4 yo DD waking up early! Help!

[BenHolland]

DD has always woken up around 7am which is perfect. Often wakes in the night with dreams but thats fine because we can go back to sleep after hugs etc.

This week DD turned 4 and started primary school (we live outside UK). Now all of a sudden she wakes before 6am. She can be convinced to stay in bed til 7am but of course everyone is up by then!

Anyone ever had similar with school? Does it get better? We are tired 🥱

Thanks everyone!

Could you get her one of those lights that are red when you are meant to be asleep and white or something when you can get up?
Set it for 7am and tell her apart from getting up for the loo, she has to stay in bed until her light changes?

You could leave her with something like an audiobook, that she can listen to if she wakes up too early but can't go back to sleep? The idea being she stays quietly in her room and might fall back to sleep if she is still tired.

If she's only been in school a week, I would imagine it will just settle down. There must be a huge amount of brain activity going on in her head as she adapts.

It might help to avoid anything that stimulating outside of school, just free play to help her process it all.

I agree a gro clock type thing might help. Tbh you've been fairly lucky that she sleeps til 7 until now, we've only just about achieved that (5 and 7yo). Ds went through a phase of being up for the day at 4.

We have one of those alarm clocks but DD likes company 🤭 I totally realise we have been lucky with 7am wake ups! Sleeping through the night not so much…but all kids seem to have something to tire us out!

I hope that she will settle down. First week of school has been a massive change! Had some proper meltdowns as well. This is more what I expected!

will keep you updated! Thanks all!

Update! School appears to be very tiring! 8th half day in and DD woke at 5am…I expected to have 2 hours of discussion about why staying in bed is a good idea bit instead DD rolled over and slept til 6:45. Lets hope this continues!

DD also fell asleep in the garden yesterday…on a stone floor! Amazing difference to playgroup!