5 am waking for day!

[Lisa in Canada]

Hi ladies!!  New website looks great.  It's been a long time since I last visited.

Can anyone help me with a dd who wakes at 5am everymorning??!!  She is awake and ready to go, however, by 930 is so ready for a nap. The problem is that she is 18 mo and only really havig one nap a day, that only lasts an hour or so.  She goes to bed at 7pm (or earlier) and won't have an afternon nap.  We've tried everything!  Putting her to bed a 1/2 earlier, or later............ doing pu/pd until 6am, etc.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!!
Lisa

[Jaime]

i'm going to pop your question over to the toddler board.   

[Johno & Aurelias Mum]

We had a similar problem a while back.  Don't worry about the one nap, my DS has only done one for several months now.  You need to get it later so that the wakings don't get earlier and earlier.

We gradually moved the morning nap later by just doing low key activites - nothing really exciting that wore him out at first.  Then the nap was later and he could last through the afternoon.  NOw he sleeps 11.30 for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Funny lunch time but I've tried the afternoon nap and he always wakes up grouchy so I've stopped at what worked.  He now wakes at about 6.30 in the morning.

I was also told to try and do strenuous activity in the morning and quieter things in the afternoon.  That does help.

[Lan]

You could try giving her a snack at 9.30 instead of giving her a sleep. The extra food might keep her awake a bit longer. The goal is to try to get her to have a nap a bit later every 2-3 days until it is around lunchtime. It might take you a month or so to get there though!

It sounds like your daughter is overtired by the time she gets to bed because of the long gap between nap and bedtime. When kids go to bed overtired they go into a very deep sleep, sleep more efficiently and therefore sleep for a shorter time!  So maybe shifting bedtime earlier by 30-60 minutes would help  in the transition too.

That said... My son was always an earlier waker and it's only been now that's he's turned 2 that he's sleeping in till 6.30-7am! So if you try the above and it doesn't help with the early wakings you might just have to live with the early waking till your daughter is a bit older.

[Lisa in Canada]

Hi!  Thanks for your comments.............. I don't think I was very clear, sorry.  I don't actually put her for her nap at 930, but she is 'ready' then.  If I did put her down then, she would sleep, and probably for a longer period of time.  Just FYi, here is her schedule:

5-530am - wake
bottle - 1-2 8oz milk

730 breakfast

930 snack

1100 lunch

1130 nap
1hour, if I am lucky, 1.5 hr, but never more than that

2pm snack
bottle - 8oz milk

5pm dinner

6pm 8oz bottle

630 bath

7pm bed

So that's it, pretty simple really.  But what do I do with the 5am wake!!?  I'd be willing to accept it, and live with an early riser, but I know she is still tired!!  Especially when she is ready for bed again so early.  For the last month, my husband and I have been taking turns trying pu/pd.  We've agreed to not let her out of her room until at least 6am, figuring she'd eventually get the idea....... well, that was a month ago.  She is still not getting it!!

Any suggestions would be appreciated!!  I need help!!
Thanks,
Lisa

[imsmum]

You could try a slightly earlier bedtime .  She's awake at lest 6 hours after her nap which is pretty long.  and some people have had success in that actually lengthening the sleep time.  Alternatively you could try pushing the nap back a bit to see if that gets a longer nap but it sounds like she's pretty tired by 11:30 as it is.   

[Lisa in Canada]

Hi again:

So, I guess my goal should be to make her nap longer???  It is true, there is a L-O-N-G gap between when she wakes from her nap and when she goes to bed (almost 7 hrs), so she is definitely going to bed WAY over tired.  We have tried putting her to bed early, like at 630, and it does not seem to make any difference in her 5am wake time.  Okay, so the next question is (if this is the right approach), how on earth do I extend her naps from only 1 hour???

On a side note, I am curious................. to all those moms who have an early waker - Were your toddlers colic (whatever tha ttruly means) as babies by any chance??  My DD was colic for almost 10 months..... she cried seemingly ALL the time and nursed every 2 hours around the clock for 9 months!  Would not take a bottle, soother, etc.  I bought every nipple on the market!!!

Thanks, I look forward to hearing back.
Lisa

[elfin]

To get her to nap longer you could try putting her down at 11.  Then depending on how long she sleeps for determine the bedtime.  We have dealt with very early wakings on and off for a long time now.  The best thing we did was not take him out of his room until 6am at the earliest.  When he woke early I would go in and pick him up if he wanted me to, and calmly tell him that it was still nighttime and time to go to sleep.  He would cry and ask to go downstairs, ask for milk, ask for daddy, etc..  I would continually tell him no, and that it was time to go to bed.  When he eventually realized that his only option was to go back in his crib, he would.  Some days he would go back to sleep, and other times he would cry again and I would go back and do it over again.  That was about a month ago, and he has been great since.  It's funny because the last couple mornings I have heard him at 5am kind of grumbling and whining, but within a couple minutes he is quiet again, and is then up for the day at 7am.  So I am thinking he knows it is too early so might as well go back to sleep!

[Carmela's Mom]

What worked for us was making her nap later.  She then would start napping longer...ours days looked like this then...

5:30 up (but I didn't get her out of her crib until 6:30)
6:30 milk
7:00 breakfast
9:30 snack
11:30 lunch
12:00-2:00 nap
3:00 snack
5:00 dinner
5:30 bath
6:00 wind down routine
6:30 in crib for night

Eventually she started waking later at 6 and then I pushed back her bedtime to 7