Sleeping FAQ: 18-24 Months – Early Morning Waking

Can my 18mth old son still be waking early in the morning due to teething?

I had a lot of great help from Gina in the early days and got my son sleeping through the night at 9 weeks.
My son is 18 mths and since 9 weeks was sleeping through the night and then later on from 7pm until 8am up until bad teething started last September. At first I couldn’t understand why he was waking in the night and early morning until a tooth appeared. But the tooth would take ages to come through and the sleep disturbance 2-3 weeks. We then had 2 weeks of good sleep followed by another tooth and so on. We are going through another spell which has now been going on for 3 weeks and he is still waking between 6-6.30 am and won’t go back to sleep. He has 3 very, very good meals a day. He drinks lots of water. He eats porridge at breakfast, meat/fish and vegetables with potatoes or rice at lunch and supper is pasta or sandwiches. He drinks a full beaker of milk at bedtime. I always have to wake him up after 1.5 hours sleep at 2.30pm. Sometimes he chats for a while before going to sleep at lunchtime and at 7pm. He sleeps in sleeping bag and room is 18 degrees. He gets lots of fresh air and activity. I really can’t believe that I need to cut his lunchtime nap shorter. Can teething really affect them for this long?

My son dropped his morning nap at 9 months and will go happily to 1pm for his nap. His fourth molar is still coming through after 3 weeks of it first appearing. When he wakes early he just chats and can still get through to 1pm for his nap having eaten a good lunch at 12.30pm.

The four molars which appear around the age of eighteen months can be more troublesome and take longer to appear than earlier teeth. You yourself may have experienced the pain of wisdom teeth so will appreciate that the molars can take longer to surface and it is likely he may be troubled with discomfort until his last one is fully through.

Your son dropped his morning nap at quite an early age so maybe he is a child who just doesn?ft need so much sleep as others. The fact that he is content in the morning and able to get to 1pm without difficulty points to this.

You could try settling him at 7.15pm to see if this would keep him asleep for slightly longer in the morning although it may take a week or so for his body clock to reset itself.

If you feel that his early waking is here to stay you can always set a side light on a timer to come on around 6.45am/7am to let him have some chance to play quietly in his cot until you go in to him.