Schedule / RoutineInside this post: Whether you have a school-aged, preschool-aged or toddler waking up too early, you’ll learn how much sleep kids need and how to use a kids wake up clock to stop kids from waking up too early.
The first time it happened, my husband was deployed. At exactly 3:37 am my son was exactly 3 inches from my face.
I jolted upward 90 degrees, “Goodness. Are you okay?!”
He looked at me like this was totally normal (it wasn’t). Like we do this all the time (we don’t). Like he was supposed to climb into bed with me (no, no, noooooo).
For a split second, I hesitated because…Was I really going to go down this road?
He laid next to me, looking all sweet and cuddly. Plus, my husband’s side of the bed was vacant.
“Okay, okay. You can stay,” I said.
You know how this goes, right?
Over the course of the following month, I laid awake with a drunken octopus, regularly receiving kicks in the spleen. I finally got him back to sleeping in his own bed but he was waking up wayyyy too early in the morning.
He went from sleeping until 7 am each morning (or at least waking and waiting for me to get him) to waking at 5 am.
Getting him to sleep until 6:30 am felt like a dream that was never going to happen.
And mama was tired.
Related: How to Respond When Your Child is Afraid to Sleep Alone
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What to do when kids wake up too early.
Feeling frustrated, a friend of mine shared some advice with me. I gave her method a try, adding my own twist. Not only did it work, but it worked brilliantly.
Here’s how you can implement it too…
From newborn baby sleeping tips to helping kids fall asleep fast, the first thing I do when tackling a sleep challenge is to look at overall sleep needs compared to actual sleep.
Here’s the recommended / average sleep by age:
If your child falls into the ages 6-7 range, then you’ll want to shoot for 10-11 hours per day. For most toddlers and preschoolers, a good ballpark to aim for is around 12 hours per day total.
In my situation, he was going to bed around 7:00 pm and waking at 5:00 am. He no longer naps and by dinner he was a hot mess. So, he definitely needed more sleep according to both the sleep chart and observation.
Teaching kids to sleep later.
I took a very specific Language of Listening® approach when coaching our him to stop waking up too early.
(We used the same exact method when teaching him to follow a set of printable picture routine cards at bedtime.)
1. Collect your supplies.
You’ll need a basic digital alarm clock, a piece of paper, a sharpie and clear packing tape. You could also use a color-changing wake up clock if your child is under the age of three, and they understand colors better than numbers.
2. Set up the clock together.
Together we plugged the clock in. I set the time. Then I grabbed my piece of paper and wrote the number seven on it. I cut it out and taped the seven over the minutes part of the clock so that is was parallel to the hours.
If the minutes shine through the paper, card stock or photo matte paper works great too.
3. Explain what is about to happen.
I like to talk about things a day or two ahead of time before implementing anything. This gives lots of repetition for the information to sink in. Two days before we officially gave this a whirl, I walked my son into his room and said…
“You’re going to learn how to wake up in the morning all by yourself. This clock is going to help you know when it’s morning time. When the clock has two sevens that means it’s time to wake up!”
Throughout the day, I would talk about the special alarm clock and how he was going to know when it was time to wake up all by himself.
Related: My All-Time Favorite 2 Year-Old Sleep Schedule
4. Coach again right before bedtime.
Once I was ready to get started, I reminded him right before bedtime, “It’s time to wake up for the day when you see two sevens on the clock.”
I added that it was okay to come and get me if he needed me or needed to use the bathroom.
(I always want him to feel safe to get me!)
If he doesn’t need anything or I am able to meet his needs, then I take him back to bed and remind him that he can wake up for the day when there are two sevens.
5. Coach again in the morning.
Most kids won’t get it right away. This is totally normal, especially if you have a strong-willed child.
I add in some extra coaching in the morning to help. For the first two days, he still woke up early and came into my room. Once I knew he was okay and his needs were met, I walked him back to bed and said…
“I see a five and a seven on the clock. When there are two sevens, you can get up for the day. It’s still nighttime.”
Slowly but surely, the time he tried to come out of his room got closer to seven. It can take up to two weeks for your child’s sleep clock to reset itself.
And typically over time, when kids realize there isn’t anything exciting happening at 5:30 am, they will start to sleep later. Plus, if they aren’t eating at 5:30 am, their metabolism will start to reset as well, signaling them wake up to eat breakfast later.
Within two weeks, he was sleeping until 7:00 each day. If he woke up early, he would play with quiet toys in his bed and wait to greet us with his sunny rays of personality.
(We always allow both kids take quiet toys to bed. That way they can play before bed and when they wake up, while still abiding by our boundary of staying in their rooms.)
Related: 2 Year Old Sleep Regression Explained. Why It Happens and Solutions.
6. Reinforce the behaviors you like.
Naming your child’s strengths is a huge part of Language of Listening®. I always try to recognize and name the behaviors I like. Each time my son stayed in his room until 7:00 am and waited until there were “two sevens,” I named those strengths…
“Wow. You know when it’s time to wake up for the day. That shows you’re independent.”
“You waited until there were two sevens on your clock. You figured it out!”
“You slept all night in your own bed. That took a lot of self-control. Wow.”
One month later.
We stuck with it for one month, consistently returning him to bed if he woke up too early. Now, there is rarely a day when he gets out of bed before 7:00 am.
Some days I even have to wake him!
You can choose whatever wake up time works for you and your family. I’ve had several friends try this method, and gradually, little-by-little, they are seeing the same results with their kids!
(And psst…we also use these printable routine cards for smoother mornings and bedtimes in our home. Works like magic!)
Print this free toddler listening checklist.
This post comes with a free printable checklist to help with toddler listening. I always have the hardest time remembering these phrases. This printable simplifies it!
Here is a sneak preview…
Download Your Free Printable
- Download the checklist. You’ll get the printable, plus join 37,000+ parents who receive my weekly parenting tips and ideas!
- Print. Any paper will do the trick, but card stock
would be ideal. - Place it on your refrigerator. Check things off as you go and don’t forget a thing!
would be ideal.
I plan on trying this.
What are your suggestions for getting them to stay in bed throughout the night. After falling asleep at night, bedtime is 7:30, my son who is 4 gets out of bed multiple time a night starting between 11 and midnight. We will put him back in his bed only to have him come back out an hour later or so.etimes 10 min. Later. He started this at 3 and has slowly gotten worse.over the past year. We are so extremely tired and will be expecting a baby in 5 months. We desperately need help.
Hey Jenna! So I have a couple of posts about this that you can find here: https://themilitarywifeandmom.com/toddler-keeps-getting-out-of-bed/ and here: https://themilitarywifeandmom.com/toddler-tantrums-at-bedtime/. And then I also answered your question at the very end of my FB live today, which you can find here: https://www.facebook.com/themilitarywifeandmom/videos/1308200602569853/. I was losing the connection a bit at the end, so hopefully you are able to hear what I was saying 🙂
Lauren
Can you suggest anything for a kiddo who is 14 months and obviously cannot recognize numbers?
My daughters bedtime is 7:30pm and lately she has been waking up at 5:30am. We normally don’t get her until 6:30 (11 hours). I think only getting 10 hours of sleep at night for her age isn’t enough.
Sometimes she drifts back to sleep but for the most part she just lays there yelling until we come get her.
During the day, she takes 2 naps of 3 hours total.
Thanks for any advice!!
Hey Lauren! So 11 hours for a 14 months, plus 3 hours worth of naps is excellent! You are exactly where you should be. That’s around 14 hours per day. My daughter is the same age about and she sleeps the same amount except she does one nap per day for 2 hours and 12 hours at night. Your daughter is inching towards only needing one nap per day, and I’m guessing she is in the grey area, where one nap is too little and two naps are too many. So as you transition, you are going to see some early waking because she is rested and ready to rock and roll. One thing you could do is take her some quiet toys or even have quiet toys in her crib ready for her to play with in the am. My daughter plays for at least 30 minutes each morning and this has cut down on the screaming. One final thought (and you are probably already doing this!) is a good hearty snack before bedtime to keep those hunger pangs away in the early morning. Feel free to shoot me an email with more questions. Hope this helps!
Lauren
Please help us! Our daughter definitely falls under the strong-willed category. She simply ignores any colour clocks or digital clocks we have set up for her. Waking between 5 and 5:30am. Singing, humming, thrashing around in her bedroom, in and out of her room. She ignores the clocks and us tell her to stay in her room. We have been trying your method for over 6 months…no change. Utterly exhausted.
This is a great post! Waking up, can be really frustrating and it can affect the child’s health too. Sleeping well is always a learning process even for us, the adults, and sometimes it is more difficult for some kids than it is for others. One of my daughters just started waking up early. I will definitely use your technique. Thank you for sharing!
You are so welcome Lee! I hope it works for you too!
When my kids were younger we bought an alarm clock that lit up when it was “time to wake up” and we programmed it with the time. It was a lifesaver.
Really glad to have discovered your blog and this article. I wanted to ask – how old was your son when you implemented this? Thanks!!
Hi, tired momma here, How would I make a regular clock face (with the minute and hour hands) work? My 2.5 yr old hasn’t learnt her numbers yet.
When I was expecting my third child, my older two children had to start sharing (they’re 2 and 4). The younger one started to wake around 5am when given the freedom of his big boy bed and he woke my daughter, who proceeded to act like a bear most of the day. He got a Gro clock for his 2nd birthday and it has been amazing! His older sister has helped him recognize when he can get out of bed and they never come in our room before 7am now (which has helped a lot because we have a 3 week old baby sharing with us right now!).
Please help!! I’ve used this method for years and it worked for years but now all the sudden my 7 and 9 year old are waking up before 5am and won’t/can’t go back to sleep. They share a room and if the 7 year old wakes up first he’ll wake his big brother up right away. I can’t get either of them to stay quiet and go back to sleep. I can’t separate them because of space limitations. And if I put them to bed later (bedtime is usually between 7:30-8pm) they still wake up too early and they’re just more cranky. We’re all about to lose our minds!!
How do I follow your blog
Hi Lauren,
A frustrated dad here. My boy is having a big problem with sleep. He wasn’t the kind of kid that likes to sleeps a lot since birth. He is 5yo and me and my wife always have problems try to get him to sleep. He wakes up at 6am every morning. He has an afternoon nap routine last year but we do it the hard way – yelling and forcing him to sleep. He is just having too much energy that he will keeps talking when he tries to sleep. We have to keep shut him off every time and this is getting really tired for us. He normally to bed at 10pm and sometime 11pm! Thus, we stopped the sleep routine. Other problem arise when he doesn’t have an afternoon nap is that he gets really cranky in the evening. Even without a enough hours of sleep he still keeps talking and wants to read, play at 9pm. He only gets the idea of sleeping only we try to persuade him or keeps telling him to sleep.
He just doesn’t seems to know how to sleep by himself and this is really driving us nuts. Could you shine a little light on this?
Malcolm
Hi Malcolm
Sorry I see its about 8 months since you posted this… But if you haven’t won yet with your son, it might be because he has a melatonin deficiency. So much of what you said rang true for us. Our daughter who is five now barely slept the first 4 years of her life… It was like she didn’t know how to switch off, how to fall asleep. Wanted to keep playing etc. We tried everything from routine to weighted blankets and white noise and nothing worked. Eventually the professionals we were consulting recommended we try melatonin. If there is no deficiency it has no effect at all. But if there is……
It has worked like a dream. We give it to her around 6:30pm and she’s asleep by 7:30pm. She is a different happier calmer child and our lives have changed.
The stuff we use is Circadin. It’s pure melatonin.
I’ve no idea if that helps.
I hope you’re winning!
Blessings