Hellobee Boards

What happens if you let him fuss/cry/talk at 4:30? Is he on one nap? I would try to treat it as a normal night waking and not respond!

This could very well be a phase/mild regression. I remember this happening time to time and it usually passed after 2-4 weeks. I know it's not the best answer, but it's better than saying it lasted forever.

I would do a couple of things:

1) treat it like a night waking. Because it is still night to most. We have a strict 7am rule with our son and have from very early (5 months after sleep training). If he wakes earlier he has learned to lay there until we get him OR if he cries because his lovey fell, for example, even if it's 6:30, I go in like a night waking. No talking, just hand it to him and walk back out. The more you do it the more he'll begin to learn that it's not morning till you say so.

2) for us, if we had an early waking period, moving the bedtime a little earlier usually helped. It's counterintuitive but documented by many Sleep professionals as something that works because of sleep-begets-sleep. But you know your kid best - mine was (and is) textbook sleep-begets-sleep and high sleep needs. If yours hasn't followed that model very well, then you know best if it won't work.

3) if doing the above 2 things consistently for 2-4 weeks didn't work, I would CONSIDER that maybe he's ready for 1 nap. I tend to think that a year is too early for that, but every baby is different and it's not totally unheard of. Early waking can be a sign that they are getting too much daytime sleep. The transition to 1 nap is the longest and it's a doozie. 15 months is the average age that they drop a nap. For us the transition was 2-3 months long (15-18 months). So applying that same logic, it's possible that he's starting to show signs and it will be a transition period till 13, 14 or 15 months.
But again, sleep pros say that you shouldn't make changes like this until other solutions to try and preserve 2 naps fail after several weeks of trying. So if you try all other options while keeping 2 naps for let's say a month and he still is waking early and it's negatively impacting things, then I'd consider this as an option.

I'm by no means a pro and this is just my opinion based on the extensive (and slightly embarrassing) amount of reading I've done on the topic.

Hm - ok my son started waking much earlier (instead of 6:30 or 7 am, 5 or 5:30am) around 15-16 months - it was his way of starting to try and drop to 1 nap. He wasn't fully on 1 nap until 17-18 months. We started doing 1 nap every other day or ever few days and that seemed to help. Once he was solidly on one nap his overall wakeup time went back to 6:30/7 am.

It just happens. Sorry. My DD is 23 months and these days we are dreaming of the day she sleeps later than 5:30am. I wouldn't make any drastic changes because of it.

My twins go through periods of this and it drives me nuts! One thing that has helped somewhat is a sound machine in their room--I figured out that there are neighbors leaving for work at that time and it got very noisy in their room! Also raccoons playing on the garbage cans next door--don't even get me started. So the sound machine blocked out all that noise. Other than that, we just go through periods of it a few times a year. For me, going to bed earlier is the only thing that truly works. Like I'm in bed by 8:45 or 9:00 sometimes so I get a full night's sleep by 4:30. Because I can't really control their sleep, but I can control mine.

You mentioned he recently started daycare...could it be a regression tied to that? It's a pretty major life change for a kiddo! I'd wait it out a couple weeks before making any drastic schedule changes.

@winniebee: good to know!

My son went through something very similar. I posted about it. I,got good advice here about treating it like a night waking. We let him CIO once and that gained us a good half hour.
It might have been teeth or a regression...
But ya know what? My kid gets up early. He sleeps 7-5 and naps well so it is what it is, I'm not stressing anymore!