Has anyone successfully gotten an early riser to sleep a little later?
DS used to sleep until 7:30 or 8 on days that I didn't work, including weekends. I work 2-3 days a week and on those days I have to wake him up at 6 so we can be out the door on time. In the last couple of weeks, he has been waking up earlier and earlier, to the point that he's now waking up between 6 and 6:30 every day. I know he's still tired and he's been cranky during the stretch from waking up to his first nap (I actually put him down a half hour early yesterday because he was so tired, whiny, cranky, etc.) but when he first wakes up in the morning he's wide awake, happy and has no interest in going back to sleep. We co-sleep for part of the night, so he's in our bed in the morning, therefore it's not really an option to just let him play in his crib (and putting in his crib to play just results in screaming).
He takes 2 naps during the day and they are an hour to an hour and a half each (so he gets 2 1/2 to 3 hours of sleep during the day) and typically goes to sleep around 8:30. Last night, as an experiment, I tried putting him to bed a little later but he still was wide awake at 6:15.
Any suggestions?
Re: Early risers
This morning however he decided he wasn't needing any more sleep... unlike mommy... so we ended up getting up and making breakfast for him and when daddy came home about half hour later we all went out for breakfast.
Thanks all! Guess we'll keep his bedtime at 8-8:30 and buy extra coffee We're going to work on moving him from our bed to his crib over the summer (DH and I are both teachers so we'll be off and rough nights won't be as much of a problem for us) and will probably consolidate down to one nap then as well.
Wipz, I'll try offering water too, maybe he's just thirsty! He does usually down a pretty good amount of water between when he wakes up and when he eats breakfast, so it's possible. Or wishful thinking. But it can't hurt!