My dd is 20 months and has been waking at 4/4:30 the past few weeks. She's always been an early riser no matter what time she went to bed, anywhere between 5/5:30. But 4am is too much! We are at our wits end. She goes down for bed just fine and goes right back to sleep if she wakes any other time at night. But, her 4am wake-up is the toughest, she will not go back to sleep and can cry for the next 2 hrs until we're ready to get her up. We've tried associating the light with her time to wake-up, but that hasn't worked and CIO definitely hasn't. I tried the walk-in/walk-out strategy this morning and it seemed to start working, but then it took so long, that we got right up to when I needed her to get up. So, I flipped on the hallway light and as soon as she got up again I made a big deal of the lights on and it being time to wake-up. I want to continue the walk-in/walk-out strategym but have a few questions:
1) DD is in a toddler bed and runs to the door each time I walk out. There is a gate at her door. DH thinks we should put a lock on her door and close it each time we walk out. How do others do the walk-in/walk-out strategy when your lo is not in a crib?
2) Also, do you count to 10 from the time they start crying? This morning, she did crawl back into bed for a minute the last few times, then start to cry again and come to the door.
3) If they stop crying, how long do you wait before attempting to go back to your own bed? If dd wakes again, I start the process all over?
3) Any other suggestions for this early waker? She typically goes to bed at 8/8:30, takes one nap during the day from about 12-2:30. I tried an earlier bedtime and she was still up at 4:30/5.
Thanks for the help!
