Help! 14 mos waking up at 5am... WWYD?

[MamaofLiam]

Hi all,

I could really use some advice right now as our DS (almost 14 mos) has been picking 5am as his wake up time for the past few weeks. DH has been able to help me catch up on sleep as a result of this, but will be starting a new job in a couple weeks and won't be able to help out anymore. Is there anything I can do to get DS to sleep later than 5am?

Here's a little background:

- We cosleep. Right now we are doing the sidecar crib thing alongside our queen size bed. He sleeps in the crib 60-75% of the night, with the early morning hours mostly being in our bed. A kind size bed is impossible as our bedroom is tiny and we can't afford it atm.

- His bedtime varies from 7:30-8:30pm. It used to matter if he went to bed earlier, he'd wake up earlier. But now it doesn't seem to matter.

- He still breastfeeds at night. About 2-3 times a night on average. There are nights when he does a lot more than that, but that's the exception more than the rule.

- NAPS: He takes 2 a day. One in the morning, and one in the afternoon. I haven't been a real stickler about when he does the second nap, but for the first nap we've pretty much stuck to a schedule of starting it at 9-10am. Lately his first and second naps have been longer. His first one used to be his short one, but now it's stretching into an hour and a half. The second one is at least an hour. But all this being said it does vary.

- We don't think he's teething right now.

- I have sleep issues already to begin with. It is pretty hard for me to fall asleep at night (I'm working on this), and early morning hours are usually when I'm able to get into the deepest and have the best sleep. It can take me hours to go to sleep, even if I start out at 9pm. That's why 5am is really hard for me! It doesn't help that our neighbors above us are like exercise vampires. (To me it sounds like they exercise a lot at night)

I just had 2 days without DH and by the time he got back I was an exhausted, cranky, grouchy mess. I felt like I could fall on the floor and not get up for days. DS is very active and we have to get out everyday as result. He is really good at walking now (started at 9 mos) and loves to explore. So by the end of the day I'm exhausted from chasing him all around.

About him waking up at 5am: When I say he wakes up, I mean it's impossible to get him to go back to sleep. He starts crawling all over the bed, trying to get off the bed, and is really physical. We've tried to just lay there for awhile and see if he'll go back to sleep, but he just doesn't.  

So anyone who has had experience with this or has any advice and/or suggestions, I'd love to hear from you. PLEASE!!!

[Verloren]

DS started doing this at around 18 months. It is still a problem and he just turned 2! It is pretty common and I have certainly not come across any magic answers.

The way I dealt with it was to get DS sleeping alone ("No Cry Sleep Solution" method), night weaned and went to one nap. The transition was kind of brutal but it meant that he went to bed really early (like 6pm!) and started sleeping through the night pretty quickly. He is still usually up at 5:30 am but I can go to bed early and still get a decent nights sleep. He is also a lot happier now that he gets a full night of uninterrupted sleep.

I have tried putting him to bed later and that does not work. He just gets less sleep and is super cranky.

Good luck! I feel your pain. I am not an early riser and it is brutal getting up so early. 

[tzs]

maybe he's ready to drop the am nap and go down to one? it seems like that might be the case since his am nap is getting longer and his pm getting shorter. if he can't just skip the am nap you can try to have him hold out as long as possible and then put him down for one long nap..then slowly try to push that one nap later and later until it's a proper "afternoon" nap (even 11 or 11:30 counts!)

[KellyandBean]

No expert here by any means but just some thoughts: I have to agree with others that he might need to be moved to one nap a day. It's hard to understand how changing the nap/s will effect his night time sleep but maybe just resetting his patterns will help him move around his chunks of sleep to different times. With dropping to one nap you would think it would just be something that happened naturally on it's own but sometimes i think with some kids they need to be pushed in that direction. I read 14 months is the average age of dropping the morning nap. My DD is also 14.5 months and i just dropped her to one nap last week (going good so far!) because her morning nap became stupid long and then she refused to go down for an afternoon nap leaving her completely exhausted at the end of the day.

Perhaps you just need to overhaul his sleeping routine all together and see how he readjust himself into a new pattern that you set- even if it means waking him up from naps and messing around with things a bit. If he looses a chunk of sleep somewhere then he will eventually need to tack it on to his morning.

[MamaofLiam]

Thank you all for the advice! I've decided to take the advice and go ahead and try dropping the morning nap and move him to one nap a day only. We've only done it the past 2 days, so it is still too soon to say, but so far so good. He's been handling just having one nap pretty well actually. I thought it would be a lot harder for him. He does go to bed earlier. Last night wasnt so good, but I know things like this can take time.... so we'll just wait and see. 

[octobermom]

 My DD just turned 14 months on Mothers day and her scheule looks pretty much idential to your sons.. Though mine at least waits till 6am to start stiring...

 THis might be horrible but I've discovered she loves the TV show in the night garden and I'm totally guilty of having a few epsoides on our DVR and letting her watch on of them when shes wakes... It at least buys me enough time to talk myself into waking up..

Other than that or trying to pawn her off onto another family member the best I can do is wait till shes naps around 9-10am and try to sleep again.. Hard when I'm HS the oldest but we manage.

Deanna