Hi,

I need some advice about my 2yr and 4 month old son.
He is an early riser - from 5am onwards but during the morning he is absolutely exhausted. You can see in his face and in his behaviour. When I put him down for his nap around 12 - 1, he will sleep until I wake him. Literally each day he will sleep 4 even 5 hours if I let him. Now I tend to wake him rather than let him keep on sleeping as I honestly have no idea when he will wake.

Then at night he is still tired cause I woke him and finds it hard to eat dinner cause he's so tired. Then he goes to bed not very full and then wakes up early again next morning cause he's hungry.

It's a cycle and I don't know what to do. He's so grumpy when he wakes and will have whopper tanti's over the strangest things (not enough milk in his bowl)

Has anyone had a similiar experience or have any advice? I've started waking him after 2 hours now but I feel so horrible waking him every day.

Thanks in advance.

Oh isn't it just THE worst when you have to wake them? SUCH a waste! LOL

Would it be possible to give him 2 shorter naps maybe? As in whack him back down at 9 and then get him up for lunch and then a granny nap in the arvo and then normal bedtime? I don't know if he's a good settler (as in can you put him in his cot/bed and he puts himself to sleep) as that would pretty well decide for you I guess.

FWIW when my daughter was 3'ish I got jack of her waking at 5-5.30am too. I went and bought her a digital clock. I blanked out the last 2 number with masking tape and drew the number 6 on it as it would appear on the clock. She knew that she was NOT to come out of her bedroom until there was a number 6 on the clock - she's 5 now and I've trained her with the number 7. :eg:

Anyway that may be good for when he's that bit older but for now I would be inclined to split his sleeps. I always found that sleep induced sleep anyway and didn't get stung with them tearing aroud the house at 11pm because they woke up late that afternoon or whatever.


Good Luck,

We went through a stage with DS where he would wake up very early. I just decided that he wasn't going to get up that early, end of discussion. So, I spent about a fortnight going in every morning when he woke up and saying 'its too early, go back to sleep'. Come 6 o'clock he was allowed up. Eventually he got used to this and even if he woke before then he would stay quietly in his room.

I like Dani's idea of the two sleeps, and even more so the digital clock idea. Your DS definitely needs more sleep than what he's getting, so one of those two things might be enough to help him to learn to sleep that bit longer.

Good luck!

Emma
DH Andrew
DS Patrick Finn 19/6/02

TTC #2 on hold (FF Page)

Thank you guys so much for replying. I love all your advice.

Yesterday he only slept an hour and woke up on his own happy as larry. Cheeky little boy likes to keep me on my toes!!

This morning he woke at 5.50am and we told him it was too early and he stopped making noise until 6.30 (when DH gets up anyway) so that was amazing!

Thanks again, I'll be trying all the advice.