5am Riser

southside852

Registered User
Our 26 month year old sleeps from about 7:30pm - 5am straight. He now sleeps in a bed so at 5am he is crying by the gate in front of his room.

Any new methods people have done for bed sleepers to get them to sleep 1 hour later?

I usually don't respond to him until 15 minutes hoping he'll return to bed, but he doesn't. His water bottle is on a chair in his room that's reachable so I know it's not thirst. He has blackout curtains, diaper is not too wet and his room is a good temperature. I know he is still tired too b/c he's yawning when I get to him.

I know he's an early riser in general, but that 1 extra hour makes a huge difference . .
 
yeah i know what you mean about the extra hour. anything with a 5 in front is just way too early
at 5am (even 5.55am!) I go straight to my kids when i hear them wake and tell them its still night time. I treat it as if it was 2am! Quick cuddle then tucked back into bed. Winter is great as its still dark and you convince them more easily :o)
You need to be consistent and really treat it likes its the middle of the night - which to me it might as well be!!

Also, how much daytime sleep is he getting? If my 20month old sleeps longer than 2hrs for his nap he wakes a bit earlier in the morning but then is tired and wants to go back to bed soon after.
 
Hi Aussie Mum - thanks for the reply. Guess we are not alone! :) My son naps anywhere from 1 hour to 2 hours during the day. I've actually seen no difference in when he wakes up. Same with bedtime. We've tried pushing it later - 8:30pm and he still wakes up the same time.....

Yes, even 5:55am would be amazing! :)
 
I have an early riser too. Anything before 7am is too early for me :) Now he's at school we all have to wake up early, but why can't he sleep in on the weekends??!
 
We've given up on our early-riser. 5 AM would be a luxury, 7 AM would probably require an emergency room visit.
Just hoping Ben Franklin was right with that "early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" saying.
Plus, looking toward the future, early to bed/rise eliminates many potential problems; more bad things happen late at night than good.
 
hi southside

my 23 month old also often wakes up at 5+am and we just treat it like it's the middle of the night and let him cry. often he'll cry for at least 15-20 minutes before waking up at 6am on the DOT, though a few times he has cried for 45 minutes and then proceeded to sleep in til 7am!

our rule is, we don't go in until 6am - at all. unless of course we have reason to think he is not feeling well. 9 times out of 10, he will go back to sleep til at least 6am if we let him just let him cry. it's not easy because he calls "daddy mommy daddy mommy" so desperately but in the end he is a much happier child when he does go back to sleep and wake up a bit later. all that crying is always just water under the bridge - no harm done, no grudges :-)
 
Why don't you push back his sleep time a little bit and see if he wakes up a little later? I know a lot of mothers would gasp at my son's sleep time - he sleeps between 9:30 and 10pm on most nights because he waits for daddy to come home so they can spend 1/2 hour together before bed. But he sleeps until 7:30 or 8am every morning. So on average, he sleeps between 9 and 10 hours a night which according to my pediatrician is enough. He also naps between twice a day for between 1 and 2 hours each time. I know that when he starts going to school, he will need to wake up earlier - at that point, I will adjust his bed time earlier.
 
believe me, we've tried pushing his bedtime to 9pm, but he still wakes up the same time. Even if he has a an hour nap too during the afternoon - it's still the same....i know he's an early riser in general since birth, but perhaps ferberizing him by the gate might help since everytime i go get him, he's yawning still......
 
Why don't u try cutting his day nap or reducing it. It worked with our som and since he turned 2 he slept between 6-7.30 and awoke between 6-7.30
 
sleuth

because he is much much MUCH happier for the duration of the morning if we let him cry and then he ends up sleeping again and waking up later. when we go in to greet him the second time, he is totally happy, bubbly, energized and we have a fantastic morning. more often than not, if we go to him at 5:15am and he is up for the day, he is grumpy by 9am and the morning does not go well for any of us.
 
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