22 Month Old W/ Major Sleep Issues

One suggestion I got when we were going thru this was to change things just 15 minutes at a time. For the first couple nights put him to bed 15 minutes later than usual. Or at his nap. I did this when transitioning from 2 naps to 1. I did it 3 days at a time. Meaning the first night I moved his morning nap back 15 min, then 3 days later I moved it back another 15 min, then 3 days later I did it again. So eventually he was only taking one nap. You could use this with bedtime or nap time. Then he gets time to adjust a little.

We haven't had our son waking up early in the morning for the day, but he gets up at 2:30 and cries and cries for no apparent reason.
We have found that the colder the house at night, the better the kids sleep. I think my husband has the house at 65 degrees at night and then it automatically turns up before we wake up so we wake up to a warm house.

Hi A.....is he still napping? We had a similar problem with my oldest (now 5) and we started shaving time off of his naps and after about a week of a really crabby kid (resulting in really crabby parents) it kid of worked itself out and he took shorter naps, went to bed much easier and slept a little longer in the morning. When he was about 2 1/2 we got him a digital clock and told him he couldn't come out of his room until the first number said 7.....then we wrote a sign with then number 7 on it and put it over the clock. It worked immediatly....he thought he was cool for having a clock (baby brother didn't) and we got a little more rest! Good luck and I am wishing you sleep :)

Maybe try putting a fan either in his room or outside his door in the hallway. Maybe it's TOO quiet and he needs some white noise in the background.

I would try keeping him up a litle later. My daughter has had an 8:30 bedtime most of her life. But you don't tell us how much he naps, which could be affecting his nighttime sleep if he's getting a long nap. Or he could be hungry. Or this could be just a (long) phase.

A.,

His bedtime doesn't seem to early to me. My boys are 3 1/2 and and 23 months and they both go to bed between 7 and 7:30. My 23 month old takes 1 1 1/2 hour nap in the afternoon, sometimes it's as short as an hour.

How much napping does your toddler get? Maybe you need to cut back on the naps and see if that helps with bedtime/wakeup time.

Good luck.
Jessica

All kids are different, but I also think 7 or 7:30 is to early to put him to bed. He would be getting 12 hours of sleep if he slept in until 7am. Most toddlers need/take naps during the day. I mean they even have nap time in preschool. I would personally try keeping him up until 8:30 and see if this helps. By putting him to bed so early, it makes it a long stretch between meals and diapers, that could be why he is waking up so early.

Good luck :)

A.,

Children at your sons age require between 11-13 hours of sleep per day, including naps. If your son is getting 8-9 hours at night, and a 2-3 hour nap in the day, that may be enough sleep for him. You didn't say how many naps or for how long so it is hard to say if he is getting enough or too little sleep. He may be growing and therefore be hungry more. You could try getting up and feeding him and putting him back to bed. If he is going through a growing spurt, it will be over soon. Good luck.:-)

His bedtime seems kind of early. Try putting him down a little later. A typical bedtime (that most of my daycare kids had) is 8:30 or 9.
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Our kids, ages 1 1/2 and 3 1/2 actually stay up till 9 or 10 and then we all go to bed at the same time..... They typically wake up anywhere between 7 AM to 8 AM depending on if I have to wake them up or not. This seems to be a good schedule for our kids and they still nap during the day too.
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Just try a few different bedtimes and see if you can get him to sleep in by putting him down a little later.

When I went through this with my toddler I limited her nap to 2.5 hours and wouldn't let her fall asleep until after noon. She was unbearable tired and crabby but we got her back on track and now the whole family feels better.

Have you tried keeping him up a little bit later to see if he sleeps in a bit longer. The other suggestion is not letting him nap during the day. Some kids don't need as much sleep as other. Might take a little bit for him to adjust and make schedule changes, but I have done that with my boys. Good luck.

A.

I would agree with the previous poster who said to think about if he's getting too much sleep during the day or maybe getting up too late from his afternoon nap? The time you're putting him to bed seems just right. I have a 5 year old who goes to bed between 7:30-8pm and 2 1/2 year old who goes to bed between 7-7:30pm. They both sleep until around 7am. A book I found very helpful for sleep issues was "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth. You can read just the chapters that pertain to your child's age so you don't have to read the whole book at once. Another thought... could there be noise from outside waking him early? You could try putting a fan in his room for background noise to keep him from being disturbed by outside noises.

I don't think his bedtime is too early. Our 2 and 3 year olds go to bed at that time. Our son (the 2 year old) went through a phase of waking early like your son is doing. We found it to be something that started accidently, and we inadvertantly fostered it until it became a habit for him to wake up early. We did what you've tried...we had him cry it out. It took a while to break his habit and that did make for some miserable days during that process....but he's back to sleeping until 6:30 or 7:30.

One other thought....could he be hungry? I know this isn't something you want kids to do as they get older, but we make sure our kids have bedtime snacks so they don't wake up hungry in the middle of the night.

Hang in there and good luck!

Try putting him to bed at a later time. Worked like a charm for my daughter.

I'm so sorry I don't have a good suggestion for you. I have the exact same issue with my 17 mo daughter. It's driving me nuts. I keep thinking she will outgrow this, although she's always woken up really early (around 4:00). Any suggestions you get that sound good, could you forward them to me? I know that's a lot to ask, but it would be much appreciated. Sometimes the days are so long I could cry.
good luck.
A.