Please say this will end

[DueyCheatemAndHow]

DS (3.5) is getting up at 4.30 every day. We are broken. It's ruining our lives. We've tried EVERYTHING. Please tell me this ends.

1. Blackout blind so the light doesn't wake them up.
2. Put back to bed with zero interaction very smartly.
3. Small bag of stuff they can play with quietly on their own until a more reasonable hour. Strict instructions not to leave their room or make a noise.

"Gro clocks don't work for all kids, they aren't a magic bullet! In fact most kids are pretty strong willed and insistent, they would have to be very placid and compliant to just lie in bed staring at the ceiling for two hours because the clock hasn't changed colour."

This, this and this!!! Thank goodness another MNetter gets it. None of mine would just lie there placidly looking at the clock until it's time to wake up and get out of bed. Hilarious 😂

Sadly not. My eldest will sleep in if we let him now he is a teen!

You have my utmost sympathy OP and anyone going through this - my middle child was a very early riser and we never managed to get him out of it. He is still up with the lark now at 24! later bedtimes never worked just made him more crabby during the day. The only way we dealt with it was for H to get up and settle down with him in front of Thomas the Tank Engine videos then when I woke up with the other 2 at around 6-7am, H would go back to bed for a couple of hours. Once I'm awake I'm awake so this worked for us both!

Fully sympathy my DS did the same for years. Got in from a flight at 5am he got up an hour later.

Later nights made it even worse.

School days seemed better as would maybe go until 6 if lucky but went on for many years.

As a teenager now he's often up by 7.30 at Weekends. But it's easier when they can entertain themselves.

My son did this. He would come in our room and wake us both up. So we put a stair gate on his room. He’d wake up and shout about being awake now! He’d wake everyone up doing that! We got him a gro clock and he’d come in our room to tell us it was broken as it hadn’t changed colour. No, it hasn’t changed colour as it’s 5 am!!!
eventually we just accepted it and took turns to get up with him. I’d show him it was so early that CBeebies hadn’t even started. He’d just shrug and suggest watching the secret life of pets for the millionth time. I’d lay half asleep on side whilst he watched that.
he’s 8 now and still gets up early ( but has learnt to turn Netflix on, so no longer need us!)

Yes he shouts if we don't go and get him, and we are in a semi detached house and have a younger child..

He unplugged the gro clock. Looked at me like I was mental.

He has black out blinds. I'm like Lady Macbeth with light. Has white noise.

Problem is he is so tired. He fell asleep in the car at 9 30 this morning

We got him a gro clock and he’d come in our room to tell us it was broken as it hadn’t changed colour. No, it hasn’t changed colour as it’s 5 am!!!
It took DS less than a week to figure out how to override the child lock!

If it's any consolation, I had to wake DS for school more times last week than I've had to since he started school. I was assuming it was the start of puberty, but it's also coincided with him starting some antihistamines for hayfever. So now I don't know.

This is what no one tells you when you decide to have children. I expected the sleepless nights with a baby, but not the years of 5am waking (sorry not as early as yours!).

It gradually got later. Over time.

Is there something he is very keen on having that could be a reward for a period of not getting up so early?

We have an early riser too, it's always worse in summer!! I wish they would leave the bloody time alone and stop changing the clocks! No matter what time our 4yo old goes to bed he will wake by 6... but that was 3.30am for a while!! Hang in there!

You have my sympathy 💐

Blackout blinds, and then black Gaffer tape around the edges to stop any tiny chinks of light coming in.
But it might not work, you might just have to wait for autumn. Sorry.

Bed at 6:45 and daytime naps? I think that would have most kids up early tbh!

Don’t let him nap, preferably at all, but certainly not after lunchtime. And push that bedtime back by 15 mins each week for a month.

I have one the same age and if I put her to bed at 6.45 she'd be up v early too. She does about 7.30/8 to 6.30am usually with no nap. We tried dropping the nap about months ago when her night time seemed to be getting in a mess and it sorted it out

Have you got a decent blackout blind?
Is there a noise like a milkman at that time every night?
Sorry to state the obvious.

Lol at don't let him nap - so just never get in the car ever?!

4.30 again. Don't think anything is waking him up, his bedroom is at the back.

Posting for sympathy and solidarity with OP. I suppose it helps to know our family isn't the only one going through this.

My little boy (2.5) has been getting up at some point between 4.20-5.20 for at least a year. He almost never makes it beyond 5am now. It is exhausting. It makes no difference whether he has napped or had a late bedtime; he just seems hard-wired to wake at this time. Yesterday he had a full day of nursery followed by a jubilee party which went on till after 7. He was running around outside for the majority of of day and went to bed an hour later than usual; made no difference at all. The idea that he could just be given instructions to stay in his room and play quietly is laughable; we have had so many mornings where we have tried this and put the gate to his room on, but almost without exception he will stand at the gate and cry and shout to come out. I have a lot of willpower, and have even allowed him to do this at length, knowing it would wake our one year old up, just to make the point that it isn't acceptable to start the day so early, but it doesn't end with him going back to sleep, it just means both kids are awake from hideous o'clock. He has a great understanding of the Gro clock and takes no notice of it whatsoever. What I don't understand is why, if he genuinely has had enough sleep at 4.30, he is so shattered by 8/9am and cranky a lot of the time.

I think I would rather have this scenario, as awful as it is, than having very young children up in the evening with us till 9pm, but it doesn't feel like that at 4.30am. I live in hope it will change one day.

All I can advise having been through this myself is blackout curtains in his room and you in bed by 9pm yourself. Ride it out it will end one day.

He is going to bed too early. I know you’ve said you have tried later bedtimes, but I think you need to do it for a decent period of time - at least 4-6 weeks - before he will get in to a new routine.

My dd 9 is up at 6.45am every morning . As a toddler it was 6.30( I know this may seem like a lie on to you !) but it was exhausting!
From age 5/6 she was able to go down stairs and turn the tv on and I would come down at 7.15 weekdays . Weekends she got the iPad until 9am!

4 year old doesn’t wake until 7am/7.30 so they are all different

myself I got up at 6.:30am every morning until I was around 19 no matter what time I got to bed. Some people are just early risers

do whatever you can to get yourself more sleep in the morning .

How about don't go in the car after 3 ? and wake him after 45 minutes ?

I don't think suggesting things will necessarily help.
I have 3dc all we treated the same for bedtime.
#1 slept 12 hours every night from 6 weeks old. That was whatever time we put her down, so if she went down at 8pm, she woke around 8am; midnight, 12noon etc. She also had a 3 hour sleep during the day too, and when she woke was happy to play in her room for over an hour.
#2 was given medised (no longer licenced for children) when her sleep deteriorated (at 18 months) to be 10pm-2am with possibly a midnight waking. No daytime sleeps either after 2yo. After that she did improve and her typical night was 10pm to 7am. Nothing would settle her earlier, and once she was awake that was it.
#3 was the total opposite. I used to struggle keeping him awake beyond 7pm, and then (barring ear infections which he had a lot) he'd sleep until about 6am, and then had a morning nap of a couple of hours-the only one of mine to ever nap in the morning. He is normally still, as a teen, up by 7am most days although does occasionally in the last couple of years enjoy a lie in.

There is something inbuilt about their sleep pattern.

OP, my suggestion is get him something like a DSi with some games he can play. If he wakes quietly and plays with that you can at least doze a little longer. Put it on the side of his bed and explain if he's quiet then he can play it in the morning. Leave a little snack and a drink as well if you like. It worked well for ds, although you do sometimes get woken with "the game isn't working" or "it's out of charge".
You will get through it!

DS was this way. 2 particulary difficult periods around 4-5 months and again around his sister's birth (2 yrs 6m). With v. careful managment we got it to 8-6 or on a stellar night 7:30-6:30. That is as good as it got. At 4m we went to 2 naps a day with no sleeping before 9am at 2.5 we cut the nap completely. By 6 he only slept 8:30- 6:15/6:30.

Mine's 20 months and I sincerely hope she's not still doing this by 3 but yeah ... solidarity. I truly think horrendous early rising is the great unspoken horror of baby/toddler sleep. So much harder to fix (in most cases) than night wakings, and likely to go on for much longer. And people who don't experience it really don't get the soul crushing awfulness (there is ALWAYS someone who pops up on these threads to talk about how hard it is that their baby wakes at 6.30 🤔). Ours was up at 3.45 this morning. After a good 30 mins of trying we actually managed to get her back to sleep (for once!)... And then she woke up for good a whole 30 mins later 😨We were both able to have a 'lie-in' because of the bank holiday but we're still shattered, and I'm literally just counting the days until nursery opens again (that's also to do with the advent of tantrums, but I would have so much more patience and energy for those if my day didn't start at 4.30)

Blackout curtains.