19 mo Early Waking

[AlicesMum]

Hi

Until a couple of weeks ago my dd was sleeping really well 7pm-6.30am with a 1.5 - 2 hour nap after lunch.

For the last 2-3 weeks she has been waking up at 5-5.30am, and it is driving us crazy! She is also taking longer to fall asleep at night, so often it's 7.30 before she's asleep (she just chats to herself). Her nap is as good as ever.

It started shortly after a feverish cold, but I'm not sure it's related because she slept really well for a few days after she got better.

She has had phases like this before, but they have only lasted a few days, and this time she seems so wide awake we are thinking of cutting back on her nap, maybe to an hour.   

Does anyone have any similar experience and advice to share?

[jessica and emilys mummy]

Hi,firstly,how old is Alice?
She could be having molars through.Is she in a bed or a cot?
What time is lunch?If it's after 12.30pm you could try to bring lunch
forward and have her nap earier,then maybe start bedtime about 5 mins earlier
to give her a few minutes to chat.

[evanskimberley]

DD is 17mo and doing this cos she's hungry!!! She's going through a growth spurt and eating us out of house and home. however if the timings don't work for some reason or anothre and she doesn't eat enough food in the evening, she wakes at 5.30 and tells us she's hungry.

[elfin]

My ds started with his early wakings at around the same age as well.  He will go through spurts sometimes waking as early as 4:30am to start the day!  They enter a really light stage of sleep at this time, and I always figured that for whatever reason he was just excited to start the day and no longer wanted to sleep.  Some things that have helped us is putting him to bed earlier, even by 15 minutes or so, giving him a snack before bed so we know he is not hungry.  The last time he did this I also made up my mind that enough was enough and that he was not leaving his room until 6am at the earliest.  So when he cried out I would go to him and pick him up if need be offer him water and tell him it was still night time and time to go to sleep.  He would cry and ask to go downstairs, ask for milk, ask for daddy, ask for the dog, etc., but i just kept telling him no, and giving him the message that his only option was to lie back down and cuddle with blankie.  Once he was calm i would put him back down and leave, and sometimes he would fall asleep, and other times he would cry out again and I would repeat it all over again.  This last episode was a few weeks ago and he has been sleeping until 6:30-7am since.  I am sure he will have another episode again, but I will continue to keep doing this.

Hope this helps a bit!

[imsmum]

If I can jump in--Carrie, what time does your little one nap? We seem to have gotten over night wakings(fingers crossed)  but the last few mornings my dd has been waking at 5:30/5:45.  She used to be happy with a winddwon starting around 6 then she would be asleep around 6:45 no problem but the last few nights she has had trouble going down then and was clearly overtired although thankfully she didn't wake at night.  Her naps are nearly 2 hours (1h 50min)starting around 12.  Should I ppush the nap back to try to shift her night sleep to a better time.  I'm nervous because we just hopefully have gotten over the night waking and I want to tweak her routine in the right direction and not send her spiralling back to her earlier problems. 

[elfin]

Myles typically naps at around 12.  The days he was up ridiculously early I would try and stick as close to his naptime as possible, so as not to encourage the early waking and reset his clock.  Some days were brutal and I would put him down maybe 15 minutes earlier than normal.

[AlicesMum]

Jessica and Emilys Mummy, to answer your questions -
Alice is 19 months and is still in a cot.
She has lunch at 11.30 and naps at 12.30 for about 1.5-2 hours.

The fact that she is taking a while to fall asleep is not really the issue, its the 5am waking!
I might try elfin's method - it sounds like a toddler version of pick up put down.

[Jess-J&E]

It is so great to hear that other little one's are doing this too.  Carrie I think you suggestion is a great one, at least they don't get the message the 4:30 is time to start the day.  99% of the time Ethan doesn't go back to sleep, he has always been a super early bird.  I figure leaving him in there teaches him to entertain himself a bit so that I can at least snooze or rest until 6.  Unfortunately for us he doesn't go back to sleep and I cannot for the life of me change the wake up time.  I guess this method is just a compromise for us.  Just FYI I put him to bed between 6:45 and 7 and his nap is around 12 (or as close as I can get to that time)

Jessica and Emily's Mummy- I know that one of your daughters wakes really early too, Emily I think.  How do you deal with it?  What time and how long is her nap?  What about bedtime?

Alice's Mum- Let us know how this method works for you, I am really curious if it works.

Jess

[aidmam]

hi,

i'm a bit of a lurker but new years resolution is to post more so hear goes.
aidan (16 months) has since tiny been a very good 11hrs nighter but has always been prone to bouts of early waking. the only method i found helpful was to take a quilt into his room and once he had woken go in no talking, no eye contact just lie on floor and be there for him.

the bouts usually come after illness, at the moment he is getting his molars (plus has had a sickness bug, setting of his reflux and has had bronchiolitas  ) so i think i've got a long haul ahead of me because i have found its not worth trying it while they are in middle of a disruption e.g teething, illness growth spurt. i wait till he is feeling more himself then have 3/4 nights of this. my dh has to be prepared for some crying (thankfully he is a whinger not a screamer).aidan not dh 

i  do have a question though, is it ok to let them grizzle? aidans bedtime is 7 and i aim to be up with him no earlier than 6.30am so if he wakes at 6am sometimes he will play but is not always happy, unless he is crying i don't go in. what do you think?

[AlicesMum]

Thanks everyone for your replies - I haven't made any changes yet and this morning she slept until 6.15, hooray! 
I think that was just a one-off though and she will be back to 5.30 tomorrow!

It's good to know I'm not the only one - this seems to be quiet a common problem. I've been told that it gets better once they drop the nap -but that could be a year away!