15 Month Old Waking up Too Early in the Morning

I have found the earlier I put them to bed, the later they sleep (odd- but sometimes putting my son to bed at 630-645 will yield at 7am wakeup, but putting him to bed at 7P-730P will get me a 530A wakeup). I have also found an environmental factor contributing to early spring wakeups--usually very loud birds or garbage trucks, so you may want to listen one morning at what is going on outside. I will usually ignore the wake up until 630-7A when I will get up. Sometimes he doesn't go back to sleep, but a lot of times he does. Both of my kids were very late giving up their morning naps, just before age 2, so I don't know if this will help you.

I think it is poor advice on the part of the pediatrician to tell you to try to change her naps. If she sleeps, then she needs to sleep. You shouldn't try to force her to stay up, it sounds cruel and will make your days harder.

I would experiement with putting her down at night both earlier and later - either might help her sleep later. Unfortunately, 5:30 may just be how her internal clock wokrs. You can try to shape it by getting darker blinds for her window so she stays asleep a little longer or put some extra toys in her crib (nothing she can climb on or choke on obviously) so she is occupied in the morning. Don't rush to get her and let her spend some time entertaining herself. My daughters have both been early risers (my five year old still gets up between 6 and 7), but the 5:30 thing is usually temporary.

My son started giving up his morning nap at about 13-14 months, but I wouldn't take it away from her if she wants it.

I would try to adjust her bedtime a little at a time. Move to 7:30 pm consistently, then 8, then 8:30.

There is a possibility that she'll still insist on getting up at that time. My mother says my brother was that way. He was up at like 5:30 am no matter what time he went to bed...(But my mother always put her kids to bed early, so I'm not sure if anything was really adjusted there or not.)

If she's not ready to drop a nap you could shorten it , just let her sleep for 40 mins and wake her & see if that helps , the nap that she has later in the day would be the one that I would shorten so if she is miserable then it's not long until bed time.

Good luck , I know how it feels to be up that early!

Try keeping her up 1/2 hour later in the evening for bed.

I was in your same boat when my daughter was 1-2 (she's 3 now). There wasn't much I could do to change her schedule, but it did help when I changed the way I thought about her waking up. Instead of dreading it, I learned to cherish the time together snuggling. I would make her a bottle/sippy and we would lay on the couch under a blanket and watch Sesame Street and cuddle. It was a time that I will never get back. I'm not sure if this helps, but it helped me. (BTW, I've learned that the more sleep a baby gets, the more they need. If they start getting less sleep, they will start to need less.)

I have a 2 year old and she goes to bed around 9:00, sometimes later, and she sleeps til, on the average, 8:30am. (Sometimes she still wakes up during the night, too.) As long as your child is getting up that early, she is going to want to take 2 naps. I think putting a child to bed for the night before 8:00 is very early. Shorten the afternoon nap, and keep her up til 8:00-8:30, and see if that works. Eventually she will sleep in later in the morning, and the morning nap will go away. It might be a gradual thing, but in a couple weeks, you should have a new routine.

Yes she should be ready to give up one nap. And she is going to bed way too early. Even if you bump her bedtime to 8pm and do nothing else that could work. Once she is sleeping a bit later in the a.m. then it will be easier to get rid of that a.m. nap.
You could try being out in the a.m. during one of her naps so that she has an opportunity to catnap during her regular naptime and maybe that will get her thru the a.m. Then give her the afternoon nap and try not to put her down until 8pm.

My son, now 25 months old, was waking up before 6 regularly for months! It was horrible, and he is my youngest of three and the only one that did this. We just brought him into bed with us and he would normally go back to sleep. If he didn't, we would just put cartoons on in our room and still have him lay there. My sister comes to my house to watch my kdis while my husband and I work, and if he was still sleepy when she comes at 7, he would lay with her. If not, he would just end up crashing early in the morning. This should be a short phase, granted not a fun one at all :). Good luck!