Other Early Risers Out There?

My son is exactly the same and about the same age. He has a twin sister and she sleeps longer. He goes to bed around 7:30pm and gets up between 5:30am and 6:00am. He has always done that. I have read a bunch of different sleep books and tried a number of things. Some kids sleep for 11-12hrs but it's really a lower percentage that you would think according to what I read. For my son, it's just his pattern. I tried keeping him up later for a while, then I tried putting him to bed earlier and he just got up at 5:00am. I tried shortening his afternoon nap and he slept less at night. I think he doesn't need as much sleep. What I have been doing lately is to put some toys and books in his crib so when he wakes up he will play for a while. I will leave him until 6:30am then I go in. Sometimes he is quiet, sometimes he cries but I keep a consistent pattern and he has gotten used to it. Sometimes he goes back to sleep for a bit.

Hi K.:
My daughter was the same exact way. She will now be 15 next month. And from the time she was born she would wake up at around 5:30 to 6am every morning. I tried everything, keeping her up later, shorter naps. This may not be what you want to hear but I just adjusted to her, which was hard to do because I am not a morning person. She is still a early riser. Luckily she sleeps in till around 7 to 7:30am now, it must be her teenage hormones kicking in.
Good luck and I hope you find something that works for you.

My son is up early, too- usually BY 5am. He has always been up early- we have tried going to bed later- no success, and when he stopped napping at about age 3 he still woke up early. We have him stay in his room until 6 am- he has a digitla clock- so we get a bit more sleep. Dr. said he would eventually grow out of it.

Good Luck,
E.

Hi K.,

Mine was an early riser too! My 21 month son goes down at 7:00 and sleeps until about 6:30 or 7:00 (NOW). He also takes a 2-3 hour nap at 12:00.

Things I've found to work:

1. Sippy cup of water in the crib.
2. Books to read in the crib.
3. Lovey in the crib.

I will now often come check on my son and he's just hanging looking at books and his cup is usually only 1/2 to 1/4 full so he's drinking quite a bit in the morning.

Good luck! He may just be an early riser. I am up at 6:00 whether I want to be or not. It's just way some people are wired!

Good luck!
T.

I know this sounds crazy, but an earlier bed time can actually lead to a later wake-up time. The book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" (I think that's the name) explains it. The author is a doc who runs (ran?) the sleep clinic at the University of Chicago Medical Center. See if putting your son down at 7:00 (or the first sign of fatigue -- spaced out look, eye rubbing, yawn) helps. When he's a little older, you can explain to him that it's not morning before the sun comes up, though the sun comes up pretty early in June. I don't remember what age our son was when he was able to wait in his crib/bed quietly playing with stuffed animals or singing until sunrise, but it was somewhere around three, I think. Anyway, you might want to look at the book I mentioned if you haven't already. The author (Weissbluth?) does discuss how to work with early wake-up times.

My son is just like this! He gets up no later than 6 no matter what time he goes to bed (bed time is 7:30, but I have payed around with the time and it makes no diff in the wake up time) I would suggest putting a fav toy into the crib once he falls asleep. I have trained my son to play in his crib quietly for and hour or so until I can force myself to get up. He plays with his soft ball and after an hour or so he starts calling for me to get him out (he can climb out on his own, but in the morn he is a good baby and stays put) Once I get him out of his crib is is very ready for his soy milk and breakfast!
Try it and see if he'll let you sleep a bit. (I do have my son in my room with me, so he can see me the whole time and sometimes talks at me, but I just tell him "mommy is so tired, being tired makes me grumpy! Can I please sleep baby?" and most days he just keeps playing (he is almost two). Once and a while he does say "NO! MAMA UP, MAMA UP!" and I respect that and get up at once because most of the time he is wet and or dirty. I feel like he respects my sleeping in, so I should respect his no get up and be my mama plea, lol.
Best of luck!

Hi K.
My son who is now seven was ALWAYS and still is an early riser, despite what time he goes to bed. He has always gotten up between 5am and 6am... on occasion he might sleep in until 645 (that is rare) I think people are who they are , although some might disagree with me.
You could try putting him to bed a little later, 7:30pm seems a bit early (since he takes such long naps) oh and my son NEVER took naps :) and yes, still awakened early, He now goes to bed around 8:30-9pm and yes, still gets up between 5:00am and 6:00am.. I stopped trying to fight it.. People are biologically who they are, some are morning folks, some are nightowls... again, just my opinion.
Take care!!

Hi K.,
My son is 16 months old and he used to wake up at 6am, I was losing my mind until a friend mentioned sleep training. I decided that 730 was a good time for him and I, so I started leaving him in his crib until 730. At first he would wake up at his normal time and there was some crying involved, which I just had to bear but by the end of the first week it was getting less. We have been doing this for 5 months and by the second week he would either sleep until 730 or wake up and play with the toys in his crib until I went in to get him. If you can handle the CIO method than I highly recommend trying this. Good Luck,
Jenn

I have the same issue with my boys. They go to sleep between 8 and 10, depending on when they fall asleep, I put them to bed at the same time every night. They wake up between 5 and 6 or sometimes earlier and are ready for the day to start. We just have embraced it, although it means I get very little sleep or time to myself right now. I leave for work at 7, so it feels like we have lots of quality time in the morning for play, we build train tracks, set up villages, do puzzles and sometimes bake. I just have figured that my boys need a little less sleep than others - they sometimes don't even take naps. The good news is that they did get up earlier when they were your son's age, so maybe you will naturally start getting a later wake up time.
Good luck.

I would suggest putting your baby to bed later. We had put our daughter to bed at 9 pm and she slept until 7:30 am most nights. She is now 4 and goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 pm so the child will eventually go to bed earlier, but right now it might be worth keeping him up a little later. Good luck. I will tell you I haven't slept very well for 4 years so as my friends say...sleeep is over rated! ha ha

OMG! We had the exact same problem with our now 23 month old. But just thought it was the norm, and it went from 0630 every morning to it being bump up to 0400 am. So he was waking up between 4-5, 630 am at the latest. So I thougt that maybe the his 2 1/2 to 3 hours of a nap a day was interfering with his sleep at night. So I went into a drastic measures, and took him off his naps and changed his time to got to bed. Noticed a differce right away. but then I felt bad, because I knew he needed his naps. so what his new schedule is, he goes to bed roughly around 8-9pm (does not wake up at night, which was an issue before) and sleeps in, until 8ish. He does naps in the mid afternoon but no longer then an hour, the max. we usually have to wake him up. Love his new scedule. Now I can sleep and no longer feel I have a newborn again!

Are you kidding me? :-) You've got a GREAT sleeper on your hands. A child your son's age needs 12 -15 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. He is getting that. He is taking longer naps than most kids. My 22 month old sleeps from 8:30-6am. And he gets up on the dot at 6am EVERY morning. But he takes 2.5-3 hour naps. Every child is different. Be grateful for those long afternoon naps to nap yourself or get things done.

My son is a 5-6 person too (20 months). For awhile, in the winter, he was getting up at 3:30-5 which was NOT okay. We did a lot of "cry it out" kind of things. And, the time change in March helped a lot. Initially, he slept until 630, which is perfect for us (I leave for work at 7, so he can't sleep too late). It has slowly crept back, and now it is 5-6 again. We have experimented with bed times and it didn't work for us. Now, if he gets up at 5, we let him fuss until at least 530.
Goodluck!

It's 5:29 and we have been up for half an hour. I feel your pain. My oldest was like this as well. Over the months from 20-36 she slowly started sleeping more. With this one, 19 month old, it doesn't matter how active I keep her during the day, she always gets up early. She goes to bed at 7, I've tried earlier and later and she still wakes around 5. I have had to start going to bed around 10 to get enough sleep. For us, though, it gives her lots of one-on-one snuggle time that isn't interupted by anyone else. I say just flow--especially with that long nap!-- because soon you be struggling to get a five year old up and ready for the day by 8!

I also have a 20 month old son that is doing about the same thing! He is up between 5 and 6, never stops until his nap around 12 or 1 and then sleeps for 2.5-3 hours in the afternoon. He then is awake and nonstop until about 7 or so and then crashes again. I also hate waking up so early, but my son also is good about staying in his crib for as long as we want him to in the mornings. So on the weekends, we just leave him for til at least 6:30ish and then we get up. We are definitely the ONLY ones up in our neighborhood that early!

I feel very fortunate that he sleeps so well, so we haven't tried to change anything. But I totally understand wanting more sleep!

Good luck to you and I hope you get more sleep!

I see several people have mentioned this, but I'm going to re-emphasize it... later bedtime and shorter afternoon naps should help with this for you. You may not want to make all the changes at once, but over the period of a week, you should be able to get him staying up until 8:30 or 9 and taking 2 hour naps. I think I'd start it by putting him down 15 minutes later the first night, then another 15 minutes the second night...etc. Then begin gently waking him from naps a little earlier each day, until you have his routine changed to one you can more easily live with. He'll likely resist and be grumpy for the first few days of this, but should get over that and enjoy his new routine soon.

Yep, my 21 month old daughter has almost always woken up at the 10-10.5 hour mark no matter what time we put her down. I was so exhausted with waking up so early that we moved her bed time later. Now we put her in her crib at 8:30 and she is asleep within 5-20 minutes and then wakes between 6:45-7:15.

Both of my kids woke up that early at that age and younger. I just got into a routine of walking with them in the early morning. BTW - they still get up early. My son who is going through puberty is finally sleeping in until 8 am sometimes.

This is just the way he is. My daughter is 10 months old now, but she has -always- gotten up at 6 or 6:30am. Sometimes she gets up at 4am or 5am from a wet diaper, but she will go back to sleep usually until 6:30am. It's just the way she is. She has never taken a 3 hour nap. She has always done two 1 1/2 hour naps. There's not really anything you can do. You could try putting him down later at night, but then you lose your evening time to yourself. And, putting our daughter down later never worked-- it just made her crabbier in the mornings.
I just got used to it, sort of. I have a 10 minute night routine before bed that involves getting her bag ready and making her bottles for two days as well as her cereal so that when I'm not awake I can just grab it and heat it up. I make my coffee at the same time I make her bottle if I haven't made it the night before. Some days I make myself get up before her, go work out and answer emails.

Hi K., your son goes to bed early, from 7:30 to 5 - 6 in the morning is 9.5 - 10.5 hours , and that's a normal stretch of sleep for this age. My twins are 22 months old, they go to bed at 8:30 pm and wake up around 6:30 to 7:30. If you push your son's sleep to one our later, than he is likely to wake up later. My boys are taking the same length naps in the afternoon as he does.
E.

K.,

You need to cut his nap to 1.5 to 2 hours - that should help. A 3 hour is too long. Also - black out shades will really help There is a great book that will help you - "The Contented Little Baby Book" by Ford. She also wrote one on toddlers.

Good luck.

D.

Hi there,

Sounds like our children are on the SAME EXACT schedule. My son is 23mon and goes to bed by 745, takes a 2-3hr nap every day, but wakes between 5 and 6. We have tried everthing to keep him from waking before 6. When he wakes at 5, I bring him to my bed at that point and he will usually fall back asleep. I am just tired of waking every day at 5. Some kids are just early risers. Thank goodness for naptime!

We were just having this conversation at my house. We think our son wakes up with the son. As the sun rises earlier, he's rising with it. We're thinking of getting some good shades that block the sun out completely to see if that helps. Maybe your son does the same?

N.

I would cut one of his naps out. Whichever one is the cat-nap is the one I would cut out. He is almost 2 and can easily go down to 1 nap. Follow his cues as to which nap he doesn't really need. Good luck

Well, I'm not sure if this will make you feel any better, but my now 5 1/2 year old daughter was like this at your son's age. In fact, she was never much of a sleeper, even when she was an infant. She used to go to sleep around 9 or 10 pm, and wake up at 5 am; she had a 1 1/2 to 2 hour nap once a day. It sure seems like everyone else's kids slept much more. But now, things are much better -- actually improved when we gave up her nap at about 2 1/2 (she tried to give it up around age 2, but we fought it!). After about 3 or 4 months without an afternoon nap (and some crankiness in the evening), she adjusted to sleeping at night, more like an adult. After some more years (I told you this might not make you feel much better now!), she settled into a great pattern (by about age 4). Now she sleeps from 8 pm to about 6:30 am straight, which is more in line with her peers.

Some kids just don't need as much sleep (my second daughter was somewhat more normal in her infant sleep patterns, although she also gave up her afternoon nap early, at age 2 1/2). I always figure it will be good for her when she is an adult, if she doesn't need as much sleep as other people, and still feels great.

Good luck. The only thing I can tell you is it doesn't last forever, and you are not the only one out there!

L.

P.S. we tried many many different things, advice from sleep specialists (sleep coaches) and nannies, and other moms, and it just seemed like she just didn't need as much sleep as other kids. Maybe something you do will work -- I wish you luck!

My daughter use to sleep until 7:30 or 8 and went to bed around 6:30. At about 18 months that changed. She started getting up early all the time. I took the advice of moving the bedtimes up, since doing that at 11 months got her to start sleeping through the night. We did that for about 3 weeks and it didn't help. I've recently read that at 24 months they need 11 hours sleep at night, not 12-14 like 18-24 months. So, just started moving her bed time to 7:45 head hit the pillow. It's been working for a couple days, but we'll see. I also read they only need a 1 1/2 hour nap. I'm going to start being less quite after she's been asleep for 1 1/2 hours.
I do agree that often children who are over tired sleep more restlessly and wake up earlier, so I would try an earlier bedtime first...personally.
Best of luck!
C.

Our 21 month old son is exactly the same way. We have tried EVERYTHING to get him to sleep later to no avail. He didn't even sleep later the morning after the time change! We just take turns getting up with him and try to let the opposite parent sleep in a little.....

I am with you my son is almost 14 months old and since he was born he always gets up between 5am and 6am. He usually goes to sleep between 6-7pm, but even if he does go to bed at 9 or 10pm, he still wakes up at the same hour, making changes to his sleep schedule have not worked.

I almost hate to give you my experience. I have a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. My daughter from Day 1 has always stayed up late and slept in in the mornings. My son gets wiped out and collapses early and is up every day around 6:00, 6:30. It has always been this way and I have not been able to change it. To this day my son is HAPPY to go to bed at 8:00 and, even on the weekends, cannot stay awake past 9:00. I struggle every evening with my daughter coming up with every excuse possible to stretch her bedtime out as far as she could and will stay up as late as you let her on weekends, even past midnight on New Years with no problem. In the morning, no matter what I try, my son is up and roaring to go before the sun is and every morning I have a hard time getting my daughter up for school. I think they just come as they are.

My son is 39 years old now. He always goes to bed early (7-8pm) and wakes up when it is still dark outside. He did this as a child and he is still this way. He is the early bird and his younger brother is a night owl who must set his alarm to wake up early. What worked for me when they were young was to have an early bedtime for every one. If you weren't tired yet, you could read as long as you wanted, then lights out. Both of my adult sons are very good readers and still wake and sleep to there own natural rhythm.

Dear K.,
You might try shortening his afternoon nap and putting him to bed a little later. If he continues to be an early bird, which may be the case, he is not too young to just let him roll around in his crib or play with a snuggie or something. Even if he fusses, that's fine. They do get it figured out that just because they are awake and ready to hit the floor running, other people are still having rest/quiet/sleep time. Getting them used to that idea really comes in handy as they get a little older. They can be awake and quietly play in their rooms until mommy or daddy are up. Otherwise, you'll end up with a 3, 4 or 5 year old who's up at 5am getting in the fridge, the cupboards and who knows what else.
I hope you find something that works for you!