My 7yr old is in a phase of waking up as early as 530am most days and it seems to massively impact her behaviour – she can be an utter terror later in the day.

Anyone having or had the same with their little darlings and got it stop?

what time is bedtime? what’s the bedtime routine?

hows school going, could be acting up due to issues there?

What does she do when she wakes up at 5.30? Get up and come to your bed? Get up and go and watch television? Sit in bed and quietly read? Try to go back to sleep? Is there any pattern to when she wakes up early (food, late nights etc).

Ohh, and what time does she go to bed and how regular are you with it?

Deal with the bad behaviour appropriately, wake up time is immaterial.

No pudding?

#OldSkool

Get her a paper round?

wake up time is immaterial.

I disagree – the behaviour is linked to the waking time. Solve the waking time issues, stop the bad behaviour and avoid having unnecessary punishments for something relatively easy to fix with other measures. And it could be that poor/inconsistent bedtime routines are the root issue which are the responsibility of the parents so why punish a seven year old for that?

Our 7-year-old has always been an early riser (6am onwards, typically)… just like his dad!

He has lights out time at 7-7:15pm and therefore gets around 11 hours’ sleep. His behaviour can fluctuate, but he’s really lovely. He tends to need a good runaround (much more than our now 10-year-old girl ever did), but is then more tired as a result. When tired, he can act up a bit more. He’s also testing boundaries more as he’s growing up, working out how sarcasm, looks, teasing affect the people around him.

It’s very difficult to remain cool when faced with poor behaviour, but I try to remember that I’m the adult and that I have time on my side. I find a clear challenge to bad behaviour, focused on what we would expect to see, followed by ignoring repeats tends to work.

Other than that, I focus very much on keeping bedtime peaceful and consistent – low lighting, bath, storytime, cuddles.

Can’t help with your problem, but maybe another data point will help:

Our daughter who just turned 8 goes to bed at 7:30 after a bath and her light must be out by 8. She natuarally wakes about 7 but gets up about 6:30 on 3 of the school days. So I’d agree with Ben H that 11 hours is about the target for a child of this age.

Her behaviour often drops off later in the day due to tiredness, as it does with all young children.

Good luck!

Bed time routine starts at 7 for a 715-730 story – she reads to her mum. Our 4 yr old the same but I read to him. There are times when this is later but very rarely is it past 8 on a weekend let alone on a school night. Had a great school report, they love her and she loves school – as far as we can tell. Diet is great outside of the stuff she’s pinching. She’s deffo pushing the boundaries and I’m really having to watch my words in general as she is using it when talking to her brother; nothing bad but nothing you’d want repeating.

Deal with the bad behaviour appropriately.

Don’t worry too much about the wake up time, some people are larks and some are night owls, but maybe leave something interesting to do independently if you can’t get up. Early wake up is not an easy one to change because the other end of needing less sleep would be staying up later.

Don’t make the incorrect assumption that deal with means punish.
My girl went through a phase of bad behaviour later in the day, solved by an extra meal at school finish and less hangry moments.

Or she might be changing and needing less sleep, poss move bedtime back a bit.

If she has a good bedtime routine and she accepts that, I would try to enforce an equally consistent morning routine (ie, try to get back to sleep until 6.30am, allow her to read in bed if after 6.30am etc). Basically do what you can to stop her actually getting out of bed – even is she is awake, if she is just reading at least she is resting. If she thinks she can wake up at 5.30am then just get up and come and bother you/siblings/make breakfast then she needs boundaries re-enforcing.

Or she might be changing and needing less sleep, poss move bedtime back a bit.

If she is going to bed at 8pm, then 5.30am is way too early for a 7 yr old – it’s not even 10 hours sleep (which is about the minimum most professionals would recommend at that age) so I would avoid moving the bedtime – just focus on encouraging her to stay in bed longer on the mornings in the short term.

My daughter used to rise very early. They tend to stop it when they get to teenage years.

We had very limited success by removing anything like a phone or ipad and then telling her she could not go down and watch telly until X O’clock and put a clock in her room so she could see when this was. Sometimes she went back to sleep out of boredom. Sometimes she didn’t. But as long as she stayed in her room until X O’clock she didn’t get told off.

If its lack of sleep that’s the issue then put her to bed earlier.

I’d deal with bad behaviour as a separate issue.

As loum suggests, is 7ish a bit early for her at 7? My 9 year old is 8pm screens off ( if he’s even been on one, half an hour to bath and brush teeth, half an hour reading in bed, lights out at 9. Doesn’t get woken up until 8am though.

I disagree – the behaviour is linked to the waking time.

It could be that some other issue is causing stress resulting in both bad behaviour and early waking.

Same here, midweek lights out 9.30pm, wake him up 7.30-45. Six year old. Weekends, times get shifted back an hour or so.

It could be that some other issue is causing stress resulting in both bad behaviour and early waking.

It certainly could, but on the face of what we know, the OP is saying that the behaviour is linked to the early waking and she is fine when she doesn’t wake earlier ‘it seems to massively impact her behaviour’ but if there is another external issue, would punishment for the bad behaviour be likely to be successful?

just a couple more data points

7yr old, lights out 8pm (maybe 8-15 if story time goes on a bit), usually up about 6:30 – 7am.

4yr old, same time lights out, sleeps in a half hour longer.

Thanks All

I don’t think you can entirely rule out the behaviour being linked to other challenges she might be having that we aren’t seeing, however, she is generally awesome, caring and loving and only behaves to this extreme at times where she’s risen super early.

I’m thinking an alarm clock or use Alexa as I’ve got a spare Echo, plus reinforcing reading her book if she can’t go back to sleep – which she was doing a couple of months ago – and keeping the bed time routine calm is a good positive start. The pinching food is a concern but I guess it’s testing of boundaries

Ours had a Gro-Clock from when they were very young; if it says sleep, you stay in bed.

My daughter wakes until the second it changed and leaps out of bed; my son sleeps through the change most of the time.

Also serves a night light

same with the gro clock.

beaten with a stick if she gets out of bed before it turns yellow

Routine, routine, routine, kids thrive on it.

And ignore bad behavious – just bring down the shutters, cease to react and place the child in an isolated spot. Reinforce the right behaviour.

I don’t think you can entirely rule out the behaviour being linked to other challenges she might be having that we aren’t seeing, however, she is generally awesome, caring and loving and only behaves to this extreme at times where she’s risen super early.

I don’t want to be an ass for the sake of it but it’s equally possible it’s catch-22 ?
Everything below is NOT a one sided thing, it’s just another view.

1) Forcing a 7yr old to stay in bed can easily be perceived by them as punishment
2) Whatever is causing her bad behaviour (which might just be a stage) might be what’s causing her to wake up.. not the other way.
3) Trying to meet “recommended or averages” can in itself be disruptive … what experts recommend is fine if that fits your child (or even an adult)… but making it a goal just because it’s recommended can create its own problems.

Jnr is 10 now an has never slept a recommended amount…. not even as a baby…
His mother tried to push the issue … tried every combination (I was less convinced) and non of them worked …( It’s not a huge problem in our house as I only sleep 6ish hours max anyway… )

What works best for us is just consistent bed time and he sleeps as much as he wants…

Last year and this is perhaps laced with irony…. he was very distressed on Wednesday’s often in tears after school … and he wouldn’t talk about it except it revolved around one teacher on Wednesday’s. (We are in a lucky position as OH teaches at his school…and this made most usual stuff really unlikely)

This progressed to Tuesday night him being up half the night crying and not wanting to go to school on Wednesdays and a host of other weird and disruptive behaviour

The crux of this turned out to be the specific class on Wednesday’s (called mindfullness) where they were “forced to do nothing” for long periods. He hated the whole thing and couldn’t/wouldn’t do what he was being told…

For good or bad we got him excused from that lesson and he was allowed to read instead.
He still only sleeps 8 hours or so but he’s happy and healthy.

Hello,
I can echo the others on here, is there another trigger for the behaviour?
My 7yo is in bed for stories around 7:30 lights out at 8 (at the latest), he then is easily awake around 6 before his glow clock (set at 7). The rule in our house is, if he is awake before the sun is up on the glow clock then he can get out of bed and play / read / draw as long as he closes his door and is quiet. We have not had any issues as yet later in the day or post school.

Forcing a 7yr old to stay in bed can easily be perceived by them as punishment

Only if it is framed as such. If it is simply explained that it is still nighttime, everyone else is still in bed and that it isn’t time to get up yet then it wouldn’t (or shouldn’t if communicated properly) be perceived as punishment.

We have had (and still continue to have occasionally) issues with one of our girls not sleeping well but continued and consistent application of what we think is right and wrong goes a long, long way to helping with the overall problem.

I’m kind of with SteveXTC. It could very easily feel like a punishment. Jondoh – I don’t doubt that it can work but it is an autocratic style of parenting and there are other ways of getting the desired outcome. Christ knows I’m up with ours at some random times (e.g. 4.20am this morning). Lots of empathy, hugs and letting them share what’s the problem, working that out with them seems to work for us.

There is no earthly reason why kids should fit into your desired sleep pattern 365 days a year. There will be ups and downs.

There is no earthly reason why kids should fit into your desired sleep pattern 365 days a year.

I agree, but they *should* be aware of what is acceptable. As I mentioned earlier, if they wake, suggest they stay in bed and read quietly – just because the child is awake, there is no reason for them to wake the rest of the house (unless, of course, they are ill, have had a bad dream, are anxious about something etc).

How are they eating? Both my 8 and 4 year old are generally well behaved until they are hungry.

If I don’t get some sort of food into them before 1730 then I may we well be living with two demons.

There is no earthly reason why kids should fit into your desired sleep pattern 365 days a year

True.

However at some point school starts at 9.
Work ends at 5.30.
The game starts at 3pm.

At some point the children have to learn to fit in with this.

Sleeping, eating, behaving in a certain way, that varies at times, are early learning for bigger and less flexible schedules and behaviours.