My son is almost 17 months old. He consistently wakes up at 5:00am bright and bubbly. Basically, I'm wondering if there are any ideas to get him to sleep in a bit later or maybe this is just the way he is.
A bit more info...
He goes to bed between 7:00 and 8:00pm. We tried pushing his bedtime closer to 8:00pm in hopes of his waking time also moving forward an hour. It doesn't seem to matter what time he goes to bed, he still wakes at 5:00am. I've also tried, letting him cry, and checking in on him every 5 minutes. Sometimes he'll go back to sleep for 30 more minutes, but not usually more than that. Maybe I just need to do it consistently for a number of days. Also, he's still taking 2 naps per day - perhaps if he was down to one nap that would help? One more thing, when he wakes up at 5:00 he is wide awake and happy, but by about 7:00am he just crashes. I used to try to keep him up till 9:00am for his nap, but the past few days he's been too tired.
Thanks for your ideas/suggestions!
I'm just overwhelmed by the response and encouragement. Thank you so much! It looks like reducing/eliminating the morning nap is definitely something I need to do. I will also look into darkening his room more. And then, probably try moving up the bed time a bit if he seems to need it. I'm not going to stress about it though, this little guy is an amazing blessing and such a joy to be around. If his little personality is an early riser, I should be grateful to be spending more awake time with him.
Funny, this morning (the day after I posted this question) - he woke up briefly at 4:00am and then went back to sleep and slept till 7:00am! I couldn't believe it! These little ones keep us on our toes don't they.
Thanks again!!
Don't fight it... Set a bucket of his favorite toys in the crib. Hopefully, he'll wake up and play with them for a while so you can keep on sleepin'!
Deb
My 17 month old does the same exact thing. She wakes up with the chickens and goes to bed with them too. Sometimes I let her fuss back to sleep and sometimes I get up with her. Taking one nap a day hasn't seemed to help my daughter regulate her sleep schedules either. I think it is a phase they have to work through. Good luck!
I would work to remove the morning nap, then work to get his single nap just after lunch. Then move his bedtime forward, not back. Believe it or not, moving the bedtime forward is the recommended way to go. And I know it works for my son. If I put him to bed at 9pm, he wakes up at 7:30am. If I put him to bed at 8pm, he wakes up at 8:30am. Weird, but that's kids:)
I hate to tell you this but my daughter was just like this. She is now almost three and has been sleeping until 6 now so that's a little better. I never figured out how to get her back to sleep after she was waking up at 5 except to give her a tippy cup of milk. That usually bought me maybe 20 minutes or so. Good luck!
Hi A., my son is 2.5 years old now and he has always been an early riser, from 3 months on. We tried EVERYTHING to change him as my older son was a nightowl. Well, here we are, at 2.5 years old, up by 6am everyday! I'm just waiting for him to become a teenager so we can sleep in again.
We just went along with his sleep patterns. Often crashing by mid morning when he was younger, now he can last until noon. His naps are about 2-3 hours long and he's back to bed at 7:30pm for the night. He is much happier following his own routine than when we tried to make him change to suit us. I find now that 6am is our best time together and I just embrace my early riser. :)
Sounds like it's time to drop that morning nap -- my kiddos were early risers until we did this, too. Your little guy might be ready for a 9 am nap because he's getting up so early -- that's 4 hours of being awake already, and I'd be tired, too! Here's what we did for our 3 kids during this phase....I started to drop that nap by backing up the start of the naptime by 15-30 minutes each day (or you could spend 2 days at 15 minutes, and then move on). It took a couple days (even 10 days in one case), but eventually they dropped their morning nap AND started sleeping much later.
It's not the easiest process, but it's worth it. You can do it! Good luck!
You may have already received this advice, but do you have black out shades on his window? That always worked for us. Also, I would think 2 naps may not be necessary anymore. Good luck!
You have to cut his morning nap out. When he falls asleep in the morning slowly wean him off his nap. Let him catnap for a half hour each day for one week and then wake him up, the next week move it to fifteen minutes each day and then wake him up and so on...Until morning naps are a thing of the past.
Then have your typical afternoon nap roughly two hours 12-2 or 1-3 and donot let him sleep more than two hours no matter what.
Then continue bedtime like usual, possibly move his bedtime between 8-9 if he's still waking early.
Have you tried pushing his bedtime to 9pm? It seems to me he sleeps about 9 hours. If you don't go to bed till later, then push his bedtime to 9 and try that. Maybe he'll sleep till 6. I guess I wouldn't be complaining myself. My first kid wouldn't sleep through the night till he was 18 months!!
Good luck.
S.
A. ~
My son, now almost 6, did the same thing when he was that age. It didn't matter what time he went to bed, it was always up the same time every morning.
I would suggest putting your son in a toddler bed if he is not already, and make sure his room is very child prof with a few things of his he can get to on his own, and put a baby gate up on his door. This way when he wakes up, he can get up and play.. That way you know he is safe. It is just like his crib, but bigger. This way you know he is safe, and you can get a little more sleep.
FIrst thing is I would get rid of one of those naps. After seeing how he adjusts to that bump his bedtime back to 8:30 or 9.
My daughter, now 5, stopped taking naps altogether at the age of 23 months. If she did nap she would fall asleep LATE (think midnight) or get up early. Some children do not need that much sleep during the day. And she NEVER was cranky because she did not nap. That was a plus. The minus, I missed out on mommy time.
There's something about 5 a.m. My little Santino got up at 5 for a while too. Come to think of it, he stopped and started sleeping until 7 when he went to one nap. If your guy seems ready for that, maybe give it a try. Just know that this too, will take a couple of weeks to get used to.
I have 2 of those (4 and 18 months) and tried it all - pushing bedtimes back, cutting down naps, etc etc. They are just early morning risers, ready to get the day started and ready to go!
My husband and I re-adjusted our sleep schedule so that we can be up with them and 6 am is considered "sleeping in." The 18 month old is still ready for a morning AND afternoon nap and I just accept the fact that his body needs alot of sleep in order to grow. Hope that helps!
I don't know, but he is already sleeping 10 hours, plus naps? That sounds like plenty of sleep for him. I am a little out of the "baby loop", being our three sons are grown and have children of their own; but, they can only sleep so many hours. :) What is your goal? A little more sleep for you? Sorry if this sounds cynical. I don't think there is anything you are going to do to get him to sleep longer, unless you "wear" him out and he goes to bed alot later. :)
if you brought him in your bed, would he sleep a few more hours?? we used to do this with our girl, telling her it was still sleepy time...worked for a while...anything to get a few more hours of sleep to me is worth it.
Get use to it. My son was and still is an early riser. when he was a baby he got up around 5 am every morning. He would take two long naps during the day and still go to bed around 8 pm. Now that he is five he still gets up before the sun and goes to bed at 7:30 pm every night. He doesn't do naps anymore because of school, but he is the only one of my three kids like that. It is hard for a while then you just make it part of your routine.
When mine were taking two naps I put them to bed closer to 9pm to solve the early riser problem. But it might not really be a problem at all if he naps again in the mid morning. Sometimes it's a blessing to have them get up early and nap twice. My firse gave up all naps at 16 mos and got up early, too! Nothing we did changed that pattern. It wasn't until high school that he started sleeping in!
SAHM of seven
Hi, I am a mother of five and I was fortunate to have late sleepers but when my secondyoungest rolled around he was exactly like your son.No matter what time I put him to bed he was up bright and early but he crashed within two hours of waking up. What I suggest is don't try to keep him awake when he falls asleep let him take his nap and eliminate the second nap. What will end up happening is he will take a longer nap and maybe(if you're lucky-I wasn't) over time he will eventually sleep later. Or if you prefer to have him sleep in the afternoon then let him sleep for a short time in the morning and wake him up until you can cut out the morning nap and do the afternoon instead whichever works better for uou and him. Another thing you could try is if his room is very bright maybe darken it by putting curtains on or blinds because maybe he is light sensitive and awakens when the sunlight comes through.If that doesn't work remember this will eventually pass as he gets older and doesn't need as much sleep and he will value his sleep and before you know it you'll be having the opposite problem you'll have trouble getting him up(for school). Or maybe he'll always be an early riser. Good Luck.
J.
Well two things I can think of that might help. You might try putting him to bed a little earlier and cutting him to one nap a day. I've got several kids in my daycare that are younger than 17mos and they all take only one nap a day at about 11am after lunch, and sleep until about 130 or 200. As I understand it from their parents they go to bed between 630 and 7pm after dinner and a bath and generaly have to be woke up around 6 or 630 whatever time mom gets up. Good luck! I hope you get some sleep A.! K.
This is usually about the age when they give up that morning nap. Some years ago we had a little boy like him at a day-care center where I worked. We didn't let him sleep out the whole morning nap. Say, if he went to sleep at seven I think we let him sleep that one out but if he went to sleep at nine, we only let him sleep about fifteen minutes. Maybe you need to turn the morning one into a power nap so you can get a long afternoon nap and he'll eventually figure out how to sleep longer at night. In the meantime he can call my children and they can talk then. LOL!
B. H
I think the suggestions from others about cutting the morning nap are good. I just wanted to share my experience - my first born was an early riser from about the age of 1. She got up between 5 and 5:30 every morning no matter what. I just had to go with the flow for a while, but my husband and I started teaching her the numbers 1-6 as early as possible. Once she knew them, we put a digital clock in her room, put tape over the minutes and told her she was allowed to wake us up once the clock said 6. Most mornings we were awakened at exactly 6:00, but we were grateful! BTW she only just started sleeping past 6:30, and she's 8 years old now!
Have you thought of putting black-out curtains or pull down shades over his windows? I've had to put black construction paper over my daughter's windows in addition to blinds and curtains to keep the light out of her room. Whenever they weren't up she would wake up at dawn because of the light streaming in her windows. The very next day we put the paper back up she slept until a normal, decent hour.
My daughter who is now almost 4 has been doing this forever! I can sympathize. And it doesn't matter what time we put her to bed. The only thing I can think of trying at this age with your boy (I wish I would have) is giving a cup of warm milk, changing diaper, and putting RIGHT back to bed. Sometimes they are just hungry or thirsty. Then you'd most likely lose the "morning" nap. Best wishes!
Dear A.,
Research has proven that the most optimal time for sleep is between the hours of 8pm-12am. In fact, one hour of sleep between these hours (8pm-12am) does your body more good rest-wise than two hours of sleep between 12am-7am! Everyone has their own circadian rhythm. Society generally pushes most of us into a cycle of late-to-bed and late-to-rise... but the old addage "early-to-bed, early-to-rise"... has some significance in the light of scientific research. If this is his natural cycle it would probably be best not to try and alter it. Perhaps it would do us adults more good to follow an early sleeping pattern... I know I sure feel a difference when I go to sleep early rather than late. :-)
You might try shortening up his naps during the day... see how long he sleeps naturally, and then shorten the time by 15 minute increments (it would probably be best to let him sleep for at least 30 minutes each).
Best wishes!
We switched my daughter to one nap a day at 10 months because we found she wasn't sleeping well at night with the two naps. It's worked wonders for her night time sleeping. She sleeps about 10 to 11 hours at night now. It's not an easy change to make, but basically what I did was take her out somewhere in the mornings (our community center has a playtime each day for a couple of hours). If I had her out of the house, she got too busy looking at everything going on around her to be tired. I think it took about 2 weeks total to get her used to staying awake that long, but now she's happy as can be, naps for 2 hours each afternoon, and stays asleep most of the night (down at 8:30, up at 7:30). It's definitely worth a try. Just keep in mind that your son will be tired until he gets used to staying up for the 5 or so hours before naptime and adjusts by sleeping longer at night.
