Reception child waking up far too early

[CrawlWalkRun]

DS was 4 in July, he started school last week (afternoons only). His sleep has been difficult all his life, he was one of those babies who napped badly, woke constantly through the night, basically needed lots of effort to achieve any sleep at all.

He now sleeps a full night from about 7.30pm, but he wakes up so early every day - 5am some days. Any attempt to get him back to sleep is met by pleas of hunger (he always eats a decent tea the nights before), tears, shouting, and crying, which wakes the baby up and everyone else up.

A later bedtime has been tried several times and does not improve things. Has anyone found the school routine helps with sleep? Here’s hoping......

Palindromeam oh no! I was trying to steer DS from picking it up to see how it worked, I doubt he’d be able to change it but I didn’t want him fiddling with it at all as it took me long enough to work out how to set it!

It seems to be a real mixed bag, some kids start to sleep later and some always wake early. I know everyone is different, and I don’t mind early as in perhaps 6.15 onwards, but it was just after 5am for a few days last week. On a weekend this can then mean we’re planning the rest of the day round the likelihood of him sleeping in the car or nodding off on the sofa, which then eats into our evening time. We’ve got some decorating that desperately needs finishing and I’m starting a postgrad course soon so evenings are sacred!

Gro clock is on and set for sunshine to come on at 6.15am. If it works I’ll gradually set it later and see if we can ever achieve 7am.

DS is now 7 and still wakes up between 5 - 5.30. He lay in until 6.30 this morning, but that's because he didn't get to bed until 11 on Saturday night, we were at a festival.

Gro clock never worked for us. What did work was a cheap digital clock with huge post it arrow stuck on and pointing to the hour digit with a large number 7 on it and bribes of marbles for their marble jar if they read quietly in their room until the numbers matched.

You have the change in clicks coming soon too...

If you want him to go to sleep either a little earlier or later you need to do it in tiny increments like 5 mins every other day at most.

I would work on changing your habits to match his, earlier to bed to make the mornings more bearable.

He woke at 6.15 this morning which was a huge improvement, nothing to do with the Gro clock though, he just woke up then anyway. Much better when the number is a 6 and not a 5!

We've just bought a grow clock for our nearly 3 year old. I set it wrong last night so nothing happened...

Maybe set a time in your head as to what you feel is acceptable and stick to it. What would you do if he woke up at 2am? Would you let him get up or tell him it was the middle of the night and he needed to go back to bed? Maybe do that any time before 6 (or 7 or whatever you feel is an ok time for him to get up).

@CrawlWalkRun I know this was years ago but thought I would see how you're child is doing now as we are going through the same thing....

As for being hungry, could you leave a piece of fruit or a wrapped flapjack/breakfast bar for first thing in the morning?