3.5 yo early morning wake ups- Help me please

[ChaseandSky]

Seen various threads over the years but has anyone actually found a solution to this? My 3.5 year old has started waking up for the day at 5am since the new year. Prior to that he always woke at 7am in the dot.

Neither DH or I start work till 10am and so 5am is too early! DS comes in and switches the light on and jumps on me. Plus I'm concerned he won't be getting enough sleep now.

DS bath time is 6.45, usually asleep 7.15-7.30pm. I've read they need 11-12hrs sleep at this age so the old 7am wake up felt about right.

I've tried a slightly earlier and a slightly later bedtime to no avail, and he keeps waking at 5am. We have a gro-clock which turns yellow at wake-up time but he's just ignoring that now.

Any tips for a 3.5 year old waking up early?

Bumping

Have you tried saying 'it's bedtime' and taking them back to bed? It helps in winter if you can look outside the blinds and show - 'see it's still dark it's bedtime'

It took a few days with mine when he was doing a 4.30, but done calmly and with minimal interaction - first night he cried and I perservered kindly with picking up softly saying it's bedtime and looking outside, then offering a drink of water and tucking in, had to sort of wait for him to be calm before leaving, and he got back out of bed about half hour later so I tried again then gave up at 6, but after about 3 nights he did just drift back off when I put back in bed. I had a time (6) that I was like, ok we can get up, but before that he went back to bed. And I left books on the bedside table he could get himself and look through if he wanted to. He then started to sleep through until 6-7 without the wake after a while

Also I assume he's not napping? If he is then maybe earlier/shorter nap

Could you leave some books within easy reach and tell him if he wakes up he can read these sitting in bed?

Is he waking up because he needs the loo?

@HAF1119 thanks, yes at the moment that's what I'm doing. Taking him back in each time. However it's loooong! Today there were 10 of those between 5-7 when it was finally "morning time".

@HAF1119 sorry to add, no naps now.

@NewYear24 yes I've resorted to saying he is allowed to sit and read but I'm worried I'm now rewarding the early wake up. In any case he will only ready by himself for 5 minutes before he's bored and wants to jump on my bed again.

Definitely not because he needs the loo.

Keep going with returning to bed until 6ish I would say, if you can achieve 7-6 that would feel better and you could try to slowly move the timings back. Additional thoughts - how active are things in the day?

Cutting back on screen time can help, mines having none at present (was having too much and just wouldn't stop asking so gone cold turkey) and I've noticed a change from 10.5-11 hours a night to now sleeping 12-12.5 hours a night (he's 4.5 at present) as we're just doing more during the awake hours, both physically and mentally.

And if absolutely nothing is working at you're still getting 5am and not going back to sleep in another couple of weeks, consider a 6pm bedtime, then he'd be asleep 11 hours and you might be able to slowly move it back 5 mins at a time each night.

I think the clocks really work if they get to feel 'pleased' that they made it to the right time. So if he went to bed at 6pm and you had the clock set at 5am (painful I know) then he could come in saying yay it was X colour, then the next day 5.05, then 5.10 etc moving the bed back by 5 mins a day too, you might find something like that works and within a week you could have a child starting to get 'into' the clock signals

I do think if we set the clocks for a time they just will never be in bed for they will never get to grips with the purpose/meaning or look at it and think 'oh not morning' and go back to sleep, as they've never experienced waking and having the 'green light'

Sorry if that was a bit waffley!

I think you have to persist with putting him back to bed with minimal
interaction. No reading/nothing. Keep it dark. The aim is to shift his body clock back. Hopefully if you are persistent with this he’ll realise how boring this is and will fall back to sleep. It may take a few days or more though.

My DS was a nightmare early riser....the only think which helped was the gro clock with a bribe of a few chocolate buttons... not very mumsnetty but I was desperate!

He's now 16 and has to practically be dragged out of bed so it will pass eventually 😆

My DD was a chronically early riser. I would have had the champagne out if she woke at 5. Anything after 4 was fair game - there was no chance of her going back to sleep after that. A few times it was 3.30. I have a rather stressful job so it was painful.

She started school a couple of weeks after turning 4 and it has seemed to sort her sleep out. It’s not perfect and it’s a sad state of affairs that 6.30 is considered a lay in but it’s considerably better!

Thank you for all these thoughts. Gosh 3.30am sounds horrendous .

He is pretty active, very very energetic and lively. Attends nursery during the week and we try to exhaust him at weekends with park, soft play, football and so on. Thankfully he's always been a good sleeper for the hours he's asleep - in general since he was about 1 years old- I always assume because he's so energetic during the day. However at the moment he's clearly not getting enough sleep and is grumpy in the mornings, whereas before he was a happy little chap at 7am.