EW with 15MO

[meredithandnolan]

Ok, here's my story.  Hoping someone can shed some light on it. 

First let me say that my son goes to day care.  So I have little control over naps, how long he naps, and what time he naps.  A couple months ago we had the perfect sleep schedule.  He went down like clockwork around 7:30 and woke up around 7:00am every morning.  All of a sudden out of no where he started waking somewhere between 5-6.  Its never before 5, but its never much after 6 either.  When he first started doing it he was teething, but thats long over now.  When he wakes up he is screaming, not talking.  And even if I let him cry for a minute, it does not calm down.  So, here is his schedule most days:

5-6: Wake
8:30am: Eat
11:00: Lunch
11:30: nap
1:00: wake
3:00: snack:
6:00: Supper
7:00: Bath
7:30: Bed

I've tried putting him to sleep earlier and it doesn't do any good.  He still wakes at the same time.  But I've never really done it for more than one day in a row.

Any suggestions?  Or am I doomed for early wakings for the rest of my life?

[munzle]

You have mysympathies! My dd is the same age and we went through a similar thing recently. After many early wakings, we realised that she was overtired. With an average of 10hrs night sleep and 1.5hr nap, your ds is only sleeping a total of 11.5 hours, and is awake 6.5 hours before bed. We had something similar, but now that she is back on track she is having a total of nearly 14hrs sleep in a day, and we only let her have a maximum of 4.5 hours awake time before bed. When you say you have tried putting him to bed early, how early do you mean? We had to put her to bed super early to break the cycle. It must be hard with him in day care though as I suppose you can't get home any earlier than you do currently. Can you ask them to try and fit in two naps? That's the other way we broke the OT cycle. Maybe other people who use day care will offer some other suggestions, but just thought I'd sympathise with you as I know how hard it is - I used to wake up at 5am just waiting for that cry!

[becky1969]

PP hit it on the nose.  Your child is OT hence the EW.  What you might do is give a cat nap in the late afternoon to help him make it to bedtime.  If that's not really possible on workdays, try it on the weekend.  Then that will help him to get a later waking in the AM and will make the whole day go better.


So, there's no way the DC will let him nap a bit later in the day?  If that's the nap time, then with a 1 pm wake I would have him in bed by 6 pm at the latest.