Hi all
We are in a massive rut with early morning wake ups, short naps and early bt. I have tried tweaking his schedule but nothing has been working to help the early wake ups. It has been going on for about 3 weeks now and we have a very cranky, chronically overtired toddler who is having tantrums at the drop of a hat and is constantly tired. I'm not sure what to do anymore, I'm exhausted and we all need our sleep.
He had been having around 11.5/12 hours sleep a night and around 1.5/2 hours day sleep (one nap) since about August time. Now he is having 10.5 hours maximum at night and an hour in the day. If he has less than 6 hours A time first thing he has a long nap (1.5-2 hours) anything more than that results in a short nap (35 mins-1 hour 10 max). But we haven't been able to give him less than 6 hours first A time as he has been waking too early and don't want his nap to be too early. Then it's a long time until bt (we don't do bt before 6 due to only 10.5 hours max night sleep) but again it's a long stretch and he is worse in the afternoon.
So, this is what his day looked like before:
Wu: 5.45/6
Nap: 11.30/12 for 1.5-2 hours
Bt: 7ish depending on what time he woke
Now it looks like this:
Wu: 4.30/5
Nap: 11am for an hour or less
Bt: 6pm (doesn't usually go to sleep until about 6.30 making it 6.5 hours A in the afternoon)
I don't know if this is the 18mo sleep regression or we have got his schedule wrong. He is very sensitive to being ot and always has had sleep issues, we had to sleep train at 6 months but has been great since 10 mo and sttn since then.
He is an independent sleeper and when he wakes we can leave him in the cot and we never get him up until at least 6am.
how do I work on getting him less overtired and back into a good routine? Do I ride it out or make changes? I think we need to shift his day later but not sure how to do it without causing even more overtiredness! It's really getting me down and we are knackered
Thank you so much for any advice you can give. X
