11 year old early wake ups

[Kitty154]

Just after some advice really about what, if anything, I can do about my 11 year old son waking very early every morning. He has always been a light sleeper and as a baby/toddler was a terrible sleeper. He doesn’t seem to need much sleep, however he seems to be getting up earlier and earlier over the past few months and I thought as children head towards teenage years they may sleep in more?! He goes to bed around 8.30 which probably seems early, but as he wakes between 5 and 6am every morning he is tired by 8.30pm. When he does stay up later until around 9.30/10pm, usually on a weekend, he gets up even earlier! Saturday morning is usually around 5.30am and same for a Sunday. He usually watches tv downstairs until the rest of us wake up and go down. His younger brother doesn’t wake up so early. Does anyone else have experience of this? I don’t think he has ever slept past 7am in his life but just thinking is this likely to change as he hits puberty? He is my eldest so I don’t really know what to expect but I know the parents of his friends say they struggle to get their children out of bed in the mornings and some of them sleep until 9/10am on a weekend.

I mean, is it negatively impacting his day? Is he too tired to function? If not he’s probably getting the amount of sleep he needs. At 11 it’s not like you need to get up with him so surely just let him get on with it?

Yes, you are right I don’t need to get up with him and I guess it isn’t really a major problem. It doesn’t seem to really impact him much in the day, he has a lot of energy but by 8pm ish he looks really tired and sometimes on a weekend or during the school holidays it would be nice to do things in the evenings with him like watch a film etc, but if he has any late nights then he is really tired the next day because he still gets up so early.

My two were always early risers. The older one finally started to sleep later at about 14/15 years old, and the younger one still rarely sleeps beyond 6.30 at the age of 12. He goes to bed between 9 & 9.30.

I have a 12 year old son a bit like this. I have a hard sto on screens before 7:30 as I found if he can go downstairs at 5am as soon as he wakes up he’ll not even attempt to go back to sleep. If screens not an option, he’ll usually go back to sleep ) or otherwise just reads). He’s naturally a lark, as am I, but I try to not let it get too extreme.

Watch a film in the afternoon? He may change when he's a teenager but it sounds like he's just naturally a morning person. Once he's an adult everyone will see it as a virtue!

Does your son have any exercise or a sport that uses up some energy? One of my sons has never had a lie in unless a very late night with friends or after playing rugby.He just didn’t have the teenage hormones to stay asleep !

Mine are early risers, one is in his 30s now and still is.

Someone told me that it is evolution, we have evolved to have larks and owls because if everyone slept at the same time it would put us at risk. So some need to be early to rise and early to bed.

I get it though, I've had so much hassle and people interfering over the years about the fact my kids go to bed early.

Many thanks for the replies.,Yes, he plays a lot of football after school and also at the weekends he plays for a team so he is very active. He also does martial arts. Good to know others have experienced the same. It seems everyone I speak to who has children the same age has problems getting them out of bed in the mornings! Good idea to maybe limit screens before 7am.

The evolution/sleep thing is interesting. Haven’t heard that before