Help 18 month old EW for a month

[soupsville]

Hi, my first post on here but have been using this forum and EASY since my son was 8 weeks old. I don't know what I'd do without this wealth of info!

I've read loads of posts on here about EW and find it hard to work out what I should try and change...He's been waking at 6am for a good few months (which is fine for us) but in the last month is has crept earlier anytime starting from 515am. We have a black out blind that keeps the room pitch black so I can't even blame it on the lighter mornings. We have been consistently doing early bedtime to compensate but I'm now stuck in an early to bed early waking cycle - please help!

Day generally looks like this;

530am wake and stay happily in cot chatting to himself
620am get him up for breakfast
945am snack
1145am lunch
12/1215pm nap (usually 2 hours, sometimes an hour and a half)
3pm snack
5pm tea
615/630 bedtime

Is it the nap time I need to change? We had him napping a bit later previously but he was getting up after 230 and then it wasn't a long enough awake time before bed....so I moved it forward as he'd be awake too long  in the morning from his EW. We tried later bedtime but he still woke at 515 just meaning he got less sleep.

Any ideas would be much appreciated!

[ginger428]

HI soupsville and I'd say welcome to BW but looks like you've been around. =) Happy to have you post with us.

What was his previous routine?
How long did you try the later bedtime- consecutively?

It could be a phase as around 18mo, sleep disturbances are common due to either separation anxiety, growing independence and skills, and/or sometimes teething.

Keeping him in bed until at least 6am and using blackout blinds is perfect. Did he always do so well with a long awake time before nap? If you can manage it one day when he wakes closer to the 6 o'clock hr, is push the nap to 12:30 and bedtime to 6:45 for a few days. If it works, then continue to move nap and bt closer to your old routine. He could be a toddler that needs nap capping at 1.5hrs to be tired enough for bed.

What do you think?

[soupsville]

Thanks for your response!

Before this we were transitioning from 2 naps to 1 and nap was earlier (1030am) which we gradually pushed back as his naps went from 1 hour to 2 hours and stopped his post nap time stretch being too long.  So we'd been doing ok with the 2 hour nap then for a few weeks.

We didnt try later bedtime consecutively as we thought it better that he gets more sleep going down earlier. You reckon this is worth a try? I'm just worried about consecutive days of OT if he still EW.

He's woken a few times after 1h30 mins and we had the same result with EW so I'm not sure nap capping is gonna help me. I will hold out then for a closer to 6am waking (fingers crossed  ) and try and push it out. So you reckon waking up from nap 30 mins later and the slightly later bedtime can then help to shift him  out a bit?

[ginger428]

I think trying the later bedtime for at least 3 days is worth it. I know, it's such a catch 22- put him down too early and his sleep cycle might keep the early wakeUp time, too late and he's OT which can cause NWs and early wu. We're Gently pushing it out by 15 mins, so we should be able to keep OT at bay. Let us know how it goes and we can reasses. It's great though that he is sleeping through the night and waking happily. Fingers crossed this is a phase that will pass in a couple weeks!