Early wakers, how do you deal with them?

[DeathMetalMum]

Dd is 5, and generally an early waker usually at 6 but can often be earlier, today was 5.20 though dp thinks she may have been awake since 3am . Now we obviously send her back to bed at these time but the issue is she then wakes dd2 up, with various singing, talking etc meaning someone has to be in and out of the room constantly telling her to be quiet. We have a gro-clock so she knows what time is acceptable but that worked gor a week max. I'm coming to the end of my tether, also knowing come Friday next week we will be dragging her out of bed for school then Saturday she will be up with the birds again. Any tips on what to do?

I empathise with you - my son was an energetic early riser (5.30am) who was sometimes shut in the garden so my daughter could sleep. I went through a series of clocks and found it soul destroying to start every morning angry with him as I was exhausted - he was 4 1/2 and I had an 18 month old. I have created his own time zone in his room by moving the clock back by 10 minutes every day until I had him sleeping until 6.30am, which reads 6am on his clock. Weird, but it works. He's happy to get up at 6am, and he's just turned 7 and still does this, wherever we are in the world, whatever time he goes to bed. I just hope he's like this in secondary school! I was really aware of not giving him something like the iPad or TV, as these are rare treats in our house and I felt it would be rewarding a behaviour I found irritating. So now we get up together and I sit on the sofa with a brew and he does his reading before everyone else gets up. I'm not a natural early riser, but this time to ourselves is special and quiet, so even with a hangover I can get through it!

DS is 7 and has always been an early riser. He now has a big digital clock in his room and knows he's not allowed out before 6am. If he comes out before he knows bedtime will be half an hour earlier that night for him to catch up on his sleep which seems to have worked. On weekends he now will go down on his own and put the tv on so we get to sleep until half seven. I learnt years ago that nothing would make him sleep later so gave up on not making it fun and just went for minimal pain so tv while I dozed on the couch. I have spent many years waiting in desperation for cbeebies to start!