5am EVERY SINGLE DAY!!

[Whodoiwanttobe]

3.5 year old just will not sleep later than 5am. He has always slept badly and still usually wakes in the night. Tried earlier bed time for two weeks, later bed time for two weeks, food before bed, black out blinds… every thing we can and it just won’t work. He won’t stay in his room and play until a reasonable time on his grow clock. He’s in our bed jumping around insisting we get up and it’s killing me. Makes me grumpy and intolerant the next day.. just don’t know the answer and why after 3.5 years there’s no change :-( HELP!!!

Bumping in solidarity

can you put him in with you to settle back off? Mine can be okay with this when it's just 1 of them, but when they're both awake at that kind of time, they practically bounce off each other
I hate how grumpy I am at that time and remain so until several large coffees have been consumed...

Sorry to hear that!
Nope in with me he’s still wide awake and fidgeting! Finally having to accept that maybe that’s it now and I need to go to bed at 7pm 😆

Sorry to hear OP. Solidarity is all I can offer I'm afraid, DD (now 4.5) woke at 5am from birth ready to start the day. Nothing would work and bringing her into bed her with us just made her hyper. We tried a Gro clock at various stages and it didn't work. I contacted a sleep consultant in desperation who basically said sorry she couldn't help 😂

Once she hit 4 a switch seemed to flick and she started sleeping until 6am which is a lie in compared to what we're used to. She has the Gro clock to guide her and she'll sometimes get up before 6am and we'll take her back to her bed and tell her to wait for the clock. We do have other sleep issues with her now she has a new sibling 🤦🏼‍♀️

We just went to bed very early so we weren't as knackered, sorry no gems of advice!

Could you try a gro clock OP? We're still working on staying in bed until the sun clock comes up 🙄 but other people have great results...

At 3.5 he is old enough to understand he can't come and wake you up like that. We give my DD her kindle if she is awake before her gro clock and a snack and she knows she has to stay in her room until i am awake. How strict are you when he wakes you up?

Tried the gro clock and glad we haven’t wasted money on a sleep consultant as I feel we have tried it all!
we were persistent with putting him back in his room but it became exhausting! He doesn’t have a kindle and I didn’t want to encourage screen time so early but maybe we will have to try that if it buys us some more sleep!!

I have to second a kindle/Amazon fire tablet type thingy! Had to do this with one of mine and I can assure you she is now a lovely, well balanced 7 year who now sleeps in and isn't addicted to the screen 😁 I did worry at the time but it enabled me to get at least another hour or two of sleep and I woke up sane and she got a better me for the day!!! Don't beat yourself up, you can limit what is on the tablet and hey it can even be a educational activity! Win win!

My son was an early riser - 5.30 usually. He's 18 now and guess what - still an early riser (goes to the gym before work). He is just a high energy morning person, and maybe your child is too. Don't fight it.

.. I’m assuming day naps have all stopped?.. basically you have to just say it’s still bedtime , ignore when they come into the room that early and keep sleeping, if the upstairs is safe and contained ofcourse, eventually they will wonder back to their room and play and potter about or go back to bed .. but you will have to do it a few times. By school age all this will have stopped it it’s any consolation and you’ll be waking them up!

DD was an atrocious sleeper and I have two words for you that saved my life.

Baby Gate.

We placed one over her doorway and shut it at bedtime and she knew that once her groclock turned on we could get up. Until then, she had to play in her room. She could wake up whenever she liked but she had to stay in her room.

It worked like a dream until she realised how to open the gate at about four but we were removing the gate anyway.

Unless sky high, he would definitely climb it! We have never had one as he’s a climber! Hence why upstairs isn’t safe either. This morning it was 430am 😔 I got in his bed thinking maybe that would help but by 545 I gave up after he laid their chatting to me, pulling my hair, wriggling and I couldn’t stand it any longer. Husband got him back to sleep 615-7 in with him but once you’ve been disturbed it just buggers up the day really!!

Can you shift his whole day later by an hour as if the clocks have changed? All meals and bedtime. This is the only thing that worked for one of mine. Unless he's really overtired by bedtime he's presumably had all the sleep he needs by 5 am. I also think you need to give it longer than 2 weeks for the later timings to reset his internal clock. Try a month and see what happens.