Reply to 3.5 year old waking up at 5am

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[quote=Anonymous]I would push his bedtime back by 30 minutes and see if that helps. I think this transition, away from baby/toddler sleep patterns to “big kid” patterns, is really hard for parents. You get acclimated to naps and early bedtimes and structure their lives around them. But as kids age, they no longer fall asleep easily when it’s light out.

One thing we did when our kid went through this is help develop some independence. We started letting her look at books in her bed on her own for 15 minutes after we’d done bedtime but before turning out her lamp. This allows us to keep an earlier bedtime but allows her to fall asleep a little later, which helps prevent super early morning wake ups.

We also developed opportunities for her to be more independent in the morning, so an earlier wake up didn’t automatically mean we had to get up at 5:30. She couldn’t get herself breakfast at age 3, but she could use the bathroom solo (assuming just pee) and could engage in some solo play activities. Then when she got hungry, she’d come wake us up (closer to 6:30 or even 7). This really helped us stay sane during this weird sleep time, with fewer 5am wake ups. Meanwhile her bedtime slowly moved from 7 to 8 and sometimes even 8:30 when she reads in bed for a bit, and now she naturally wakes up at 6:30 or 7. Our family schedule is much more in sync.[/quote]

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