7 yo wakes up at 5am and has to wake whole house

[ProudDadOfTwoBoys]

Hello, first time poster, hope dad's are allowed here!

I need help! Two lovely boys, 5 and 7. 5 yo is independent, chilled and goes to bed very well, no fuss or arguments, straight to sleep and will generally sleep in until 630 to 730.

However my 7yo is incredibly highly strung, super demanding on our attention, emotional and very argumentative. He's recently got into the habit of coming to the top of the stairs and shouting "are you down there / what are you doing / I'm too hot / too cold / can't sleep / when are you coming to bed" etc etc etc. Basically stalling. This can go on for an hour. It disturbs the 5 yo. We've tried various tactics, tons of positive reinforcement, nice activities, star charts, even £1 for every night he sleeps without shouting down, taking away treats like his tablet or sweets if he doesn't, nothing works.

Bedtime routine is consistent, teeth bath story bed.

Then in the morning he will get up anytime from 4am and wakes everyone up. We tell him to go back to sleep and occasionally he will until 5 or 530. No major problem during the week but it's becoming so tiring, we all wake up groggy and grumpy. He won't go downstairs on his own - he used to do this and was happy making his own breakfast and watching TV or playing with his toys until 630 or 7.

We've tried earlier bed, later bed, leaving books and even his tablet to play with when he wakes but he still has to wake us all up, over and over (every 10-15 mins) until at least one of us gets up with him. He then demands immediate play and attention the minute we're up.

It's draining. I totally accept that it's just part of his body clock and we need to make allowances, but any suggestions would be really appreciated.

The first page of this thread is grim, but you’ve been given some good advice after that. Starting out by assuming there’s no SN is terrible. The starting point should always be to establish if there are SN.

Dc want to please us and be “good”. When that’s not happening there is always a problem and doubling down on the 1950s discipline is not the way forward. The problem might lie in the parenting style rather than SN but still, punitive parenting is still not the answer.

Parenting a neurotypical dc with the patience, adaptability and openness that you need to successfully parent a neurodiverse dc will do no harm. But you can do a lot of harm treating a dc with SN to harsh discipline.

There’s a book called the Explosive Child by Ross Green and it’s a good starting point while you’re battling for an assessment.

His assumption is always that a dc’s challenging behaviours are evidence of missing skills and that you’ll have more success, if you can identify and build up those skills than trying to shame and punish the behaviour out of them.

@Dinosaurwoman

I think you’re expecting him to sleep too much, the NHS recommends between 9 and 12 hours, your son son seems to need the lower end of sleep of 9 hours. Out seems like time to put him to bed much later , tone to change your routine and start sharing the evening with him and try and tire him out during the day.

I agree with this. I'd do a 9pm bedtime for a while and see how it goes.

*The thing about school is that it generally provides extremely clear routines and rules and consistency in the consequences (of both good and undesirable behaviour).

Offering more consistency at home will help*

This isn’t why kids with ASd behave at school and not at home though.

They just about hold it in at school , but can’t hold it in at home.

@littleselda

7pm bedtime is so early though..

I'm thinking the same. I have an 8YO and 6YO. We haven't had a 7pm bed time for a long time. They go upstairs for quiet time in their room about 7.30pm and we have lights out at 9pm on a weeknight. It's been 10pm in the holidays.

How much quality time does he actually spend with you all if you're both working bust stressful jobs? I don't think this is an issue with sleep TBH.

Is it because he wakes up and just doesn’t know what the time is (when it’s acceptable to wake you)

My niece was like this when she was about 6, she used to wake up at 6am or earlier and wake everyone else up. Then my brother bought this little toy that has a timed light. The light used to come on at 7 so she knew when the light was on she could go in and see others. If she wakes up earlier she either goes back to sleep or plays quietly in her room. She is 8 now and doesn’t need it. Maybe something like this will help?

I have 3 naturally early risers. Once they were old enough (when youngest turned 5) we put in place a plan for the weekend. Weekdays are fine as I am up at 6 so their 5.30 risings aren’t as bad.

On weekends, if we were woken before 7 for anything other than a life threatening emergency, they would automatically lose IPads for the weekend and they would have to go on the leech walk- a 6km bushwalk where we would invariably get covered in leeches. Wakings included noisy stomping and sibling fights.

My kids are fairly resistant to logic and common sense but even for them, it took only 3 weekends of leeching and then all was well. Haven’t had to put up with their early waking rubbish for years.

In the absence of SEN, go hard. Life changing for DH and I to be able to lie in till 7.

My dd by 7.5 was going to be later than 7. Not saying there aren’t other issues. But that is too early for most kids of this age. I get why your 5yo may need to be in bed by 7/7.30 if they’ve just started school. My dd was very tired in YR.

My two are utterly exhausted by 6.30pm/7pm because we are out long dog walks with them, they run free playing out in all weathers with sticks in the woods. Expecting them to stay up beyond 7pm would be cruel!!

My son always struggled to get to sleep and has ADHD. He was never allowed out of bed though.
I let him read in bed and listen to a podcast but he has to be in bed when asked which is usually 8.30/9pm.

My daughter has always been an early riser regardless of the time she goes to bed. I know she can't control it. She just knows that when she wakes she has to play quietly in her room until we wake up. Simetimes she gets carried away and is a bit too noisy but overall it does buy us some extra sleep.

7pm seems very early for a 7yo. How does he manage to fit in dinner, homework, down time with family and bath?

It sounds to me like he's wanting more time with you both, hence coming to the top of the stairs and calling down, waking you up and wanting you to play with him. Perhaps there's wiggle room for an 8pm bedtime? I know you said you've tried a later bedtime but was that to give him extra time with you or to make him sleep longer in the morning?

I found at around this age they start to realise that 'fun' stuff is still going on downstairs after they've gone to bed, and they want to be part of it/feel they're missing out. So they wake up earlier to get some of that fun stuff done before school.

That's my experience anyway! DD1 was like this and I tweaked bedtimes and made sure we did something together in the evening. I also used to fib and say I was going to bed too, then just chill in my room for a bit reading until I was sure she'd gone off. Obviously doesn't work for everyone, and it didn't work overnight it took a few weeks but that certainly seemed to help with mine.

I would also say 7am is quite late for an early waking child.
We had 5.45 for years. Because when you wake at 5am, 7am is a LONG way away. 5.45 was our compromise between his wake time and our preferred wake time. We have managed to pull up backwards, but not until was closer to 10. Now, aged 12, can read from 6.30 up at 7.

I'm not going to rehash the advice given so far, but how about you and your wife have a division of who gets up early and you go to bed a bit earlier too so getting up is less of a chore? The early waking won't last forever.

Can I suggest writing him a social story with stick people. Use thought bubbles to show what someone being woken up might think. Google social stories and you will get lots of suggestions

My DD is 6 1/2 and sounds very similar to your son. She’s always been very high need, emotional and somewhat anxious.
She is usually asleep by 8 o’clock and generally sleeps through unless she’s poorly or worried about something.
But she can wake up very early and will start shouting or will come in to wake us with “reasons” why she needs us.
Our rule is that we absolutely won’t get up before 7 on weekdays or 8 on weekends…. if she tries to get us up it 100% won’t work.
But I do recognise that she genuinely feels that she needs us and isn’t just being difficult…. so I let me come in and she snuggles with a cosy blanket & cushion next to my side of the bed, but she’s not to chatter and must do something quiet like read, or do a puzzle, or go on her iPad. Generally this works quite well.

DS is a different kettle of fish altogether…. grumpy if woken before 8am and a very confident, independent toddler. Couldn’t have 2 more different children!

I think some of the people saying go for tougher parenting just don't have a child like this. If we left our 5.30am waker on her own til 7 she would be scared and upset, even if she was allowed an iPad etc. I don't know why but she is an anxious child. She rarely wants to play on her own during the day either, she rarely goes off to her room - she just wants to be with other people. The school (due to other behaviours at school) think she may have separation anxiety. We have tried later bedtimes (but she is tired when she goes to bed and a later bedtime doesn't change the wake time). We've tried a gro clock but she just struggles being on her own. We've tried being strict about consequences of waking us but following through just makes us all miserable. When she wakes I get in her bed with her and I go back to sleep. She will use a tablet quietly. It works for us.