Early wakings???

[Lilasmom]

DD is 13.5 months old.  For the last month or so DD has been waking early (normally would wake at 7am).  It started out she was waking at 6, then it was 5:30am, now today it was 5am!!!!  I'm not sure why this is.  Originally I thought it was because she was hungry, so we started giving her more snacks during the day, and every once in awhile she'll sleep until 7.  This am, we tried to get her back to sleep from 5am-5:30am, then finally gave her a cup of milk, and she settled back to sleep from 6am until 7:20am.  But then other days, we give her some milk and she won't go back to sleep, so it's hit and miss.  I think that in some cases it's she's probably waking due to habit.  I just don't know how to get her to sleep until 7 again.  Also, when she wakes up early (say at 6am), she's ready for a nap by 9am (opposed to 10am when she wakes at 7am), so this throws our whole day off and she ends up with a long A time before bedtime.  I was also wondering if I should continue to try to get her back to sleep unitl 7am, or if it's better to get them up after 30minutes of trying??  This is what our routine looks like:

Wake & eat breakfast, have cup of milk.
Snack before bed
Nap (about 3 hours after waking) for 1hour 15min
Lunch @ 12:00pm
Snack and cup of milk before afternoon nap (generally 3.5 hours since last nap).  Nap for 1 hour 15min(sometimes shorter). 
Supper @ 5:00pm
Bedtime @ 7:00pm
Lila is often restless at night, moving and crying out in her sleep.  Occasionally we have to go into the room to lay her back down.

[brightside]

I think the early wakes are caused by overtiredness at bedtime. We are currently stuck in this vicious circle too! The fact that she shouts out in her sleep is a classic sign of overtiredness. On mornings that she wakes early, I would try to get her back to sleep. If she doesn't then let her sleep a bit longer in the day and avoid overtiredness as much as you can. If she hasn't caught up on the missed sleep, then put her to bed a bit earlier in the evening.

If she continues to wake early, then try to keep pushing the am nap back by 10-15 mins every few days so that she gets back on schedule. Until that happens though, I would really try to get her to catch up on the lost sleep. Overtiredness is a horrible cycle to be in-I should know!

[Lilasmom]

I think you're probably right that she is overtired.  I will try to get her back to sleep when she wakes early.  In terms of letting her sleep as much as she wants during the day, that's a battle.  She's been fighting her naps lately, then when she does fall asleep, she's like clock work, wakes up after exactly 1 hour 15 minutes.  If she deviates from this, it's often the opposite way, and she takes a shorter nap  .  Maybe putting her to bed earlier at night might help her catch up??  or maybe she'll wake up earlier??    Any thoughts?

[vuhoo]

My DS is going through the same thing and he is 17mos old.  His early wakings have been occuring for a few months.  Prior to that, his bedtime and naptime were like clockwork - wake up at 7am and 2hrs nap.  After struggling for awhile, we noticed he has been teething.  He only had 4 teeth recently and now the whole top teeth are coming in as well as his molars.  Teething and a combination of starting to walk, separation anxiety, and fighting a cold didn't help things either.  Of course, while he was sick I did everything I could to comfort him even getting him out of bed when he woke 5am - 5:30am.  Now, I think he's used to me getting him out of bed and he's been in this overtired vicious circle.  His naps are horrible too - 30mins to 1hr.  I've tried adjusting his naps and bedtime earlier.  It didn't really help much for him but I've read that it has worked for others.  With early bedtime he did get that extra hour of sleep.  We're still trying to figure it out. 

One thing I've read on this post is whatever you decide, consistency is a key and our mistake was we weren't consistent.  Part of it is because we didn't know what is going to work.  We tried giving him a AM catnap but he would refuse another nap so that meant he was up for hours until bedtime.  He's been on one nap since 12months and now refuses two naps no matter how tired he is.

So lately our strategy is to keep him in bed until at least 6am no matter what.  When he starts to cry, I would do a modified version of WI / WO.  I would go in and tell him "shhh, go night-night" and leave, keeping my voice low and keeping the lights off.  My intervals would vary depending on his cries.  I found out that if I continue to walk out, it would drive him nuts even more so after a few times I would extend the WI to 5-10mins.  So at least going in there a few times will let him know that mommy and daddy are here and it's not time to get out of bed yet.  This has worked best for our DS.  In some cases he'll fall back asleep and other cases he'll stop crying and decide he doesn't want to go back to sleep by standing on his crib quietly waiting.  I'll let him stand up for a few minutes just so that he knows mommy and daddy are not going to run in and get him.  When it's time for him to get up, I'll do a dramatic wakeup entrance by talking loudly and turning on the lights.  This is so he knows the difference between "mommy coming in and it's still night-night" and "mommy coming in and it's time to start the day".  We're doing this strategy for both naptime and bedtime.  For the naps, I've stuck with our old schedule which is between 12:30 - 1:00pm naptime and bedtime is 7:00pm - 7:30pm

One thing to keep in mind, the early wakings can take weeks to fix.  We're only a few days in and today our DS woke up at 6:45am which is wonderful compared to 5am and even 4am.  He woke up a few times with a brief cry and finally settled down and fell asleep on his own. I can't say our strategy will work tomorrow so I'm still looking for other ideas too but I do know that we need to be consistent with whatever we decide.

I hope things work out for you....

[Lilasmom]

Thanks for the replies!!  Today wasn't so great a day.  Lila woke this am at 7:30am (after waking from 5am-6am).  Anyhow I tried to get her to bed by 10:15am, and it took me 30 minutes to settle her.  She wouldn't lay down.  I do WI/WO in these situations, and it took 30 minutes (so not asleep until 10:45am) for her to fall asleep.  She woke at 12pm.  I laid her down for her afternoon nap at 3:20pm, and again the same fight.  Finally she fell asleep at 4pm, but woke at 4:30pm crying and cranky.  However, she would not go back to sleep.  Now this evening, we had her in bed by 7pm, and she went down easy, but every 5-10minutes she'd wake up and cry and yell.  She did this for 35 minutes, and now has been asleep for 25minutes.    I don't know how to get her back on track and get her the sleep she needs when she won't go to SLEEP???     Anyhow, I'm sure all the chaos of the holidays, and not sleeping well because we were away.  Since Xmas, I've been working everyday, so I'm sure some separation anxiety is kicking in.  And don't forget the teething.  She's been chomping on the fingers, I think a molor will soon be coming in...huh, it seems impossible that any child is a good sleeper with all these battles. 

[debo620]

Hi, very similar situation here with early wakings, I have noticed that if my son takes his afternoon nap too late---ie it ends after 3:30pm then he settles fine at bedtime but is up really early in the am. The problem is that if he take a 1hr + nap in the am then he is up over 4hrs before 2nd nap---which pushes it too late. This time decrease to more like 3.5hrs on a 40 min am nap. I have also heard that the am nap is an extension of night sleep. I am hoping that by shortening up the am nap-----it may encourage him to sleep until 6am.
for us a good night would be 7pm-6am, or even 5:45, but latley its more like 10-10.5 hrs, so up at 5-5:30. I am currently going to try a 40min am nap and longer pm nap, so like this:
wake 6
nap 9:15-10
nap 1:30-3
bed 7

this is of course really tricky if he is up early, in that case:
I think I will still limit am nap
so like
wake 5--in crib until 6
nap 8:45-9:30
nap 1-2:30
pull bedtime up to 6:45 or so

yesterday, he was up at 4:30am
Stacy suggested this:
7:30-8 30min nap
10:30-1100 30min am nap
these first 2 naps would have to be out in the stroller---so pain in the ass but it would allow for the afternoon nap to be at the proper time
1:30-3 nap
pull bedtime up to 6:45pm

[Lilasmom]

Thanks for the tips girls!!  It's been a frustrating few days.  Yesterday was better than the day before.  She woke at 6:35am for the day (although had been awake on and off from 4am on).  She went down easy for her am nap (no WI's), but only slept 50min.  I only had to WI once for her afternoon nap, but again only slept 50min.  Because of her short naps we decided to put her to bed at 6:30pm, instead of 7pm.  She didn't fall asleep until 7 (with lots of WI/WO's), then woke twice between 9 and 10pm.  Then she was awake fairly often from 3-5:30am, at which time we gave her a cup of milk, then she slept from 6am until 7:20am.  It seems impossible to me that she could have actually been hungry.  She ate A LOT yesterday.  In addition to 3 cups of milk (probably like 24oz of milk).  I don't know if all of this is just a habit, should I offer the milk or am I just reinforcing the waking??  I know there has been a lot of comotion lately because of the holidays,and that she's probably teething, so I'm just not sure which route I should take to fixing these problems.  And to top it all off, she has to go to the sitters tomorrow for the morning, and she WILL NOT nap there.  So, again adding to the overtiredness.  I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle 

[Lilasmom]

Well the last two mornings have been better, waking sometime between 6:30 and 7am .  I've really worked on trying to get her to sleep as much in the day as I can to try and catch up on sleep.  I decided not to send her to the sitters the other morning ( I worked all night and kept her home with me)because I didn't want to regress in our progress.  The only problem we're encountering now, is that she is fighting bedtime.  THe last two nights it's been 1.5 hours of screaming, and jumping all over her crib.  Now I'm thinking this is either because she's getting too much sleep during the day (waking up too late from her afternoon nap) and just isn't tired.  I tried pushing her bedtime back until 7:30pm instead of 7pm (she woke from her pm nap at 4:30pm), but she wanted no part in it.  She didn't fall asleep until 9pm (maybe why she slept until almost 7??).  Anyway, I think I may try limiting her am nap (as debo620 suggested-THanks!) to ensure she's not sleeping too late in the afternoon.  I'll let you know how it goes!!!  Thanks again for all your replies.