Two Year Old Waking up WAY Too Early

http://www.thingamababy.com/baby/2007/12/kidsleep.html

Another one Good night light that I have I really think it helped !!

Boy, I wish mine were like the previous poster's child! However they are not and my 19 month old is an early riser.

I set my coffee maker to come on early in the morning. Get my son, make my cup of coffee and plop myself down in front of TV for Rachael Ray (or something easy to watch that early in the morning). My son snacks on cereal or plays around by himself while I wake up and prepare myself for the day ahead.

Good luck. Early risers are hard on us mommys that aren't early risers!

Don't know if this will work for you but it did for us. Is she in a crib or bed? When we moved my son to his bed (from crib) at about 27 months we put a light on a timer in his room. It is a aquarium fish tank that lights up (that he loves). We set it on a timer to come on at 7:30 am. We told him that he cannot come out and get us until his fishes come on. This works great. Sometimes I can hear him up before 7:30, but he usually just grabs a book or a toy and then he comes out and tells us when his fish come on. Granted there are still days where he wakes up grouchy and comes to get us at 6:30...but for the most part this works. If she is still in a crib, try putting a book or toy where she can reach it and just see if she amuses herself for a little while without waking you up. I even have a little stuffed blanket/bear in my 8 month old's crib and this even works for him. He wakes up and plays sometimes for 30 minutes before he cries for us. Good luck and sweet dreams to you and your little one!! :)

My daughter is the same age (21 months) and is waking up starving early in the morning... so I have started giving her a bowl of cereal or some other larger snack right before bed. This seems to help her out tremendously. Also, I spoke with her ECFE teacher about her lack of interest in sleep lately too. She said it is such a busy learning time for them right now that they are "too busy to sleep" in their mind. It is just a stage and things will go back to normal (until the next stage of course.) :)

10-12 hours of sleep for a 2 year old is normal. Get used to it! Put her down at 9:00 p.m.

My son is also two and he gets up anywhere from 5:30 to 6. I have learned to deal with it. When he was still in a crib, I used to place some toys in there for him to play with when he woke up. Now that he is in a big boy bed, he just gets up and plays in his room. That usually entertains him long enough for me to wake up. Some mornings, we just cuddle in bed together.

That schedule matches my son's exactly, and he'll be 2 in 2 weeks.
I have no solution! We've tried ignoring him until 6 (let the screaming begin!), laying him back down, putting toys in the crib, all of it. No dice.
So we've been just sucking it up and getting up with him. He seems well rested and happy througout the day, so we've just come to the conclusion that he's an early riser, much to our chagrin.

Just wanted to let you know you're not alone!

My 2 yr old son woke up around 5am this morning and does this quite often. His normal wake up time is 6. I put him back down for a nap around 10-11 and he sleeps for 1 1/2-2 hrs, and he goes to bed at 7pm. When he wakes up earlier then 6 I lay in his bed with him (he has a full sized bed) I did it this morning and he went back to sleep with me until 7. I wouldn't recommend doing that though, it's not a good habit to start, I am just NOT a morning person so I will do whatever I have to :)

If you do not have black out curtains in her room invest in some. She is getting up because it is getting out & her natural body clock tells her that if it is light out she should be up.

good luck

My 2 yr old wakes at 6.30am and goes to bed between 7 and 7.30pm , she has 1 nap in the afternoon (usually around 1.30-3pm). Sometimes my daughter has woken earlier that normal and unless she is crying/screaming I don't go in , and she will go back to sleep. You said your daughter calls for you , is that all she does? Have you tried not going in and seeing what happens? I would give that a go , she has learned that if she calls then you will go in , you need to break that cycle.

Some kids require more sleep, some less. 11 hours is plenty if that's all she needs. If she is waking up happy and rested, then she's had enough.

One thing you could try is backing up the bedtime by 20 minutes every few days until they go to bed at 7 instead of 8. I have heard that that can result in sleeping longer in the morning, but could go the other way and she might wake earlier... Maybe try it on a week-end? Then maybe you could go to bed a little earlier as well and still feel like you get some of your evening to yourself... Good luck!

When our two year old was doing this, we solved it this way: He knew his numbers from one to ten already, so my husband took him on a special trip to Walgreens to buy him a digital clock. We covered up the minute numbers with a postit, so he could only see the hour number. We told him that he couldn't get out of bed "until the clock says seven."

The next morning we were actually up before that, and on the baby monitor in our kitchen we heard him say to himself, "it's not seven yet, I have to wait." We have had that seven o'clock rule for the last ten years! (And we often travel with a small digital clock so our sons can see what time it is when they wake up.)

Our daughter who will be 3 in July has never been a good sleeper. She usually takes a 2 hour nap (12:30-2:30) at daycare. She usually goes to bed around 10:00-10:30 and sleeps until 6:30-7:00. Yes, we have tried all the different ways of getting her to bed earlier. When she is tired she will fall asleep. We have asked our doctor about it and he said some kids just don't need as much sleep. I would much rather have an early bird than a night owl.

I used to say that any time before 6 am didn't exist in my book...until I had a child. ;)
Unfortunately at this time of year when the sun rises earlier the little one's are up earlier as well. It's all about the internal clock and if it's daylight then well, it's time to get up to them. When my son was younger I instituted a rule that he couldn't get up until it was daytime out...during the fall/winter this worked great...if it was still dark he'd usually just lay there and talk to himself until he went back to sleep. But during the summer (if pulling the blinds or curtains and making the room more dim in tha am didn't work) I had to adjust my own body clock...it was daylight at something like 5:30...ouch.

So you may just have to tough it out until the fall. It does get easier though, the trick is to get up right away...pretty soon getting up early becomes habit and waking up yourself becomes much easier and less painful. :)

I assume that your daughter wakes up too early for you? :)

My boys both get up wayyyyy before 6 am. 4:30 for number one and 5:30ish for number two. It's rough!

They nap well and get just under the "recommended" amount of sleep. They seem healthy and fine.

I don't know how old your daughter is....24 months? 30months? I know friends have instituted an "okay to wake" time and their son played quietly in his room til his "okay to wake" sign (could be an alarm clock or the sun coming up). He did it.....mine? No way.

They are early risers! I am too though (well, was in my former non-child life!). I think this will vary and she may go back to sleeping longer soon enough.

Good luck....these early hours are tough!!!

I need less sleep than the average adult, and both of my kids have always needed less sleep than most other babies/toddlers their age.

I feel for you, because I'm a night owl and I could not have handled a child consistently waking up before 6 am. My "problem" is the opposite, in that my kids sleep very late in the morning (sometimes until 10 am) but then are up until very late at night.

Anyway, you might try pushing your child's bedtime a little later to see if that helps. It's also possible that fighting your child's natural body clock will get you nowhere.