Early morning wakeups 19 months

[Freckles1981]

Hi

Can I gain some advice please about what to do with early morning waking?  My LO is 19 months old and has been on the same schedule for a while now, but he has now started waking at around 5.30am, rather than 6.30/7.  He wakes up, and after a short time will throw his comforter or dummies out of the cot and will start screaming.  We've tried resettling him, but the only way we can get him back to sleep is with him on us.

His schedule is/was like this, but when he's at nursery his sleep is a bit shorter:

Wake 6.30/7
Nap 11.45 - 13.45
Bedtime 18.45 (asleep by around 19.15)

Any suggestions to get him to sleep to a more reasonable hour?

Thanks :-)

[Jodes112]

Hi!

Id move the nap later, and aim for about 12.30. But do it gradually.

Often the extended A in the AM can cause EWU.

My dd was the same with EW's and she always need a push in the A time and it wiuld fix it x

[Freckles1981]

Thanks, so you'd still push put his nap on the days when he's up between 5.30/6am? Should we cap his nap too so,that it doesn't run too late?

[Jodes112]

Wrt still pushing the nap even if EW - I would because thats the only way you will break the cycle!
May be tough for a few days but he should get there!

Wrt capping the nap. I would just let him sleep the full nap at first a d see how you go.

[creations]

Hi
Just stopping by to say when I moved my DS's nap later (to stop the EW) I didn't need to cap the nap (in fact he needed the full 2hrs or couldn't cope) so maybe you'd like to try the later nap with the same BT for a while and see how it goes?  If there ends up being BT refusal you could then either cap the nap 15 mins or move BT 15 mins later.  With min I moved BT later as I say the capped nap didn't suit him at all.
The latest we ended up at was nap at 2-4pm and BT at 8pm we were steady and settled on that a good while until he hit the 1-0 transition period.

[Freckles1981]

Hi again

So we are still having struggles! The 5.30 wake up is now happening every day, and he's absolutely wiped out by around 10am. I've been keeping him up until around 12 / 12.15 for the last week or so but its not helping the EW. If we let him sleep past 14.00, we get bedtime resistance so I'm having to cap his nap at that point.

Do you have any other ideas? Thanks!

[creations]

Does his room have black out?

[jessmum46]

Is he teething?  Molars/canines?  They can often cause a lot of disturbance in the early morning...

[Freckles1981]

We have a blackout blind & curtains but I still feel like his room could be darker. Maybe time for foil on the windows too 

I don't think he's teething at the moment, we are just waiting on his second molars as the rest are already through, but we can't feel anything.

Even his nap today was quite disturbed and shorter than usual. He's now screaming every time we leave him for naps and bedtime....its going from bad to worse. It took over an hour to settle him tonight 

[creations]

I had tinfoil up for about 5 years!!  We then switched to black out curtains and guess what, a few months later had to re-foil the windows to stop the EW, there is just way too much light comes in around the curtains and I don't even have any sleep issues with my DS but he still started waking waaaaay too early.

Could also be some development and routine though.