Early Waking

Are any other toddlers waking up super early lately? For the last couple of weeks Moo has gone from sleeping til 7am, sometimes 7:30am to waking up anywhere between 5am to 6am :wall:

His bedtime hasn't changed so I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do about it. I've tried patting him back to sleep but as soon as I leave the room he wakes up & starts crying hysterically again. I'm pretty sure he's not actually ready to get up for the day as he starts crying right away, but I can't get him back to sleep unless I want to sit in there the whole time. DH has actually laid down on his floor & gone to sleep the last few mornings! That works but obviously it's not a long term fix.

He has never liked sleeping in our bed so that's not an option, he seriously hates it.
Any ideas?

we got DD a sheep clock taht tells her when its day time and she can get up, its taken a good 6 months to get to to stay in bed quiety until sheepy wakes but well worth it!!!

What's he doing day sleep wise? When does he go to sleep at night? Can you adjust either of those?

olive that sounds great, will keep that in mind when he's at that stage.

Day sleep was after lunch so anywhere from midday to 1pm for about 90 mins. Now because he's up so early he's been wanting to go back to bed at 10am at the latest, then refusing another nap later on even though he's obviously tired.

Night was usually around 7pm, but if he hasn't slept since the morning then he's been overtired & going earlier. Which I know isn't helping the early waking but I'm at a bit of a loss. He's all over the place at the moment :lol:

You could try and keep him up at 10 am and put him to bed at the usual nap time instead to try and get his sleep pattern back to how is was. Kind of sounds like he has got into an early to bed early to rise pattern. I'm sure it will change on its own over time, but if you're finding it hard i'd try and stretch out the nap and bed time. :)

Olives clock idea is a cracker, but i don't think my almost 2 year old would get it yet. So not sure how'd you go with Moo. Worth a shot though.

Today we were busy this morning, so he stayed up til after lunch. Will be interesting to see if it makes any difference. :D Geez I'm tired!

how about his daytime naps? maybe shorten or lengthen them or change the timing?

ETA - sorry, took ages to post & forgot to refresh before i did! maybe a slightly later naptime will help? fingers crossed today's later nap will help!

no idea - but you're not alone. we had a few glorious weeks of wakeups between 7-8. now back to earlier with no difference that i can spot to anything :lol:

olive - how old was your DD when you one of those clocks (and is it the grobag/egg/clock one?)?

we started DD2 with the clock around 19/20 month mark (so not 6 months ago :lol: ) and she gets it, so JM theres hope for S!!

ETA should explain more..
DD was waking around the 6am mark so we made sure her room was as dark as we could make it, we set sheep to wake around 6.05am, if she woke before sheep we'd sit with her (so she didnt wake DD1) until sheep woke and she could get up, then bit by bit we moved the time.. its currently at 6.50am and most mornings she waits til sheep is awake before calling out, this morning she woke at 5.30 and i resettled her and told her sheep was still asleep, she then slept til 6.30 but didnte really call out til sheep woke

She's turned into the worlds best sleeper Olive, not sure how that happened! But I could do with a clock for L. :o

I though of something else Cheeze, DD1 went through this at a similar age to Moo. I used to go in, throw a few books and toys in the cot and go back to bed for as long as she was happy. Work for a while, then we started doing swimming and that wore her out enough to sleep longer.

:lol: awesome JM!!!

we did the alarm clock for DD1 when she turned 3, just blanked out the minute numbers and told her when she saw the number 7 she could get out of bed.. she still lives by that rule :o

I have no tips... DS1 is in bed by 7:30pm and up at 4-5am, even if I put him to bed at midnight he will still be up between 4 and 5am. If we get to 6am that's a sleep in :lol:

DS2 is a little better, he goes to bed at the same time as DS1, usually wakes once or twice overnight and gets up around 7am.

DS isn't a toddler, 6 months, but the same thing has been happening here.... up until now he's woken at 6.50am on the dot, but for a week or so it's been between 5 and 6. Not sure what it is! Still, I know how lucky I am to have him sleep 6.30-6 anyway :) I'm wondering if it's because we're having a little nap in bed after he's woken up and had a feed- so he's not actually getting 'up' until 7.30-8ish. So today have started getting up at 7 again, will see if that makes a difference.

How's it going cheeze?

Hey JM, thanks for asking :D He woke a few times early in the morning Thursday, so the later nap didn't make much of a difference this time unfortunately. Then DH & I went away for our wedding anniversary, got back this evening. My Mum looked after him for the night & she said he slept til 7:30 this morning! Then tonight he was so worn out from playing with Nanna he crashed at 6pm :o so I'm expecting a very early wake up tomorrow!

Forgot to add that I'm going to try what you suggested & chuck in a couple of books if he does wake early tomorrow, worth a shot!

If you work it out Cheeze pass the answer on to me :)

Our DS is an early waker 5-530am and some mornings it does my head in, if I put him in bed with us he just rolls around and pulls my hair so I might as well just get up (as I get mighty cranky at getting kicked and hair pulled). He also goes to bed at 7pm and I have tried later bed times but all that results in is the same wake up time but with a tired and cranky toddler (read: recipe for disaster).

We are going to Perth in a few weeks and due to the 2.5 hr time difference I will most likely be getting up at 230-3am - arrggghhh, hopefully he adapts to it quickly and will come home and sleep on Perth time hahahahahaha

His room is super dark, I have gotten up to find him reading books in the dark, pulling things out of his clothes drawers etc, when he gets bored he just cries out for us (wont come to us)

Olive - what is this 'sheep' clock and where did you get it from? :)

naomi i got it from amazon in the us..but im sure you can get similar over here, its a small green travel clock that shows a sheep asleep,you set the time you want sheep to wake, and it changes to day time. will find a link for you and pm it to you

Lovely - thanks Olive :)

Just thought I'd update! Has only woken early once the last few days, and that was thanks to a persistant wrong number who rang 3 TIMES at 6am Sunday :o was not happy!

8ut I think his issue may be that he's getting scared of the dark. It's very dark in his room even in the morning, and it is causing problems at bedtime now. Thankyou for all the replies!

Yay for a possible answer!!