early riser

[gulielma]

Hi,

Any ideas on getting a 13 mo-old to sleep later? He used to sleep until 7 or 8am, then starting waking up earlier and earlier. We moved bedtime earlier (from 9pm to 7:45pm) on the sleep begets sleep theory and that worked great for about six weeks. For six blissful weeks, if he went down at 7:45pm, he slept until 7am. 7:30 was too early, 8 was too late. Now, he's back to 5:30 - 6am, and everyone's exhausted. He moved to one nap about two months ago, just before we made bedtime earlier, and he does well with one nap around 12-2pm. I know it's possible that he's just an early riser, but i'm not quite ready to resign myself to it, if anyone has any other ideas first.

[chely7425]

No advice... sounds just like my 1 year old. Though, I do seem to remember by now 2 year old going through a similar stage around 12-14 months so maybe it is just a stage for both our kiddos? That would be just spiffy because I do not like getting up so early...

[CherryBombMama]

my ds usually gets up at 7am but i find that if i didnt give him a evening snack about an hour or so before bed, he wakes up at 5:30am sharp! and i have to time that snack just right or else its "too early" and he wakes up at the crack of dawn still ...

[eva0897]

I hear you! My DS is 14 months old and he sounds exactly like your little one! He takes an average of 45 mins to rock/pat to sleep and he has been waking up earlier and earlier in the morning. We're at about 5:30/6 now. He used to sleep about 7:15-6:30ish. I thought that him going to only 1 nap a day would make him exhausted to sleep at night...but I guess not! I hope you're luckier than me and he'll sleep longer if he goes to bed later....but unfortunately that never worked for my little guy! It's as if he has his own internal alarm clock that wakes him early no matter what time he goes to sleep But maybe try to push his nap time a bit later (if he doesn't collapse and maybe he'll stay up longer and sleep later. Good luck! Let me know if you have anything that works. I'd love to try it!

[cristeen]

We're dealing with a 5-5:30 waker here too.

I have the shade people coming out tomorrow to measure for black-out shades. I'm hoping it'll help.

[confustication]

I gave up on sleeping in past 5 am- with all three kids, especially during the summer- even with blackout shades, their normal wake time coincides pretty well with sunrise.

I'm not sure that's a sleep pattern you can really change, you may just have to adapt and remember that in a few years you will have a hard time dragging them out of bed.

[rightkindofme]

My daughter woke up between 6 and 6:30 for most of the first 18 months. Not as early as some, but ugh. We've just adjusted our lives around it.