Hellobee Boards

If my 1 year old woke up at 5:00am I would check him on the monitor but not go in there. Mine takes a pacifier, so as long as he had one of those he would go back to sleep awhile longer (typically he gets up at 6:30ish).

We essentially ignore our kids if they wake early. Like, I obviously hear them, I see them on the monitor, and its annoying to be woken up that early, but we've essentially set the expectation that wake up time is when we say it is. Unless they are crying in a way where its clear something is wrong, they will just have to wait until 7am. (Our wake up time is 730am, but we give 30 minutes leeway if they are already awake). 2.5 year old already knows this and he just plays with his stuffed animals or sings to himself until we get him. 1 year old has learned to do this tea kettle screech for attention (he does it everywhere at all times to pitch a fit), so we're in the process of ignoring that to nip it in the bud, although its SUPER annoying at 6am.

For naps, its a little trickier for the 1 year old, because both my boys started the slow painful transition to 1 nap around 12 months. Right now, our sweet spot is a 1 hour morning nap 2.5 hours after wake up time (so 10am-ish) that we usually wake him up for and then we put him back down for an afternoon nap around 130pm-ish and let him sleep as long as he wants. If he wakes up within 15 minutes of the desired wake time for the morning nap (since its only 1 hour), we get him. For the afternoon nap, my expectation is he takes at least a 2 hour nap, so I will not get him unless he's slept at least 90.

When the boys go down, I usually give them 20 minutes to settle. For DS1, if he's not asleep within 20 minutes of going down for nap, 90% of the time he has a dirty diaper, so we check and put him back down. He rarely wakes up mid-nap at 2.5 unless he's sick, so I usually go in if he cries. The baby usually wakes up once during nap between sleep cycles and I wait 15-20 minutes before going in. 90% of the time, he will fuss and go back to sleep and finish his nap.

So yeah, basically we ignore them. Its lovely though - yesterday I went to get DS1 up from his nap (he slept like a rock for 3 hours so I went to go get him at 430pm) and as soon as he heard me walk in, he popped up and said "Hi Mama! Is it wake up time?" Ahhhhhh.