My Kid Wakes up Too Early

At 4 he can grab a pop tart and watch cartoons for a bit, or play with his toys. He should be able to read the numbers on a digital clock. Get one of those and tell him you sleep until 7 unless there is an emergency.

At 4 mine started sleeping in on the weekends, by sleeping in I mean getting up at 7, 7:30, or as late as 8:15.

he knows his numbers and stays in bed (singing silly songs) until 7. Hubs gets up with him any time after 7. They watch cartoons do Legos and eat cereal dry on the sofa. They keep quiet till 10 when it is my wake up time.

Best
F. B.

I trained my daughters to not wake me up - I taught them how to get food to eat, what things they could do while I was still asleep, and then we practiced till they understood. It was great. We did have the rule that if it was dark they couldn't be up yet, nowadays there are clocks that you can buy that glow green when it's ok to get up, you set the time on it like an alarm clock. He's plenty old enough to do the morning stuff quietly without bothering you.

Kids like routine, their bodies like routine. That has both pros and cons.
I don't understand the idea that kids should just automatically adjust to a different sleep schedule for the convenience of the parent for two days only. That's absurd to me. My adult body and mind can enjoy sleeping in, but kids wake when they wake. We get them up earlier in the week so we can get them off to preschool or ourselves off to work-- they are already dealing with the adult schedule. Why expect them to cognitively understand this at four? I don't get that.

When my son was four and an early riser, I just got up with him. My husband and I took turns sleeping in. This worked well for us: one of us could be with Kiddo and the other could get a good sleep-in, knowing that Kiddo was safe and supervised. When he was older, he graduated to just laying in bed, reading books, until he got up to use the bathroom, we didn't really even hear him. As he got older, he started wanting to sleep in later because his body needed more rest.

This, like anything else, is just a phase of being a parent.

Back when I couldn't read clocks, I'd get up quietly, use the bathroom, then go downstairs and turn the tv on - I saw what tv test patterns looked like (this was the 60's - tv wasn't on all night - and they started their day with the national anthem).
Once the cartoons started - Mom would be up about 2 shows later.

Give it about 10 years and you won't be able to pry your teen out of bed.

It's not reasonable to expect your 4 year old to switch up his sleep schedule on weekends, and you'll be glad that he wakes easily at 6:30 next year when he starts school. You won't have the morning drama of dragging a sleepy kid out of bed every day. It's not that I'm not sympathetic - I am! I have an early riser too, and I'm not a morning person. But starting right around age 4, he learned to get up and quietly go and turn on the TV. He was allowed to watch TV until I got up a little later.

I just accepted one of us was going to have be an early riser when I had kids, so it was me. I figured those years wouldn't last too long.

All I did was let them come in our room, and we'd have the TV set for their morning show, and we had a little set of chairs for them at the end of our bed. My husband would sleep through and I'd be able to drift back again while they had their Saturday morning cartoons.

Sometimes I'd get up long enough to bring them up a tray of toast they would munch on and keep them happy for at least another hour. They loved it. Became the Saturday morning tradition around here.

Yeah I wish I could do a lot of things I used to do before I was a mom.
Is he a relatively mature/intelligent 4 year old? He should be able to get some cereal and turn on the TV and understand he can't leave the house.
Still, I never really "slept" when my young kids were awake before me, at least not well, so it was pretty much pointless. I just got up and had extra coffee.

He's old enough to turn on the TV or play on a tablet. No reason you can't stay in bed an extra hour while he plays. If he's hungry, make Cheerios available that he can eat dry while watching. Or breakfast bars, already cut up fruit or grapes he can grab out of the frig.

my 3 and 5 yr olds do this to us. we let them stay up an extra half hour and i have ok to eat for breakfast stuff within easy reach for them. my 5 yr old can and usually does put on a movie for the 2 of them to watch. sometimes they have a hard time staying outta trouble so i move to the couch and snooz a bit there where i can hear better and also see better what they are doing.

Mine are early risers also - 6-6:30am. My 9 year old got this
http://www.amazon.com/Wake-Childrens-Alarm-Clock-Nightlig...
when he was 3 1/2 - we set it for 6:30am - which is when he had to get up for preschool (we had him in preschool near our work so he had to commute with us). If your kid has to go to preschool / daycare and that is when you normally wake up - you can not expect them to then sleep late on the weekends. It is not good for us and their bodies know better. Plus when he goes to school and has to get up you will be grateful.

Sorry mama but I was going to say the same as others. No more sleeping in. Lol. I always say they don't know or care it's the wknd and time to sleep! My son's six now but from your kids age up to mine I have always said I need you to play quietly until mommy gets up. I might get to 7:30-8 in those years. Now I get to about 8:30. No rest for the weary!

Mine was the same. She knew how to turn the tv on and I taught her how to use the dvd. I used different colored fingernail polish for play and some other button I forgot. She's almost 9 so I'm experiencing some memory lapse. :) I had breakfast bars and fruit on the counter and a capri sun in the fridge. She felt like a big girl doing everything herself so she never woke me up.

It depends on the 4 year old. Some of them can get up, pour some cereal (have it on the table the night before) and play or watch tv quietly while unsupervised. Others would definitely get into trouble left to their own devices.

If your son is the first type, tell him it's okay to be up as long as is quiet, and go over what he may and may not do. If he is the second type, you will not have the luxury of sleeping in on weekends for awhile.

At that age I made sure the kids new how to turn the tv on and get to the cartoon channels. They got up, grabbed a snack and quietly watched tv until we got up.

It's normal. Have him read, color or play quietly until first number is a 7.

I took post its and flagged the hour. I drew a "big hand" on one and a skinny "little hand" on the other and placed them accordingly. When the clock matched, she could wake us up. Other people use a colored clock face or put a post it on a digital clock so only the hour shows and when the kid matches the (example) 7 on the paper with the 7 on the clock he can get you up.

When my son was that age I told him teenagers sleep till noon. Suddenly he wanted to sleep later. But really, I don't ever expect as a parent to be able to sleep much later than 6 or 7 anymore in life. There is just too much to do and I like to get up before the kids and have coffee anyway.

The light up alarm clock was a life saver for my kids.
You set the time, and it lights up when it's OK for them to get out of bed. There are a couple of different types, just check Amazon.

My kids would crawl into bed with me and then I would turn on Daniel Tiger or some other kid show and let them watch that while I grabbed another 20 minutes or so.
It's hard!!

Keep them up later. So many parents put kids to be at 7pm or 8pm and expect kids to sleep 12 hours. Kids don't need that much sleep. When I was noticing the kids laid down and went to sleep around 9pm with no issues we watched to see what time they woke up naturally. 7-7:30am, almost like clockwork. So we moved towards a 9pm bedtime and it worked for us. Several of our friends had a 10pm bedtime and their kids all got up and either driven to school or picked up by the bus by 7:15/7:30am. No problems with just 10 hours of sleep.

So I suggest that you consider you might be putting them to bed too early. Kids only need the amount of sleep they need. If you put them to bed at 7 you can expect them to be up by 6am at the latest and probably before that. If you do 8pm then I'd expect the kids to be awake by 6am or 7am at the latest.

Kids only need a certain amount of sleep and every person is different.

Blackout curtains and one of those clocks that has a sleeping bunny(if lit, he stays in bed and if awake bunny is lit, he can get up) you set the time.
My 4 year old knows how to turn on the t.v., so thats what he does when he wakes up. I usually find him in his chair watching when I get up, he no longer comes and gets me or calls out for me when he wakes. He usually wakes between 7 and 8 am anyway, and I am usually awake, but not out of bed necessarily.

If he is hungry when he gets up, you just need to get up yourself and feed him. If he is not hungry he can certainly stay in his room and look at books or play with his toys.

Sorry, you are up at 6:30 am until further notice. Take a nap when he does.

You are going to have to train your body to be on his schedule so that all is well. My two were up at 5:30 am every morning. They did play a bit in their room with the toys and such but sleep in days came much later. The other thing is that they don't know the days of the week at that age and it is just another day to them. Once school starts it makes a bit of sense that the weekdays are different from the weekends.

The black out curtains might help but don't count on it. A clock with pictures for hands might work.

This too shall pass and you will be wishing for them to be this little again.

the other S.