14 Month Old Waking up at 5:30Am

Hi L., I am going to go a different direction. I know that for us, up here in Seattle, we have been going through a mini-heatwave. The sun has been coming up nice and early, the birds are a-singing, and my behind has been up at 5:30 and 6am ready to go! WHAT???? Maybe if you put a curtain ( I don't know what they are called, but they block out the sun better, maybe "blackout curtains"). Maybe she just thinks it's time to get up, so if you darken her room she might just get back to sleeping the way she was before.
Just a thought! Good luck, L.

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Try only giving her 1 nap like at 12:30 or right after lunch,then make her stay up a litte longer,like til 8:00 or 8:30.It sounds like she is getting too much sleep.
Good luck to you.

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My 9 month old had been doing the same thing. This weekend my husband made an ugly plywood "shade" that he puts in the window at night to keep it from getting too light early in the morning. It didn't work the first morning, but now he seems to be waking up a little later, closer to 6:00 or 6:30 the last couple mornings. Maybe it's just too light in her bedroom so she thinks it's time to get up?

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Hi L.,
It may be that she just doesn't need as much sleep as she did previously. I remember this happening to us around that same age.... I gradually stretched the morning nap later by keeping her busy and because she was more tired, she started taking a longer nap... she could then make it until later in the evening. You may also try stretching bedtime until a little later if you like the two nap system. Even an hour later may make a huge difference. For the longest time our daughter went to bed at 8pm, woke up between 6:30 and 7am and took one two hour nap in around noon. It worked very well for us.
Best wishes!

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Is there anything happening that might be waking your daughter up at 5:30? We went through this last year with my youngest. We had to adjust our sprinkler system start times because they were hitting the side of the house and waking her. We also replaced her metal slat blinds with something that would block out the morning sunlight. I believe they are the pleated window shade kind. I would also slowly remove her morning nap. By this age she really should only need one nap a day. Good Luck!

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I had the same thing happen when it started getting lighter earlier in the morning. Could it possibly be the light coming into her bedroom?

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L.,

You could try moving her bed time back to see if that will change her wake up time. One thing I have done with my 15 month old daughter is leave a few soft toys in her crib that she can play with if she wakes up.

Here's our routine:

7am wake up/get out of bed
8am breakfast
9am nap/finish getting ready for swimming (I'm teaching a water tots class at our local YMCA on Monday & Wednesday)
10am in the water for 30 mins/get up from nap
12pm lunch
1pm nap
2pm-5pm play, run errands, more sleep; it all depends
5pm dinner
6pm baths if needed
7pm daughter's bedtime
8pm son's bedtime

There is a lot of flexibility in this, and if she's super tired she goes to bed earlier, if she's had some good naps she gets to stay up later. My son has various activities throughout the week that I didn't put in here.

Hope this helps,
M.

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L.... oh my. I totally know what you are going through. It an be brutal! My son was the same way when I was pregnant with my daughter. One thing that may help is to stretch her morning nap further and further so that eventually she is just taking one nap in the afternoon. I just did this with our 15mth old daugther. If you stretch it by starting the nap 15 min later every day and only let her sleep for about 1/2hr or 45min for the nap, then wake her and put her down at the regular time for the afternoon nap. This is just a suggestion and what I found worked for me. Darkening shades may help as well! Good luck and I hope you can get some relief! Take care and all the best with the pregnancy as well!

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Try moving bedtime a little later.. do it in 15 min. increments, not all at once. Good luck! Also, make sure the room is dark.... (we have a blanket hanging in the window)

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I would suggest changing her bedtime to 7:30 PM, especially in the summer months.

Good luck with her and your new baby!

A.

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I say count your blessings. You can still go to sleep during her first nap. If you think you are losing sleep now wait til the next one comes.

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I feel your pain, my daughter did the same thing except she was up by 5. She did it for two summers, and was up @ 6 the other months. She finally grew out
of it, she is 3.5 years now. She often sleeps until 7 now. I tried everything, I even had her run around the block before bed time. Nothing worked. I hope someone has some useful advice for you. When I talked to the doctor about she just smiled and said some kids require less sleep. About as helpful as I am being to you right now--sorry!

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Wait. It will change again. My now 22 month old has cycled her wake up time between 5.30 and 7.30 a.m. (with a consistent bedtime between 7.30-8 p.m.) since she was about 15 months old. It still changes, but most frequently she waskes between 6 and 7. Hang in there!

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My 15 month old daughter goes to bed at 7:30 and wakes up at 5:30. She has 1 two-hour nap per day (she goes down around 11-12). I would love to hear what advice you get, b/c I would love for her to sleep in to at least 6. We tried putting her to bed at earlier and later times and that didn't change her wake up time. I'm wondering if it is the sunlight, but have no idea. :)

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My 14 month old son is on pretty much on the same schedule as your child. Lately he had been waking between 5:15 and 5:45 so I tried moving his bedtime back later. I have been experimenting to see what works and what doesn't. I am still working on it but so far it seems like 7:30 is too late and he gets up at the same time (5:45) anyways but 7pm seems to get me to at least 6am sometime 6:30 or 6:45. I'm sure it is different for every baby so my suggestion is to try moving the bedtime slightly and see if you notice any improvements. I'm too scared to mess with his naps at this point. But I might consider doing that later. Funny I am 7 mo pregnant too! Hope you are staying cool in the heat wave!

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My kids did this too. Just put her to bed later. Say 7 or 7:30pm. It might take a couple of days for her body to adjust but it will be worth it.

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Keeping it simple, it is time to give up one of those naps-she is old enough. I would start with the morning nap. This will need to make the afternoon nap longer. It make her go to bed a bit earlier, but I would try to keep her up a bit later. This will make her sleep later. Just do it by fifteen to 30 minutes at a time. You will need it later. Good luck.

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Hi L.,
She is probably just trying to change her sleeping scheudle on her own. Try moving her bed time to 730 or even 8. That way maybe she will sleep untill 630 or 730. Just a thought, my son has never been a good sleeper, he is still up every once in a while at any time. Good luck!

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Maybe you should try to put her to bed later. You'll probably have to work her up to a later bedtime, but if she's sleeping 11 hours through the night, that's pretty normal for this age, so I'd put her down at 7:30 - 8 p.m. and hope she starts getting up at 6:30-7 a.m. Her naps will probably move up, then, too. Good luck!

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Give her something to occupy herself with in the crib, and snooze away,little mother.

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You might try changing up the routine. My daughter is 20 months old and a few months ago she started to only take one nap a day! She goes to bed at 8:30 pm and wakes up at about 7:30 am (11 hours of sleep like your daughter). She goes down for a 2 - 2 1/2 hour nap after lunch at about 12:30 pm. Then she is tired by bedtime at 8:30 pm. It might take a few days or even a week for her to adjust, but this is what I did with my son when I was pregnant with my daughter as well. You might try adjusting the time a little ever couple of days to make the trasition easier. i.e. If she goes to bed at 6:30 pm now, make it 7:00 pm for the next couple of days. When she is doing 7:00 pm well, take it to 7:30 pm and so on until she reaches the desired bedtime and waking time. Sometimes you just have to go by how she reacts. I hope this helps!! Good luck.

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I would try moving her bedtime to 8pm or so. I have had the same bedtime routine regardless of my daughters actual bed time. about an hour prior to bedtime we do a bath, read books and wind down, then she's ready to sleep. doing that might also move (or remove) her morning nap. I also noticed that my daughter goes through phases of waking up in the morning. she'll go for a couple weeks getting up at 6, then she'll go back to getting up at 7. Today she was up a 5:15 or so.

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My daughter, who is 20 months, did the same thing however she was down to one nap a day by age 10months (unlucky me). Your daughter may be getting too much sleep, thus the early waking. Anywhere from 12 to 14 hours at this age is ideal. After talking to our daughters pediatrician, we made her bed time later, now at 800-830pm and added a dark sheet over her window because the sun is coming up too early these days. It has made a difference and she now sleeps until 630-730am. Good luck.

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Dear L.,
I had the same request a couple of days ago and I recieved some great responses. You should check my request out if you get a chance. Same scenario with me: My son is waking up at 5am. What we've decided to do is to put him in bed with us in the morning to get that extra hour or so and so far it has worked. Have you tried a later bed-time for her? maybe even waiting it out until 7pm to put her to sleep can actually make a world of difference. I have found with my son that he can only sleep for about 11 hours at night so we have to be careful not to put him to bed too early. I hope this helps. Just know too that you're not alone!This seems to be pretty common(so i've learned) If you wake me up before 6am I'm a grouch all day!
Good luck!
A.

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I would suggest gradually getting rid of the morning nap and keeping her up until 7:30. At her age she should be fine with just one nap. I used to have that problem for a little while and I took away the first of the 2 naps and shifted bedtime by an hour. Now he sleeps from 8:00 - 7:30/8. He was about 14 or 15 months when I made the adjustment and now is 20 months. His afternoon nap is about 2 1/2 or 3 hours which gives me a lot of spare time in the afternoon to get housework done or even take a nap myself. It works out great!

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I am sure that someone else already suggested this but I would move her bedtime to later.

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you could try setting her bedtime to 7:30 or even 8 maybe shes geting to much sleep going to bed that early.

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i can't offer any help yet, but we started having the same problem just in the last 2 weeks. our 12 month old used to sleep till 6:45 on the dot, now it's 5:04. so tired...

we are going to try a few things in the coming days to see if they help. the first is a technique from the baby whisperer book called wake to sleep. you can use it any time there is habitual waking time. basically you go in and wake then an hour earlier, gently, then put them right back to sleep hoping the break the pattern. honestly just haven't done this yet because we don't want to get up at 4, and then god forbid he stays awake. people say this works but i'm kinda chicken.

the other thing we are going to try is shortening his morning nap to 30 minutes and forcing him to take his nap later. right now he basically falls asleep in my arms as i'm putting him in bed he is so tired at 10 and sleeps until 1. no afternoon nap anymore and he goes down for the night at 7-7:30.

i will let you know if any of these work!

Of course she needs less sleep as she gets older, and I agree with the suggestions about later bedtime, shorter naps, blackout curtains, etc. It's convenient that she has been on such a definite schedule until now, but I wouldn't expect her to continue being so regular. Also, if she really continues to go to sleep for the night at 6:30, maybe you could try going to bed earlier yourself!