18month old waking up at 4am 😭

[Buisquits]

Hi. What need some help here. My 18 month old has decided to wake up every morning at 4 / 5 am and he demands food! We end up givi g his breakfast that early and its becoming a new normal 😉

He had his tea with us around 5.30 - 6pm, then bath time, snack and sleep for 8ish.

Can he be really hungry? He wakes up screaming and shows that he is hungry. Once he's eaten go will go back to sleep with one of us. Is it a phase? Help!

[Hidden]

I think I remember at that age we had a phase of waking up at that time. We just put her back down and she eventually went to sleep. It lasted around about a month- month and a half. Could you just give a bottle to keep him going? X

[Buisquits in reply to Hidden]

Thanks for replying to me. He refuses a bottle. Screams his head off until we go downstairs to the kitchen. The he is a happy chap and waits for his weetabix with a smile.

I do hope it's just a phase and I'm not making a bad habit out of it. Could leave him to resettle but he literally screams the house down!

[Trio_of_babes in reply to Buisquits]

4/5 is still a night time wake up. What would you of it was 2am? Do the same? He might be wanting food but he doesn’t need it. It’s so so hard and if it’s the new normal and it works and you are ok doing it then that’s ok, if not, if it’s too tiring then it needs to be sorted. He might be waking for food because he knows he’ll get it? I’ve been there honestly (3 times) and in the end just treated it like I would in the night and after a few nights to week when they knew they wouldn’t get it, they stopped waking up. Thinking of you xxx

[Buisquits in reply to Trio_of_babes]

I am not happy with the situation at all to be honest. How did you sort it out? He will sleep through if he sleeps with my partner or myself but thats not ideal either. He never slept with us until now!

I'll be grateful for any tips!

[Katja123]

By tea you mean propper dinner? Maybe you should feed later, just before bed?

One other thing could be, the wake time has increased and he has not been awake for long enough or not had enough activity during the day to keep the sleep pressure high. Try gradually increasing wake times and see if that helps (look up the norms of sleep and wake time for different ages).