Early morning wakings

[Eliza's Mum]

Hello
I have a two year old daughter called Eliza. We always put her down at 7pm and she was sleeping until about 6am - 6:30am. For the last couple of months she has been wearing us down by waking up at 4am and not wanting to go back to sleep........yes I know! This leaves us with one cranky girl, and as she only sleeps for about one and half hours during the day, she just seems to be tired all of thetime. We have tried all sorts:
putting her to bed later, going into her room and leaving her in her cot whilst we lay on the floor (thought it might be seperation anxiety), putting toys in her cot, making sure she is warm enough/cool enough, giving her a drink, putting blockout curtains up just incase it was the light mornings and the good old controlled crying. Because I find it very hard to get to sleep when I go to bed, I am literally getting 4 to 5 hours sleep a night. My husband is great as we do take turns, but we both work and are like the walking dead at the moment! Any ideas??

Eliza's Mum x

[Jolou]

Hi Eliza's Mum,
I have recently read some of a book that may help. It is "The Baby Whisperer' by tracey hogg. She suggests that you gently wake Eliza about 1 hour before her usual wake time by rubbing her tummy and talking softly to her. She should go back to sleep easily and this breaks her sleep pattern and is supposed to stop the early morning waking. I haven't tried it but I would suggest you get a copy of the book for more details. I only borrowed it from a friend so I can't look up the details for you.
Best of luck
Jo

[xkwzit]

Hi
I'm afraid I don't have any magic bullet for you either. However, our 3.5 yo went through a long period of waking between 5-5:30 am between the ages from 1.5 to 2.5 yo and this was irritating enough. (You're doing well coping with 4am :o ). She now has settled down to waking at 6am (or a tiny bit earlier), which is WAY more civilised.

The only thing that I can think of that would really help *you* is the obvious - getting to bed earlier yourself, until this phase finishes. I know that it sounds like a drag, but just think in a few years you'll probably have to hound her out of bed in the morning ;) (time to get your own back :p ).

Cheers

[Baby Girl]

I have a 2 year old daughter who went through the same sort of thing for about 3 months.

She would always be in bed by 7:30pm and wake around 7am then all of a sudden she was waking up anywhere between 3am and 4:30am. After a lot of trial and error we moved her out of the cot and into a regular single bed. We also moved her bed time back half an hour to 8pm (a struggle to keep those little eyes open a little bit longer some nights). Now she is in bed everynight by 8pm (sometimes before, she lets us know), she loves sleeping in her "big girl" bed and she is back to sleeping right through the night until 7am again!!

Good luck, I hope you find something that works for you. :)