4 yr old getting up too early

[zenam]

We have finally successfully got rid of the night-time nappy but this has brought on another problem.. Dd is now waking at 6am (not rushing to the toilet though) and cant go back to sleep - before she slept till 8am on average. Any ideas? Btw her room has black out blinds and she is going to sleep between 8 and 9pm. She used to sleep for 11 hrs so if she went up at 8, she went to sleep at 9 and up at 8, or if she slept at 8 she was up at 7..

poor you! does she nap during the day at all?

no thats long gone, so far I keep telling her to go back to her bedroom and either play or try and sleep, I will put her in front of a kids movie to rest in the middle of the day if she is tired. The other day she went downstairs and made breakfast - banana on toast, juice and brought it up to me! She also tried making porriage. Expecting a full fry anyday now! Now all she wants to do is make breakfast - dont want to stifle her but I dont want her going downstairs without me in case she gets hurt.

DD was like that fora few years getting up at 6am. I didnt see a problem with it cause it meant she settled easier at bedtime. She might wear out of it but tbh wouldnt you rather have her be up from 6am than be awake on/off throughout each night?

groclock?

I have a groclock, its fab.. if she would take any notice of it! Emmielu, I really dont fancy starting my day at 6am, especially if she only goes to bed at 8 or 9pm, afraid I need my sleep, obviously more than her anyhow. I am hoping when she starts school and the darker mornings kick in she will naturally sleep later. I think I have prob been spoiled as she has always been a great sleeper, only woken up if ill and wakes at 8am in the morning. (smile)

I have caved and put a DVD TV combo in mines room, watches a DVD for an hour in morning (no ariel)

there is the theory of earlier to bed later to rise.... worth testing out?!?! i.e., bed around 7-7.30 and see if the theory holds any water??

mine is younger, 2.8, but a load of books and toys in his room keeps him in there for about 30m after he wakes before he thinks to come wake us up!! :)

I used stickers as a bribe reward with the groclock. I put up a sticker chart and explained and then the first morning set it earlier than he was likely to wake so as to engineer a success - massive praise for "waiting" for the sun, he got a sticker on the chart and a poundshop toy. Then stretched it so he got a sticker for "waiting" for the sun (still setting it earlier than he'd wake, so he was automatically successful and saw what I wanted) but had to get 2 stickers for the toy (not consecutively) then had to get 3 stickers, then gradually to 5. I kept it set early at first and then gradually set it a bit later (maybe moving it 5 mins a day) until we'd worked round to he'd stay in bed til 730 instead of 6ish. it took a while but it did work. He was 3.5 or so when we started. It worked but I think you need to engineer success at the beginning and accept that some 4 year olds won't lie in bed awake for more than about 15 mins, so this is why we moved the time so gradually.

My nearly 5 year old is usually up by 5am, regardless of whether he's in bed at 6.30pm or 9pm, but he knows the rule - he's only allowed out of his room to the toilet then back to his room and stay there, until he hears the shower running, meaning DH or I are up (this is 5.45am on a work day so he only has 45 mins to wait).

Imposing this rule worked really well from about age 3.5, before that he had a sleep clock but that didn't work that well for him as he played with it... DD was also an early riser til about a year ago, and the Bunny Clock worked well for her, though in her case combined with a reward chart.

After nearly 7 years of 5am starts to the day (my 15 month old is up at that time now) I have decided if kids are wired that way you can't stop them waking early (mine have always woken the same time summer and winter regardless of when it gets light etc.) but what you can control to an extent, from age about 3, is when they wake you - and put them to bed early enough for them to get the amount of sleep you find your own child needs :)

Good luck!

6o clock isn't really that early though is it? is it? or is that just me?

We have to all get up at 6.30 on a normal school/work day otherwise we wouldn't make it to school breakfast club at 8am & work at 8.30am.

I think they have an internal body clock - so last night mine stayed up til 10 o'clock as we had friends round but my eldest still woke at 7am and my youngest at 8am. They are 5 and 7.

If 6am is the waking time and you don't want to get up, then you need to find your coping strategy.......

I keep making myself bite my tongue about 6am (or for some people 7am) not being early messagetoyourudy - I have said similar once too often to RL friends I think and started to annoy people because for me, if I wake in my bed at 6am having not been woken between going to bed and then I am filled with that rare warm and fuzzy glow of having had enough sleep (it happens about once a year...) and even if I have been up once or twice in the night, still being in bed at 6am is a pleasant surprise :o

DH needs to be up at 5.45am on a work day and leaves the house at 6.15am, and DD (my eldest) has to catch the school bus at 7am in term time, so I have to wake her at 6.15am if she is not already up, and the kids and I need to be dressed and having breakfast by 6.45am at the latest... So it is quite hard to sympathise/ empathise with people who struggle with getting woken at 6 or 7am...

However it is all about what your used to, and the OP is being woken 2 hours earlier than normal, so if you look at it that way rather than thinking of what the clock says it is easier to see her frustration (for those of us who are used to being woken at 5am I guess we have to imagine how it would be if our DC suddenly started waking at 3am)!

wowzers, theres some early birds around!! pre-baby my job was evenings so even the 7-7.45 waking of my DS is about 2hours earlier than I used to get up!!!! it all depends on what you're used to doesnt it? I'm used to it now, altho still early for me as a nightowl, and, say, 7.30 like today is great, as recently when we moved and his bedroom was very light he was waking at 5.30 to my absolute horror!! we got a very dark set of lined curtains up and woohoo back to 7.30 ish wakings.

It depends on your life. I don't live in the UK and 6am is early here ...people don't commute as far, shops open later......I also work evenings so not home til 1030. Find it hard to sleep before 12, so not6am for me IS early.

ignore that not