Very Tired - Advice needed please

annetted

Hiya
Our little boy is 2 and a half. He is waking anytime between 5 and 6 am and that is him then for the day. He does not nap at all. By about 8 in the evening, he is so completely wrecked. It is not good for any of us these early starts. He wakes up, wants to get up and thats him ready to play etc. We are just worried he is not getting enough sleep..

Has anyone else had this problem and how did you deal with it.
Very tired Mum

inigo

God that sounds familiar! Ours is nearly two and wakes up more or less at the same time plus several times during the night! I am not worried about him getting enough sleep, I am worried about my wife and I not getting anywhere near enough! He does get his sleep. Just count the hours, during the night and during the day. Yours seems to get 9-10 during the night. Our son will sleep anything between 9-10 hours during the night plus 0.5-2.5 during the day, which I think (and hope) is enough for him (I am no expert). Just remember that some children will sleep many hours and others less.

rylie

You must be wrecked, our little monkey usually wakes around 6am but he'd tend to chat to his teddies until 6.30 or so. A few weeks ago he was waking at 5am and I reckoned it was hunger so we started giving him porridge/wheatabix at 7pm and it seems to have done the trick.

Is there any chance he's overtired when he goes to bed? I remember reading that if kids are overtired in the evening they actually wake earlier in the mornings and it creates a vicious cycle. Would you try to have him in bed for 7.30/8pm and see if that helps?

Kent Brockman

Lack of sleep is a killer alright:( and the age old advice of "Sleep when the child sleeps" is always good advice (but often hard to do).
Try a few early nights yourself, even 2 a week will make a huge difference.

we got a telly in our bedroom and used to let him come in the bad and watch cartoons, we always got at least an extra hour in the bed.....

bensboys

Sounds familar, sometimes there is not a great deal you can do other than ride it out:(

Our little boy is 41/2 now and was the same until he was nearly 3. As soon as he hit 3 his sleep patern improved he went into a deeper sleep and now we can hardly get him up in the morning, although his 19 month old sister helps out on that front:D

3DataModem

We had same problem. Started putting both to bed earlier. Now they go down at 6:30pm and stay in bed till 7:00am (with maybe a couple of oz of milk at 9:30ish, usually not though).