Early waking/getting out of bed issues 23 mo old

[Jessi]

Hi all,
  Hoping for some advice on this.  My 23 mo old ds has always been a great sleeper thanks to bw, but now we're running into a few things I'm not sure how to approach.  The first is that over the last few months, he's gradually moved his wake up time from 7:30/8:00 to 5, sometimes 4:45 am!   When he wakes up, I can tell he's still extremely tired, but he won't go back down.  He naps around 11am for 2-3hrs.  Is that too long?  Right now I appreciate it, as he has an 8wk old baby sister!  I'm wondering if this is common, to move to an earlier wake up and what's causing it, and how to "fix" it.
  The second thing is that he moved to a big bed shortly before his sister was born, completely on his own.  We had it in his room and it was literally one day that he decided that was where he wanted to sleep.  For about a month, I don't think he realized he could get out of it.  Now, as soon as he wakes up, he's up and in our room. We haven't been using a gate and we keep the door open.  This also sometimes happens at 2 or 3 am.  Since we are both sleep deprived and ds puts up a fight about going back alone, dh has taken to going back to ds's room with him and laying down with him to try and eek out a bit more sleep.  I'm curious as to what everyone does to keep their todds in bed.  Door closed?  I'd feel bad about it but have a feeling he may cry for a bit then give up.  Gate?  Same thing.  Any suggestions are welcome!
  TIA for any advice you may have.  I've resigned myself to the fact that I am a zombie these days and probably will be for a while.  BW is hard to keep up with for #2, so I'm sure I'll be dealing with her sleep issues for a while too!  Namely, she only naps while being held or in the bjorn or the swing!  I'm deep into the props this time around!

[Carmela's Mom]

What time does he go to sleep at night? 

I am no expert but I am having similar problems.  1) I'd push back his nap time to 12:30 and only let him nap 2 hours.  Then I'd be putting him to bed at 7 p.m. and see if that straightens it out.  Try this for a week and see how it goes.   I am starting today to try this as well with my daughter.  She goes to bed at 7 and goes through spurts of either no nap or a 2 hour nap and when she does her 2 hour nap, we get wakes up of 5 in the morning and very restless at night.  So I'm going to try shortening her naps to 1.5 hours.  It's going to be tough tough tough for a few days but its worth the shot.

The other thing with your son is it may just be the new freedom he found with his bed.  I haven't experienced this yet but I'm sure I will next week when I put my daughter in her big girl bed.  I hope others have good advice on this!

[Jessi]

He goes to bed right around 7 usually, unless he's super tired.  I've thought of moving his nap up to 12 or so, but he's so zonked out by 11, I'm really hesitant to do it.  When Carmela wakes up at 5 does she make it until 12:30?  I've looked around at the toddlers' schedule post and most seem to take a later nap, but they all wake up later too, so I'm not sure what to do.

I do think that the big bed may be part of it because I'm willing to be that if he woke up that early in his crib, he probably just went back to sleep, but now that he can get out he does.  I've been mulling over just keeping his door closed, but I somehow feel bad about that, so I'm not sure what we'll do.

Anyway, thank you for replying.  I may try the schedule change if this continues.  Let me know how it goes for you.  How old is your dd?  Good luck with the big girl bed too!

[TaylorsDad]

Not sure how much help I can be other than to tell you we have an almost identical situation..

2 yrs and 5 months old son and a 9 week old sister....

We have had all manner of night/bed time problems..  Night waking every hour or so, refusing to go to bed, and now early mornings 5am !
We are sticking to our guns and hoping he gets better, at the moment I am relieved that we don't have to get half a dozen times a night to get him back to bed.

I assume your baby is in your room with you?  This is the same for us, and I believe it's jealousy. Once or twice we brought him into our bed and he fell asleep straight away. So it is not that he has woken and wants to start his day.

We are currently having some building done at our house and his baby sister will not be able to go into her own room for another month. We know this is going to be tough but in the past two weeks we have seen an amazing improvement.  If he would stay in bed for just 1 more hour we would be exstatic. I am not sure what will break the cycle of early waking, but we are learing to ignore him and he getting better at spending tome alone in his bed room.

Let me know how it goes for you as it seems we have exactly the same scenario..

th eonly difference with us is that my son refuses a daytime nap and this means that combined with the early waking, he is missing out on a whole load of sleep that he really needs at this age.

Good luck

Tim

[imsmum]

On days that my dd sleeps without night wakings she is up between 5 and 5:30.  We try to keep her naptime consistent at 12:30. 
If your lo is used to napping at 11 I would suggest trying to push it back 15 minutes every few days.

[Jessi]

Tim,
  It's good to know that we're not the only ones doing this, although I am sorry for you too!  You said it's been improving the last two weeks.  have you done anything different?  Does your son have his door closed or a gate on it so he can't get out?

[Lan]

I would gradually push his nap back by 15 minutes every 2-3 days. THen once his nap is at 12 or 12.30pm, shorten it to 2 hours and put him to bed at 7 or 7.30 pm. He's using an early extra long nap to catch up on his night sleep and you don't want that! So hopefully pushing back his nap slowly might help him get back on track.

[TaylorsDad]

Jessi,   My son has a gate on his room.

He has been getting better and better and last night was the best yet.

Upto bed/teeth/story just after 7pm.  We read two books, often a larger book and a small board book. I then talk to him for a few minutes about his day and what he's going to do tomorrow..  Last night he fell asleep and I left him at 7.30..  He wanted me to stay and if I had walked out while he was awake I know he would have come crying after me.

Not a peep until 1.30am, when he got out crying at the gate. I tried to get him back into bed to no avail. I left him at the gate (quiet, not crying) and went back to bed.  10 mins later I heard footsteps then the duvet rustle and he had got back into bed !!!

He then woke at 6am, I didn't go in to him and 5 mins later he got back into bed and then he woke at 6.40.. Shouting 'daddy, mummy its 7 oclock!'

This getting back into bed was a major breakthrough but please be aware that this has taken us a month or so !!!

Perhaps if I had left him sooner he would have got to bed, but two weeks ago we left him and he cried for hours.

Just stick with it.  I believe the real key is making him as chilled and feeling as loved as possible before bed time.

good luck and I will let know how things go tonight.

[TaylorsDad]

btw,   how do i get the lilypie graphics in my sig?

I have the code but it just shows as code in the signature and not the graphics...

[Dillon's mum]

We have EXACTLY the same thing going on here!!!
DS is 2.5 and DD is 5 months.....(she's still in with us)
DS is a DREAM at going to bed ..all thanks to BW I might add!! HOWEVER....
Transition to big boy bed was a sinch..over Christmas lots of travelling in UK, lots of different beds..had the same pillow and quilt with him and he was an angel...got back home, bought him bed straight away...and he was chuffed to pieces!! (Especially with his Spiderman duvet set!! Boy they grow up so quick!!) Anyway I digress....
He is still great with going to bed (7.30), settles straight away and has been sleeping until 7.30/8 then last week we went away for a few days staying in a hotel 'family room'....AND he had a huge coughy cold which was waking him up....so now we're back and he's out!!
He's waking at anywhere from 5.45 onwards.....
We've always completely shut his door..one good thing is I hear it the second it opens so I'm out to greet him before he comes into our room.
I also think..just by having talked to him and explaining we need our sleep...he hasn't got out of bed for a few days now, but still wakes up crying and calling for me. So this morning knowing that if I took him out of bed he'd never get back in again, I said I'd just sit on the floor til he was alseep. Almost got away with sneaking out once...but he 'caught' me ...so back I sat. I then said I was cold so I was going to get my dressing gown on...to stay laying where he was and I'd be back...I hovvered by his door for a short while then, when I couldn't hear him trying to get out, went back to bed. He did go back to sleep thank goodness (was up 6 times in night with DD who has bronchitis at the mo!! so kinda need a few zzz's!!)
I'm going to see how tonight pans out...
his naps at home have been a bit erratic lately too....he used to be dead good at these.....it really doesn't seem to make much difference for his night-times ..some days he naps like clockwork 10.30 - 12.30, other days he refuses to and goes to bed at night flagging big time...still 6 am wake up call.....
One thing I was thinking of doing if it carries on, was getting him a not very loud alarm clock (if there is such a thing...) making a game out of it but setting it for 7-7.30am and saying that only when he hears this can he get out of bed........
Sorry I've droned on....really interested to find out what tips anyone else has...
Sonia

[TaylorsDad]

Last night Taylor was in bed by 7.30. I left him after a little agro of him getting out of bed and told him if he got out once more he would have to tuck himself back into bed.

After a few minutes of crying at his gate, he went quite then got back into bed. All by 8pm.

He woke at about 11.30 and got back into bed himself within 5 mins and then woke about 6.15 this morning.  We left him and he eventually started playing with some toys and I went in at 7am.  We are making a big issue of 7am and not coming out of his room until we go in.

All in all a v.good night and considering that just over a week ago I spent half the night in his room and we both had about 3 hours sleep...

A part of the success has to be attributed to way we are treating him too.  During the day we have cut down (almost completely) timeouts and are ignoring and distractin all but really bad behaviour. Even when he does things to hurt his baby sister we are being quite and very calm instead.  We have notice in 2 days that his behaviour has improved drastically and his sleeping has too.

The sitting on the floor (gradual withdrawal technique - oo er!) didn't work for us..  It made things worse. It depends on the child and the reason for the sleep problem. As they drift in and out of sleep through the night everytime you are not there they will cry out wanting you there...  At it's worst this cycle went on hourly tyhrough out the night.   But it might work for you...  Our Son has been feeling left out 'cos of the baby and he wants as much attention as possible, staying in his room played into his hands and made things worse. Thankfully, we broke this quite quickly and now have something that works..

Regarding alarm clocks - I heard that you can get these bunny clocks and the ears pop up rather than an alarm goes off.  that way if he is asleep nothing will wake him but if he wakes and sees the ears up he knows its OK to get up! Don't know where to get them from just yet... We will try it when we remove the gate from his doorway, but we won't be risking that for a few more weeks... Especially as the baby will be going into the nursery in about 4 weeks time.


Tim

[Jessi]

Tim,
  Good to hear that you had a good night! I'm wondering, have you always had the gate on the door or did you just start putting it up when he started getting out of bed?  We've never had anything on there and I'm curious how ds will react when he sees it.  (I keep saying "We're going to start tonight," then we're just so tired, dh has just gone in and gotten into bed with him.)  Maybe tonight will be the night we begin trying to sort this out.  I agree that treating them differently during the daytime has an effect.  On the days that dh is home and ds gets more attention, he's much easier.  When I am on my own, I have a much harder time.  Most likely because his baby sister is one who will stay content for very long when put down, so she is in my arms or the front pack a lot.  What is your #2 like?  How's she sleeping?

Jessi

[Dillon's mum]

Hi Tim,
Sounds like you had a great night at long last!
Really interested in reading your post...having DS and DD now can be alot to handle. DH and I only discussed today that we are going to do alot more about ingnoring the bad stuff and praising the good. We only used timeouts on v. bad situations anyway, so were few and far between..but had a bit of a meltdown situation this morning (me not handling situation made it worse) so DH and I have adopted a similar strategy to yourself.
As for the bunny clocks..never heard of them but what a great idea......was wondering about waking them up uneccessarily...I'll have to keep my eyes peeled.
Well we had a bit of success last night too DS went to bed at 7.30 and woke at 7.20!! Hurrah!!
Now to sort out his sister.........!!
Hope you have more and more good nights!!
Sonia