20 month old - 5am wakings and obsession with Teddy

[NCH]

Hi There

I am hoping for some advice/guidance on how much sleep my 20 month old boy (turns 20 months next week) and reasons as to why we are getting early wakings. For around 5 weeks now he is waking up between 5 and 5.30am - he either throws his teddy out of the bed (gets upset until we get up and give it back to him) or just tosses/turns. I try and keep him in his room until atleast 6.30am (this means I am either going in constantly picking up teddy, or laying in his room so he keeps quiet or giving him milk). I figure if he is laying down until 6.30am he is resting?? 

I feel like I have exhausted all ideas on getting him to sleep longer in the mornings - have tried different nap lengths, earlier/later bedtimes, lots of exercise, fresh air, making sure he is well fed, cuddled etc but still early wakings. I recently thought the wakings could be due to our heater kicking in (can be noisy) so have started setting my alarm at 4.30 am to turn it off (until we work out how to set the timer on it) to see if this makes a difference, but no the EW's are still happening.

Teddy arrived on the scene at 8 months and up until this week, Teddy was just a cot toy, but the past week my boy has wanted to be with him all the time. We don't let him take it out of the house though. I am a stay at home mum and my husband sees him atleast 1/2 day every day - we are lucky to have this due his shift work but he is really starting to get upset when my husband leaves even to go into another room.

Could the early wakings be due to seperation anxiety?He was teething (molars a few weeks ago, but not currently), appears to be getting a cold the last 24 hours.

Awake - 5/5.30am (try to keep him in room in cot in the dark until 6.30 am atleast)
E - milk upon getting up/or sometimes in his room in attempt to resettle back to sleep - breakfast 7.30am/8.00 am
A - play/house chores at home for 1 to 1.5 hours depending on what we have on that day
E - 9.44am
A - out and about until 11.30am
E - 11.30am
S - 12 to 2pm (he could quite happily sleep for 2.5 hours though - I have kept it to 2 hours in the hope we get a sleep in the next morning)
A - short play after nap
E - 2.30pm/3.00pm
A - activity outside generally until 5pm then watches his favourite DVD whilst I finish off dinner.
E - dinner 5.30pm
A - play, bath, milk, stories
S - 7pm/7.30pm (depends on what time he wakes up - generally 5hr A in the pm).

Should I let him sleep longer at lunch but perhaps put him down earlier example 11.30/11.45am?

Apologies for the lengthy posting. Any help/advice would be appreciated

:0)

[babybarr]

Just bumping your post before it drops off the page

There are some people who have had success with lights on a timer which come on in the morning at a set time. 

[babymunkey]

Replying quickly on my mobile, but routine issues aside, we def had success with a clock. We decided it was just time for him to learn that he had to stay in his room even if he woke early. Will pop back another time with more info but after a few months of sticking with it he now stays in bed and reads his books or just lies quietly til the sunshine gets up. But he was also in a BBB by then which I think helps as he could get out for toys etc. H   

[~*Nicole*~]

Also sounds like he may be OT. I bet the teething and possible impending cold have something to do with it...in conjunction with the separation anxiety. Try your idea of an earlier nap, but cap it at 2.5 to 3 hours at most IF he sleeps that long. Then do normal bedtime and see if that helps. If not, we'll try something else!!!

If he won't do an earlier nap, do an early bedtime......but stick with it for at least 3 days. EVEN if she still wakes early....6pm to 5am is a lot better than 7 or 7:30 to 5am....and he'll do better each day the more night sleep he gets. Then you can work on pushing everything forward. It was about this time that DD needed her nap to be moved later. So we finally got to a 1-3pm naptime....that MIGHT also be the trouble. He may be waking early to try to get more A time and now is "stuck" on that and not getting enough night sleep and getting OT. So one he's well rested, try to slowly push his nap and see if that helps.

[babymunkey]

Hi there - awake now and typing normally!

As Nicole said, keep trying the routine solving as well cos that will have a big impact.

In my experience though , 5.30 is a witching hour of EWs. I slept with H in a tent a few nights ago, and at around 5.30 he tossed and turned and mumbled for about 20 minutes then went back into a deep sleep til his usual time. We've always found it a tricky time. So we started iuntroducing a clock at about your LO's age - we used the GroClock - it ahs taken a while for it to work consistently but was definitely worth perservering.

We also had H in a BBB by 20 months - no particular reason, just felt he could cope and we wanted him to be able to get out of bed and play or come into us and just climb in when we didn't feel like sticking to the rules!

HTH

[NCH]

thanks everyone for your thoughts/suggestions.

How do I get started with the clock idea?

He slept until 6.15am this morning lol, 2 hours sleep at lunch (woke at 2.30pm). Tonight I am going to put him to bed at 7pm (4.5A) and see what happens on shorter A time in the afternoon.

Thanks!

[~*Nicole*~]

I am actually interested in the clock idea, b/c I think if I implement something like that soon...when I DO switch DD to a BGB it can move to her new room with her and be a "rule" she already knows during that transitional phase.