18 month old - EW - please help

[samantha23]

My 18 month old has been a pretty good sleeper.  He would go to bed around 7:30pm and wake around 7am.  He would take a 2.5-3 hour nap during the day.  The last few weeks his nap has gotten shorter but more importantly he has been getting up earlier and earlier.  for the last week it has been 5am and he will not go back to sleep.  We tried milk and leaving him in the crib but he just whines and whines.  I tried putting him back to sleep but he starts to cry when i leave the room.  Not sure what to do.  He gets tired at 10am and wants to take his nap then and that throws off the whole day.  I tried putting him to bed earlier but he still gets up at the same early hour.  any ideas?  His "regular" schedule is posted below...

6:45 - 7am - wake
11:30/12 - nap (2-3 hours)
7:30/8 - sleep

Lately it has been like:

5am - wake
11/11:30 - nap 1.5 - 2 hours
7:15 - sleep

[becky1969]

You're getting an OT waking.  A 10 hour night is a classic OT sign.  My best guess is that those hideous canines are starting to come in.  Those teeth are bloody awful, worse than the molars in our experience! I think your child is getting a bit tired from those teeth coming in, and so is not able to sleep as long at nap and is having EWs.

I'd try an earlier bedtime to help resolve EWs, and then hopefully naptime will fix itself once waking is more normal again.  Move bedtime up by at least 30 minutes, and perhaps as much as an hour.  You'll need to experiment a bit.

[samantha23]

thanks will try that.  he already has his canines and all he has left to get are his 2 year old molars.  he has been chewing on everything so maybe that is the case.  will move up bedtime and try some pain reliever as well.

[samantha23]

So I tried the early bedtime but still get the 5am wakeup or I get a 3-4am wakeup for about an hour then sleep until 7...the change is that he is taking a 3+ hour nap to catch up on sleep, for example, yesterday..

5:15am wake
11:50 - 3:20 sleep
8pm sleep

he did this today as well...trying to figure out if I should cut nap short and/or what time he should go to bed if I let him sleep that much.  he seems to need to catch up during the day but if I wake him earlier during the nap he is super cranky.  any thought?

thanks in advance...

[Sima]

This is just a thought.  Around 18 months, my daughter on her own cut her nap--from 1.25-1.45 to only 1 hour.  And if she slept more during nap time, she'd wake up early.  Even now at 23 months, she still does the same thing.  So I rather her take 1 hour nap-- then her night sleep is longer.  Don't know if this is your case

[samantha23]

thanks.  last night he was up un his crib for 45 min at 2am but then slept until 7:30am.  I am going to try to limit his nap today and see what happens.