4 Year Old Gets up Too Early

As you have found out, keeping him up later does not work. What my mom did for my youngest brother, when we were kids, is she put a basket of quiet toys and books next to his bed the night before. Teach/instruct him that when he wakes up, if he sees that everyone else is asleep, he needs to go back to his bed and play with those quiet toys/books until mommy or daddy comes to get him. On the same token, it would not be fair to make him wait forever, so perhaps you can say like 7:00 or something, is when someone would go get him.

I agree with the below posts. My daughter gets up at 5:30a on the button. I've learned to deal with it. I actually don't mind it too much anymore. On the rare occasion that she sleeps in a few minutes I will lie in bed wide awake. LOL! Boy, who's doing the training here?

hi! my daughter use to be the same way and she is now 12 and she still goes to bed at 9:30p.m some times at 8:30pm just edepending on how tired she is and she is a crab in the mornign sometimes and its kinda a faves she has gotton better about it she may not be quite the morning person yet as she gets older she should grown up and into it more so my daughter has i was never a mornign person either but i have no choice but to be one lol!

K.,
Try putting him to bed earlier, like you do your daughter. Sleep begets sleep, so it may actually have a positive effect on his waking time. It doesn't seem logical, but in my experience, it works.

Are you sure there isn't something waking him up in the morning like neighbors that work early? I do understand where you are coming from my 2 yr old stays up late and wakes about 7:30-8am and that is nice. My 5 yr old fights her sleep until she gives up and she is an early riser of 6:30, but was 5am until I figured out it was her hearing neighbors leaving for work so she switched rooms with her sister that is 6. The 6 yr old is early to bed and a pain to wake up. My 7 yr old boy is early to bed and easy to get up in the morning. All of them sleep to 8:30 at the latest and that sucks on weekends! when I was their age I slept until 10am on weekends. Your little one might just grow out of it. If you are worried about it, ask his Dr. what yo do.

I agree with the other poster I think that you should not be trying to keep him up late just so he will sleep in. The best advice I got after I had my daughter was take a nap when she does. Kids know how much sleep they need. that is not unusual for him to get up that early and be ready for a nap mabey have lunch a little earlier so he will eat and get his nap. Dont try to adjust his sleep schedual for one day so you can sleep in.

My four year old tends to do the same thing sometimes. SO what i do is put a movie in and cover him with a blanket and have him rest on the couch. Sometimes it helps him fall back to sleep, sometimes it doesn't. This way however he is not bothering anyone else in the house and he is content. I hope this helps...

i suggest you teach him to read a clock- and even if he is up- require him to play on his bed with books or toys until 8 am... do it everyday and he will learn how to adjust plus playing quietly will help him stay better rested!

also I suggest if you don't already- room darkening-- maybe it's too light in his room-- we put heavy curtains up and blinds and my son sleeps later-- darkness helps!

I was having this trouble with my son when he was four, but I had trouble getting him to bed at night. I cut out his naps completely and he started going to bed better and sleeping longer. It might be hard the first couple days to keep him up from his naps, but I bet this would work.

C.

Some kids will have different sleep needs. Your son may just be an early riser. My son has started so that, but when I really stop to think about it, is it really bad to "not sleep in" on the weekend? For us, the only day for that is really saturday because we're up early for church on sunday. So maybe trying to get him to change one day out of 7 isn't worth it, it could be harder on him in the long run. If you're being consistent with his bed times/naps then he'll get the rest he needs.

As for sleepy heads. I remember my grandma always had a cold, wet washcloth that if we didn't get up by the 3rd time she'd come wash our face. Let me say we could feel it coming. And sometimes, people any age may need that little "shock" to their system. warmth promotes relaxing, sleepiness. ever notice how if you're snuggled into warm blankets you start yawning? A friend of mine, would run ice cubes down the bottoms of her sons feet to get him up. Even if she gets mad and tries to resist, have a good time with it. if she hears you laughing and having a good time it'll be harder for her to stay mad about it.

Are you sure we don't have the same kids??? :) I have a 7 year old daughter who loves to sleep and has never had a problem sleeping, she often sleeps in on the weekend until 9 or 10. My son who will be 5 in 2 weeks gets up early every day. He has been doing this since he was 3. I will tell you I did everything you are doing. I tried keeping him up late and he still got up early. I finally decided that he is just a morning person. SO, I started putting him to bed at 7:00. Everyone thought I was crazy, but he fell right asleep. That is his regular bed time now unless I can get him to nap, then he stays up until 8:00. I have found this is the only way that he can get enuogh sleep. 4 year olds should be sleeping between 10-12 hours a night. When my son gets up he know he has a few choices until everyone else gets up. They are: play in your room quietyly, watch a movie (we taught him to put one on by himself), play computer games (he can do this by himslef), or look at books. We started training him to do this right after he was 4 and he is really good at doing it all by himself and letting me sleep until 7:30. I really feel for you!!! :) I hope this helps! Let me know how it goes!