My child's interesting sleep patterns...anything that can be done?

[Oliver'sMom]

I'm not sure if I should post this here or in the family bed forum,  so please move if necessary :)

My ds1 will be 4yo in Feb.  He's always been a "morning bird", but there are times when he is up extremely early (4:30am this morning for example).  This has been an ongoing thing his entire life and I could never figure out why he would gradually wake up earlier and earlier, then would gradually sleep in later and later.  He has always had an early bedtime (asleep by 7pm) because no matter what he's up before 6:30am.  So, I started charting his wake up times a few months ago and found a really interesting correlation.  It seems like THE MOON wakes him up!  Does this sound crazy??  There is a full moon right now and as I said before, he was up at 4:30am and wired.  As the moon becomes less full (don't know how else to describe that lol) ds1 sleeps later.

Oh and ds2 seems to be turning out to be the exact same way.

We have black out curtains and white noise machines in our bedrooms...doesn't seem to make a difference at all.  Both of my boys are very sensitive to light and sound...it affects a lot of aspects of our daily lives. 

Is there anything I can do to help them sleep in later?  Anyone have any experience with this?  The moon seems to be a pretty big obstacle to overcome :lol

[bodhitree]

Wow, that's some amazing detective work! I have no idea if there's anything to be done about the waking. If you think he could manage being awake on his own for a little while, maybe he is old enough to understand one of those little clocks that lights up to tell them when it's okay to wake up Mom and Dad? That way at least you'd be able to get a little more sleep.

[Oliver'sMom]

Thanks for the reply!

We've been letting ds1 be alone for a bit when he wakes up for a couple of months now and it's been working out fine.  Ds2 though is now starting to have the same sleep/wake pattern so we're all up early.  Luckily ds2 goes back to sleep after an hour or so, so I'll often go back to bed with him and ds1 will just play on his own until we wake up again.

Ds1 obviously needs more sleep on days like these though, and I don't know what to do about it.  He doesn't nap anymore so by bedtime he's worn out.