Never Ending Problem Solving

As a parent of a little one, figuring out their sleep is a full-time job, or at least it has been for me. Noah has always slept through the night pretty well but he is an early bird for sure. For a while, Noah has been ready for the day at 4:30 or 5:00 and I don’t know about you, but that is way too early for me, and it makes for an extremely tired boy and long day. As it is, he does not nap at daycare until 1:00, so for a 1.5-year-old to stay up that long, it is very tough, even though he is so well mannered and goes with the flow.

I consulted with the sleep expert that assisted us with sleep training early on, and she mentioned that she thinks Noah does not have enough awake time between when he wakes from nap, and when he goes to bed, thus resulting in early morning wake ups.

Noah naps from about 1:00-3:00 each day and is usually asleep by 7:30-7:45PM. She mentioned that toddlers his age should be up at least 5.5 hours after waking from their nap. Heck no was my first thought. This kid is so tired by 7:15-7:30 ish. There is no way I am keeping him up until 8:30, yikes!

So, my next thought was, maybe he is waking early because he is hungry. I feel like he would be fussing and crying if he was waking due to hunger, but who knows. Most of the time, Noah will wake up, babble, read a book, or just hang out in his crib for quite some time.

Now, we offer Noah a small snack before we take our bath and brush our teeth. It is usually some mix of snap pea crisps, goldfish, watermelon or a cheese stick to hold him over until the morning. We try to choose something that isn’t loaded with sugar.

I’m telling you, this seemed to be the trick! I always need an after dinner snack myself, so why shouldn’t he.

Simple tip, if you’re little one is having any type of early waking, it could be a multitude of things but it could be as simple as offering a small snack before bed.