Is there any way I can prevent my 27mth daughter being a 6am riser?
Please help! My daughter (27 months) is waking early. We have been through the check list, and I got the darkness situation sorted. She slept longer for a few weeks, then decided she was scared of the dark. So we left her dimmer on low with one bulb in for a while. This worked for a few weeks, then the early waking started again. So I bought her a little light that is attached to her cot, which she can turn on when she wakes. This also worked for a few weeks, but no longer. I doesn’t matter whether she has a daytime nap or not (most days she does), or how long it is, or whether she talks for an hour after she goes to bed in the evening……she still wakes at 6am. We have tried going in and telling her to stay there quietly till we come to get her for breakfast, but now she gets out of her bag, out of her cot, and can open the door out of her room! Do I just have to accept that she is a 6 am waker? Is there a way to reset her body clock?
My daughter usually goes for a nap at 12-45-1pm for up to 1 1/2 hours, some days she doesn’t have one at all.
She goes to bed between 7 and 7.30 pm depending on whether she had a nap or not during the day. She usually talks for up to 1/2 hour after going to bed.
My daughter usually eats well and has a varied diet, but will only eat if she is hungry (her 1 year old brother does eat more than her), so I tend not to give her a lot of snacks. She usually has a snack of fruit in the morning but not one in the afternoon. She eats three good meals a day with her main meal being at lunchtime and something such as rissotto or pasta for tea, followed by fruit. She often has some milk at 3 pm with her brother, and milk at bedtime, the amount she takes is variable.
It may not always be possible to re-set a small child’s clock if they have become habitual early wakers. If you have eliminated all the usual reasons such as light, noise, temperature of the room and your daughter herself then it helps to look at her diet and daytime sleep. Neither of these appears to be the cause, providing she is having enough to eat at teatime which seems to be the case. If your daughter is one of those children who just does not need so much sleep as others there is little you can do to change that, but there are things you can do to make her realise she is not to disturb others.
Now your daughter has discovered a way to get out of her cot it is time to be firm about when the day begins. Although a small child may wake early, that does not mean their day, or the rest of the household’s, has to begin. At 27 months she is old enough to understand that until you say it is daytime she must stay quietly in her bedroom. You will need to be persistent and firm about taking her back to her room with little conversation other than, “It’s still night time, it is not time to get up yet”. Don’t get into discussions, just remain calm and detached. Lead her back to her cot and leave the room. It may take a time to work but, if you are consistent every morning, she will get to realise that you mean what you say.
It would be sensible if you begin to be firm about early mornings now and also look at ways to prevent her from either hurting herself by falling from the cot, or getting out of it in the first place. In a few months from now you may consider moving her to a bed. If she gets used to waiting for you to get her up, rather than coming to find you herself, this should not be an issue when the time comes to make the move.
Put her sleeping bag on back to front. This is usually enough to stop a small child from undoing the zip. Some mothers also put it on inside out as well as small fingers can be quite nimble.
This could result in her calling for you, or trying to launch herself out of her cot. If you think she may still try to get out of the cot whilst in her sleeping bag protect the floor beneath her cot with large cushions, such as those used on sun-loungers, as she could hurt herself badly.
Place a stair gate across her door now. Even if she is no longer able to get out of her cot this will let her see that you come to get her in the mornings rather than she comes to find you. If the gate is in place now there should not be such an issue about her getting out of the room once in a bed.
To help her understand about not getting up too early make her a star chart. This is a very effective way for a child to learn acceptable behaviour. Make it as bright and colourful as you like. Explain to your daughter about day and night. Tell her she gets one star- or maybe a big smiley sun sticker if you wish to make your own from plain coloured stickers- each morning she stays in her cot/ bed and waits for you in the morning. You may decide she needs an incentive to work for, such as a new story book after she has managed to stay quietly in her room for 5 mornings in a row. Keep the incentives, if you use them, to small things as the idea is to reinforce how she behaves in the morning, until it becomes the normal thing to do.
If you really feel that she is an early waker and won’t go back to sleep if she cannot get out of her cot, you could have a tape player on a timer switch which would be something for her to listen to from something like 6.30am. Some mothers use this idea: to have small bedside light which comes on around 6.30am, so the child can play quietly in their cot with books and suitable toys you have put in the night before. Another idea mothers use is the bunny clock which can be set to” wake up” at an acceptable time for you, signalling the start of the day. Leave it where she will be able to see it but not able to touch it as small children can get quite good at re- setting it!
In the Contented Baby to Confident Child book Gina has covered this problem of early waking in children who may not need any more sleep, p 171 onwards.