What can you do if your child persistently wakes up too early in the morning? Dr Pat Spungin, Raisingkids.co.uk's resident child psychologist, offers a weary mother some good advice.

Raisingkids member's problem
My 14 month old son regularly wakes up at 5am - sometimes a little either side. I am so fed up of this and would really like some advice on breaking this habit. I have tried ignoring him and he just cries and cries until I give in. I have also tried giving him a drink and a fresh nappy and putting him back to bed but he won't have it. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Dr Spungin's advice
You don't say how much sleep he is having during the day and what time he goes to sleep. An average fourteen month old should have 11.5 hours at night and approx 2.25 hours during the day. Having said that, there are variations between children.

"Keep a sleep diary for a week to see what's happening."

The fact that he doesn't fall back to sleep suggests that he is getting enough sleep per day. The trick is to fit his sleep into slots that are acceptable to the rest of the family. Keep a sleep diary for a week to see what is happening with your son's sleep routine. If he is having the 'right' amount of sleep per day, try to change the hours at which he is sleeping. If he is having two naps per day, try stopping one. If he has one long nap, try to reduce the amount of time sleeping or try moving his bed time to a later time.

If he wants to go to bed early, settles easily at night and has frequent naps during the day he may have developed an early sleep phase. To find out more about this and how to cure it I suggest you read my book Silent Nights: How to Develop a Peaceful Sleeping Routine which you can buy by clicking here.

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• Click here to read all of Dr Pat's parenting answers