3.5yr olds waking up WAY to early!

First off, let me just say that I am really frustrated lately and I am normally very good with sleep issues (consistent, good sleep rules, haven't really had a sleep issue since they were newborns - of course my kids didn't sttn until 8months old when I did CIO for one night).
So, lately my kids are having a 2hr nap (from 130-330), go to bed at around 7-730 (as they are yawning and tired, and they go to bed in big kid beds with very little fuss), and wake up lately at 445am!! I am going insane! I mean, I am a morning person, and I can even handle 530am, but I can't handle anything before that! One kid usually wakes up by about 445am to 5am and immediately goes to their twins room and wakes the other up.
So, some other background, my twins have their own rooms, have white-noise machines, black-out curtains, and sun/moon clocks that are set to "go off" at 630am (which up until about a few weeks ago, worked perfectly to keep them in bed - mostly), they also have an excellent night-time routine - bath, pjs, books, snuggles and song and bed.

Now, over the past few weeks the wake-up time has gone from 6am all the way down to the last two days its been 445am! And, they are wide awake - not tired at all. So, my dh and I have tried different approaches, for a few mornings we looked their doors each time they got up (for 2min at a time, and during that 2 min they screamed louder than they have ever done so), we had to do this about 4 times before 630am, and by the time we all got up for the day we were all exhausted and grumpy.
Then a few other mornings we tried gently taking them back to bed each time they go up, which resulted in me and dh taking kids back to bed approx 25 times (because we have to take each one back to bed, because when one kid gets up the other one does as well).
I have been reading books about positive discipline and it discourages using reward charts (which I have previously done), because it says kids don't learn self-appreciation, they only learn to do what you want in order to "get something". So, I am trying not to use reward charts. When I did try and use them in past for early wake-ups (as we had this issue about 6 months ago for a month or so), it ended up in DD not being able to stay in her room until the sun came up and therefore she didn't earn a sticker, which would turn into a 30min screaming temper tantrum because DS would get a sticker and she wouldn't!

Ugh - ok, I have written a book now it feels like. Any suggestions? I am thinking perhaps to get rid of the afternoon nap and put bedtime to 630pm? But, I am terrified that if I do this they will still wake-up at 445am and then I will have super cranky kids all day long, and I am a good mom, but I don't think I could handle two cranky tired kids all day long for longer than a day or two.

I am thinking that to survive the next few months I may need to have a 730pm bedtime myself! Which really cuts into my kid-free time, and therefore turns me pretty grumpy.

 

I would try cutting out the naptime and see how that works. You may have a few days of cranky, but I know my boys dropped their nap at 3 and have been fine. Every so often one of them may doze off on a car ride or something if we are and about. But for the most part they do well without the nap. Mine do have a later bedtime based on the way our family schedule is but they usually sleep from 8:30p-8:30a without issue.

 

I think it's time to lose the naps.

 

I agree, I would drop naps. With a two hour nap they are getting almost 12 hours of sleep total per day, even with those super early wake-ups. That is a normal amount of sleep for their age.

 

i also think it's time to cut out naps. but you can start by shortening naps... maybe wake them up after an hour and see if that helps any

 

That was us about 2 or 3 months ago until we eliminated the 2-hour afternoon nap. They were crabby the first few days, but then started sleeping until 7 or 7:30am, which was more acceptable than 5am. Now every once in awhile they still nap like yesterday when they were sick with a head cold, but I do not encourage naps anymore. Yesterday they were whining they were tired and since they were sick I let them lay down and they slept for 1-1/2 hours, still went to bed on time, and woke up this morning at 6:55am so it didn't mess with the sleep schedule too much.

If I were you I would eliminate the naps. I hated eliminating nap-time because I enjoyed the quite time for me in the afternoon, but not being up before the sun rise was a good trade off in my book. Plus it let me get more than 4 hours of sleep a night myself.

 

Good-bye naps!

 

ahhh...yes, I didn't ever want to do it (secretly I hoped they would nap until they were 10!), but we have started the transition to no naps. But, gosh, my kids walk around like zombies now, they are cranky and sensitive, my DD threw her first major public tantrum today. Normally when she is well rested, she gets upset but it doesn't progress to tantrum.
So, we are on day 2 of no naps and I am close to throwing in the towel (they both got up at 555am this morning, which is progress form 445am, but still not enough sleep to sustain them throughout the day). I had the kids out twice today, and they both fell asleep coming home twice! And, this has NEVER happened before, my kids have always been so well rested that they have never ever fallen asleep in the car.

I am going to try and tough it out a few more days and hopefully their night time sleep increases, because I am not sure I can handle these zombie kids much longer (where did my sweet, well-behaved, well-rested, happy children go?)

 

Give it a bit more time, it should get better.

When we dropped naps (which my twins did at more like 2 1/2) we had a bit of a transition period. I'd say it took about 6-8 weeks for them to fully adjust, but it was only the first couple of weeks that were particularly grumpy. The worst time of day for us was around 3-4pm, that was when they tended to get quite crabby. What I did was to give them a snack at that time and changed our routine so they got both storybook and TV time then. That let them chill out for a bit and get their energy levels back up.
My advice would be to build some extra quiet times into your day for a little while if you can. Have some calm activities (puzzles, colouring, story books etc) at various points through the day to give them down time, and maybe try and limit going on trips/activities/errands to one a day until they adjust and start sleeping more at night.

Have you moved their bedtime earlier the past couple of days? If not doing that, even just by half an hour to 6.30/45, might help. You can push it back again once they've adjusted. The other thing you could try doing if it's really bad is keep bedtime the same and just let them have a very short nap-wake them up after about 45 minutes (definitely not more than an hour).

Good luck, I hope they get used to the change in routine soon and start sleeping enough at night not to be grouchy in the day.

 

At this age, I'd drop naps too!

 

I've been asking myself the same thing! They are just not as happy, and get into it with each other a lot more, now that they are more tired. It is such an odd stage (especially for us who have relied on schedules and good sleep habits for so long that our children literally don't sleep anywhere but bed - no car, no couch, etc. even if they are exhausted) of them not being tired enough for afternoon naps, but too tired to be wide awake and alert and happy! We didn't cut out naps, they just stopped taking them, BUT I do think it was time. It might sound evil, but we have a door lock on their door (which will have to come off now that they want to wear underwear/panties to bed too) and no matter what we do not "let them out" of their room until 6:30 at the earliest. Usually they sleep until then or 7:00/7:15 but when they do wake earlier all the yelling, whining, crying makes no difference - they are in there and figured it out pretty quick that if they want to stay awake they better entertain themselves!

 

Thanks for all the suggestions, I am too scared to put the naps back in at this point, as I really can't handle 4am wake-up calls.

We are on day 4 of this transition, and its going OK I guess. DD and DS are both still waking around 5am, but this morning they went back to sleep (we only had to put them back in their beds twice each), but they did sleep finally until 630am when their clock sun came up. So, that is progress, although they are still waking at 5am initially and if we didn't put them back to bed they would get up and start their day. But, they were so tired yesterday we put them to bed at 620pm! Thanks for that suggestion : )
Hopefully I can come back and report they are sleeping until 7am in a few weeks.

They have been very grumpy in the afternoons (but hey, at least the mornings are now a bit better), so I will plug along a little longer. Gosh, I am even getting used to not napping, all I want is generally happy kids in the instead. They are both still doing quiet time for 45min in their rooms, but if I don't sit outside their rooms they automatically come out and visit each other, walk down the hallway etc. So, this is my iPad, internet surfing time now.