that happen b/c he'll be up at the crack of dawn wanting out of bed and will wake the baby up.  I have to say that we were able to put my ds down about 15 minutes earlier than usual...and for some odd reason, he actually slept 11 hours last night and woke up at 6:45.  i'm not sure if that was just coincidence or if it was due to the earlier bedtime.  I put him down at 7:50 again tonight and he went right to sleep, so I'll be curious to see how he does tomorrow morning.  we are getting ready to head out of town for a week and he will have to be in a pack n-play for a week which could totally screw things up. I'm gonna hope for the best though. 

I have to agree that daytime sleep does not seem to affect night sleep...although my son did take a shorter nap today (1 hr 45 min instead of his normal 2 hours) perhaps b/c he got more sleep last night.  I'm not sure...all I know is that it's not an exact science like I try to make it out to be some days. 

[mummywalks]

Hi, Lisa

William did sleep from 7-7 for a while and would usually wake up and chatter for about 5 Min's but he has not done this since Christmas. He has had alot of chest infections and been on antibiotics more or less every month and now he wakes screaming every morning, he naps too early because he is so OT by 11 he just falls asleep on the floor if I dont watch him rarely I manage to get him to have a short nap at around 3 for half an hour or so but he is still OT by 6.30 and crying for bed.
Yesterday he woke screaming at 4.50 so DH brought him up to our bed, usually he just continues to cry until we take him downstairs but he actually snuggled and went back to sleep til 7 (woo hoo) we got up had breakfast and he then played with his Bro's and sis til lunch at 12 then he went for his nap at 1.30 til 3. we then played til 5.45 and had tea, bath at 7 bottle and bed 7.30 and  oh my god he slept til 6.30 only to be woken by DD he did cry a little but not the usual screaming.
I am going to follow the same pattern today and will let you know what happens.
Sharon

[LisaM]

Just started to read and now Grace awake so will be back later or tomorrow

[LisaM]

Sharon

How did it go last yesterday/last night? 

[newmama12]

Hi everyone!! I wanted to jump in here as I have an early riser too! Well, at least I think she gets early. DD is normally up at 6am, give or take a few. We do get the occasional 6:45-7am, but that's rare. I try to have her in bed by 7pm, but some nights that doesn't always work. I've started tracking her sleep (we're in the 2-1 nap transition and it's rough!) and I'm noticing that she sleeps about 11 hours at night. Not really much more than that and sometimes as low as 10.5 hours.

[newmom11]

i was just curious if any of you who have been dealing w/ early wakings have found that once your lo starts sleeping a little later in the mornings, thus equaling more night sleep, did you notice their daytime sleep shortening?  thanks to an earlier bedtime, my lo is finally doing 10 hrs 45 min - 11 hours at night, but his only nap of the day has suddenly shortened from 2 hours to 1.5 hours.  it's like he took that 30 mins of day sleep and added it to his nights. 

[Sima]

newmom1:  that is exactly what my lo does at 19 months.  Will sleep 11 hours at night but during the day will sleep 1:15, sometimes 1.30-2.  I guess if they get enough sleep at night, naps are shorter.  2 hour naps are rare.  Trying to move her nap later so that maybe some of the night sleep can go to prolonging naps?

[Mom of Ben]

Hi everyone,
I feel so lucky to have found you all!

My DS is 28 months old. The last few weeks his new wake time is 5am! We are expecting twins in a month or 2 and I am desperate to get this under control before then.

From another buddy group started in 2002! There was a Tess who suggested something that worked for her as well as a whole lot of other moms as a result of her advice, I am just nervous to try it.

She said that the answer is to gradually move their naps later - so she ended up with a nap 9/10 hours after the 5am waking (at 2.30/3pm) until 4.30 or 5pm and then bedtime at 8pm and the LO (for 2year olds only i guess) started sleeping till 7am again.

If only!!! I have been reading here since 5.30am this morning but I am not sure what the consensus of suggestions are from people that have solved this issue for 2 year olds.

I do see quite a discrepancy betwen ages here and I know that my DS went through many phases until 2 years old. It would be great if everyone could put a note at the beginning of posts to say age of their LO - that would be so helpful!