When did it get better? My twin boys are 2 years and 9 months old and have woken up before 6:00 am for most of the last two years. It's seriously wearing on me. They are currently going through a bout of waking at 4:45-5:15 every morning. Pushing bedtime later does.not.help. We don't allow them to come out of their room until 6:15 but that doesn't seem to help either. We have one of the OK to wake clocks, too.
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Have you tried putting them in separate rooms? I wonder if they are waking each other up in the morning. My LO makes a lot of little noises early in the morning that sometimes wake me up through the monitor. They never wake her up, but I bet they would wake up another child if she shared a room.
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my 2 year old had a brief period of making it to 615, but with dst we are back to 5am. following!
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I am there with you. No advice, but lots of commiseration. My 3 year old used to be such a good sleeper and ever since we moved her out of her crib at 2.5 it's been a nightmare. We have tried everything.
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The only thing that seems to have helped is moving her nap time a little earlier and not letting her nap too long. Adjusting bedtimes has never made a difference. It's so draining! Also if she wakes up too early we try to just leave her in the crib until closer to our preferred wake up time but that doesn't always work (like if she is really crying we don't, but if she's just talking or calling us we wait). She is still in a crib mostly- if she's in the bed she just comes to our room and climbs into bed with us.
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Two things you could try (I also had an early waker):
1. Put them to bed earlier (this is supposed to work if you have kids with high sleep needs, the theory is sleep begets sleep).
2. Disrupt the sleep cycle about an hour before they wake, just enough to get them to stir, so they "reset" themselves and sleep longer (I was too afraid to do this since I couldn't deal with my son being up for the day at 4:30). This technque is called "wake to sleep."
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We are in the same boat. The only thing that works for us, and it only works 50% of the time, is bringing DS into our bed when he wakes at 4 or 5, today he fell back to sleep until 6:30. Yesterday he rested for 15 minutes and then was ready to play.
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@Eminthevalley: never?
My DS has been an early waker his whole life. We have gone thru spurts where he sleeps later for a week or 2 and then its back to early waking.
DH doesn't require much sleep and I guess DS doesn't either.
No advice really, we tried everything
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My now 2 and a few months old kiddo woke up at 5 am or earlier for about a year and a half. I tried everything during that time period--moving bed times earlier and earlier, which resulted in earlier and earlier wake times. Finally I realized that she just is not ever going to sleep 12 hours a night. Most nights she sleeps 9.5-10 hours total. And then a nap during the day.
So, I slowly moved bed time later...from 7 to 8, and then after last spring's daylight savings, 8 became 9 (which I was fine with because I was on summer break and maternity leave). It didn't happen immediately, but after a week or two, she did start sleeping later. Still just 9.5-10 hours overnight.
So if she goes to bed at 9, she wakes at 6:30-7 (most of the time 7, which is ah-mazing!). With the new time change, she's been going to bed at 8 and now waking up at 6.
But since I'm going back to work soon, the 6 oclock wakeup will come in handy.
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Another thought would be, could you set out a cup of milk or something to see if they would drink that and go back to sleep? Maybe they are hungry?
Mine now at age 4 will sometimes sleep until 7. But thats just in the last year or so.
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My 20mo usually wakes up in the middle of the night any time between 2 and 5. I just grab him -- REM sleep? Who needs REM sleep? -- and bring him into bed with us. He almost always settles right down and sleeps with us for the rest of the night. He sometimes still wakes up at 6 but sometimes he sleeps through our alarm if I turn it off quickly. Occasionally on the weekends he'll sleep with us til 7:30 or so. He always wakes up when I get up though. He has powerful mommy-dar.
I don't know if that would work with twins, but it works for us. I care less about sleep-related discipline and more about maximizing my sleep though, and YMMV.
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@Truth Bombs: I wish! We don't have enough bedrooms on our house to separate them...plus now first thing they do when they wake up is call out for brother so even if we had the space I don't think they'd go for it.
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@looch: both of these worked before they turned two...now it seems like earlier bedtime just backfires and they chat and yell until way past normal bedtime. Bedtime is already 7:00. I've been to nervous to try wake to sleep at this age for fear they'll just wake up for the day! Have you had success with it?
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@Foodnerd81: I should think about moving nap time earlier...they go to daycare two days a week and nap time there is 1:00 but we could do earlier at home.
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@ElbieKay: I've thought about it but as we get up at 5:15 to get ready for work I don't know how they would keep sleeping...and really our wake time is probably why they wake!
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@Mamaof2: that's what I fear...DH routinely wakes up at 4am or so and just reads or whatever and I think they got his habits! I am so looking forward to the day they can just get up and watch Saturday morning cartoons. I just want an extra hour or two of sleep on weekends...
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DS wakes up between 5-5:30 every morning. Nothing helps. When we put him to bed later he wakes up even earlier. He already refuses naps on the weekends so clearly it's not because his naps are too long. He is too young floor okay to wake clock, but we plan on using that once we can!
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DS1 was like this. He grew out of it by 2 and slowly has slept later. But he is not a high sleep needs kid. He'll sleep til 7:30 or even 8 now, but his bedtime is close to 10.
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