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Are your kids waking too early? Do you wish your children would sleep in just a little later? I understand completely! When your kids are waking too early in the morning, it can make them tired, and cranky and they don’t feel their best. Overall, tired kids are just not very happy kids. (Not much different from tired adults)
When our kids were young, I would put our kids to bed at 7:00. I wanted them to get a full 10-12 hours of sleep (because it helps them to be happier & healthier), but in doing so, our routine has taught them to sleep later naturally.
Update: This post was written several years ago, but it is always one of the most asked questions that I receive, so I wanted to share it again today. Our kids have continued to sleep until 7:00 (or later) thanks to this little trick. It has helped to give our kids the rest that they need (and deserve). ♥
Sleep is Essential for Children
Yes, getting a good night’s sleep is essential, so teaching our kids great wake & sleep patterns will benefit your child greatly. It will help their physical health, emotional health, and mental health.
Even going to sleep at the same time every night has an enormous impact on our kids’ educational, social, mental, and physical health.
Getting enough sleep = healthier child… better ability to stay focused, happier children… there are so many benefits to getting enough sleep. If a child wakes in the middle of the night or too early in the morning, it can cause your child to be tired, foggy, and grumpy in the day.
We have four kids and let me tell you; our kids had started waking up EARLY! Two of our kids were very early risers and I just wanted them to sleep longer so they could have the rest they needed. They were exhausted from the minute that they woke up, yet they were still waking up early.
Once I taught them how to sleep long enough to get the rest that they needed, they felt better.
Waking too early?
Is your child waking too early? You can help them learn how to sleep later.
I knew that I had to do something, many years ago, when our older kids were waking too early – around 5:00 am and 5:30 in the morning.
It was still dark outside, they were waking their siblings, causing our morning routine to begin much sooner, leaving them exhausted in the middle of the day. Naptime often came in the late morning, leaving the kids requiring a two-hour nap every day
Plus, when kids are waking too early it can cause them to be overtired by bedtime. This makes it harder for them to doze off at night. Falling asleep when you are TOO tired is just as bad as trying to fall asleep when you aren’t sleepy at all.
Bottom Line: Kids need to get plenty of sleep.
PS- our family’s normal wake-up time is at 7:00 am. I don’t consider 7:00 to be early, but 5:00 is a little out of my comfort zone. 😉
How Much Sleep Does A Child Need?
As you can see from the chart below…
Do you want a copy of this chart? I’d be happy to mail you a copy to download- just click here to send me your e-mail. Thanks!
How the sleep time charts work:
Sleep charts are simply to be used as a reference. They may not work for your family, but they are often based on experience or studies, so I usually like to try to understand them.
I liked this sleep chart (below) shared by Wilson Elementary School. If the child wakes up at a particular time, they need to go to bed at the time below that time, depending on their age.
So, according to the chart, a five-year-old would need to go to bed by 6:45 if they had to be up at 6:00)
I’d adjust it a bit, to fit your family’s schedule, but it does show that kids need a lot of sleep… and to that point, I agree.
How to help your child begin to change their “body clock”
To help our kids learn good sleep habits, we came up with this idea, and I have shared it with friends and family, and they do it, too.
It works!
We finally figured out a way to keep our kids in bed longer (giving them the chance to get enough sleep for their bodies and minds)
This idea is to naturally set our children’s internal clocks to a time that is more suited to their schedule (with preschool and grade school). It allows their bodies to sleep until it is time to wake up.
Before you begin: Determine a wake-up time for your child & practice it.
Figure out what time your child will go to bed each night and what time you’d like them to wake up. Remember that going to bed at the same time every night is so important for their health and behavior!
After you determine an appropriate wake-up time, you need to practice that number with your kids.
- If you want them to get up at 7:00, show them the number 7.
- Show it to them on a piece of paper.
- Show it to them on their clock so that they will recognize that number.
- Show it to them in books.
- Have them practice writing it.
- Talk to your child about what happens in the morning… “After you are done sleeping through the night and you are ready to wake up, you will look at the clock and see what time it is.” (more details below)
Steps to help your child sleep later:
Materials that you need:
- A digital clock
- A piece of paper (I use index cards. You can use anything!)
- Tape
- Marker or crayon
What to do next: The step-by-step way to teach your kids to sleep later.
- STEP ONE: WRITE JUST THE HOUR of the time you want the kids to come out of bed on your piece of paper.
- Write the number big (a little bigger than the number on the clock).
- Examples: 6:00? Write 6
7:00? Write 7. (This is our ‘allowed out of bed’ time)
8:00? Write 8.
.. - STEP TWO: Tape that paper over the MINUTES on your digital clock, so that all that you are left seeing is the hour and the paper.
Here is what it looks like (sorry that my time was 4:00 when I took it )
- Show your kids when the number on the clock (the hour) matches the number on their paper, they can come out of bed.
- Tip: If your child is going to share a room with another sibling, be sure that both children can see the clock from their beds.
Here is a close-up of our clock:
Why Do I Not Allow Them to Come Out of Bed Earlier?
I do not let our kids get out of bed before 7:00, for safety reasons. I don’t want them in their rooms playing when I do not know about it. I want them in their beds.
(I made this rule after I had read this heart-breaking story, last year, about the little girl that died when her dresser fell on top of her while her parents were asleep in their room- it was one of those VERY HEAVY dresser/changing tables that everyone has. Her mom didn’t realize it until she (the mom) woke up for the day.
Her story has opened my eyes to the fact that dangers lurk where you don’t expect them, even with furniture that you would NEVER expect to fall over… same with toys…. you just never know which ones have hidden dangers, even if you don’t expect it).
For that reason, I don’t want our kids awake without me knowing.
Do Kids Have an Internal Alarm?
I have read multiple studies suggesting that there are reasons that our bodies tend to wake us up, but oftentimes our bodies get out of sync. Science News says: “Just like an alarm clock, the body’s internal clock can be reset.”
I believe this to be true, as well. After we implemented the 7:00 wake time and our children practiced it, they began sleeping later. Now, when I am up in the morning and I check on them before 7:00 am, they are all still sound asleep.
Around 7:00-7:30, they begin to naturally awaken, thanks to resetting their internal alarms.
TIP: I should remind you that I didn’t start this until our kids were almost THREE YEARS OLD and could understand it.
How to Teach Kids to Sleep Later:
- When they come out of their room the first few days early (and they will), just take them back to bed and say “You can come out at 7:00 when the number of the clock matches. Are they the same now? Ok, sweetheart- go back to bed.” (put them back into bed).
. - Now what you will want to do is make sure that when it DOES turn seven, you go in and say “Ok! It’s time to come out now! It’s 7:00!! Great job!” Do this for over a week, until they get it.
. - As with anything, you need to remember that you have to TEACH your kids this new rule. You can not expect them to sleep until 7:00 tomorrow, just because you started this today. Give it a week or two, and you will have them sleeping later.
- When you tuck your kids in at night & lie down with them, talk about the morning and what it will look like. Talk about what number they will see before they get out of bed.
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Tips:
1. Take it slowly. If your child has been getting up at 5, don’t expect him/her to sleep until 7. You have to do this slowly. I would change the clock for this, too, so that at the real 5:30 (first few days) their clock would say 7 (or your goal hour).
I would move it every few days over a few weeks until they were waking up at 7:00. (Just my two cents)
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2. Another completely different idea that a friend on Facebook gave me is to have your lamp set to a timer (like the kind that you get when you are going on vacation) and have it turn on at a specific time (example: 7:00 am). When the light goes on, they can get out of bed.
3. Another idea: you could try an alarm clock like this one that I found on Amazon with my affiliate link: (The light is red when they need to stay in bed and green when they can come out)
Good luck!
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My issue. And it’s not with this. I love this. BUT, I think of all those little tots in school. Say they have to leave the house at 7 or 7:30 am to get to school on time. In this instance we’ll have the mom stay at home. So Mom is at school at 3pm to pick up her ‘tot’. If the kid needs a full twelve hours of sleep and they have to get up by 6 or 6:30am to get ready on time, then that would mean they would need to be in bed and falling asleep by 6pm. That leaves them less than three hours to eat supper, do homework, play with the family, and MAYBE get to see Daddy if he comes home before then. I believe Daddy time is soooo important and this would mean that the kid just wouldn’t get any. Our system is messed up. If our kids really do need THAT much sleep, then why are they at school for that long? Most families have both parents working anyways. I work part-time and am able to bring my baby to work with me. I work in the childcare area at a gym during the day. But the evening girls tell me that many of the kids will come in at 7pm or later and are complaining that they are hungry because they STILL hadn’t eaten supper yet. Why? Because Mom and Dad aren’t able to get them after work until after 5 o’clock. Then they need to go pick their kids up. Then Mom and Dad decide to go get in their exercise for an hour. And then finally they go home. I imagine these kids are not getting to bed until 9 or 10. …I imagine 10 for many since our childcare area closes at 9pm and they will have kids all the way until closing time. I just can’t fathom what could be changed. In order to make everything work out, the family would need to live right by the school and work. Exercise on their lunch breaks. And eat supper before 4. But things don’t work like that. So what are people supposed to choose? Because SOMETHING is going to get sacrificed.
I’m sorry, I’m a new mom. My baby is 7 months old and I’m just trying to figure out how my husband and I will do things. I don’t plan on working more than my part-time two or three days a week, but I’m already sad that so many times my husband doesn’t get to see our baby, or may only get ten or so minutes with her before it’s time for her to go bed so that she can get enough sleep before getting her up to go to work the next day. What in the world are families supposed to do? I’m heartbroken.
Yeah, it’s hard. Our kids have to be up at 8:00 for school, so not too early. I can’t imagine if they had to be up earlier and go to bed sooner. That would be hard.
Just remember (for you) that it will be quality over quantity for your husband. My brother & his wife work and only see their kids for about 2-3 hours a night, but on the weekends and on those nights, they are the best parents. Playing games, going swimming, reading books, building train sets. Their kids will have awesome memories.
Question for you. My daughter is 7 and we have a time set that she can’t down till, however, she’ll wake up at 6:30 and then just go up and down the stairs till it’s time for to wake up… She says its for the bathroom but…. How do I get her to understand that she needs to go back to bed and stay there plus how do you know that your kids are actually staying in their beds??
Our son wakes up at 6:30 to use the bathroom, but he goes back to bed. Sometimes he falls asleep, sometimes he just stays in his bed and thinks. He is 9 now, so I will start letting him read on the weekends and this summer if he wakes up this early. 🙂 (not on school days or he will start waking earlier & earlier)
I wish this worked for my kids. My almost 7 year doesn’t sleep past 5am she’s just an early riser. I’m up when she’s up so its not an issue. I wish my body clock let me sleep in til 7 o’clock but I can’t seems like such a waste of 2 hours
haha!! I am awful the other way- I go to bed around 1:00 or 2:00 am, so sleeping until 7 is great for me… that’s when they get up now. Usually our 3 younger ones have to be woken up at 8:00 now, but I”m so used to getting up at 7 with our first that I just get up then.
I discovered this accidentally. Boo kept waking at the same time and one morning I grumpily asked Boo to sleep in till a certain time. It stuck. I discovered Boo was looking at the clock at every waking, and waiting for a number that had been determined by Boo’s own deduction. I had just corrected the time in Boo’s language.
Funny how the sleep issues all resolved suddenly. We are approaching Boo’s fourth birthday.
Within the same recent 2 week span, Boo is finally fully weaned,
learned to fall asleep alone (“now go write down that story, mommy”)
and goes back to sleep at night till the clock says the wakeup time.
Thank you for this great post. I will remember it if my little one (16 months) is old enough to understand.
That’s great if your children agree and hop right back in to bed and quietly wait until they are “allowed” to get up…but what do you do when they refuse and scream and bang on the bedroom door and wake up the entire house? This article is ridiculous.
My little one is only two, and lucky me, she sleeps through the night! However, I do wish she would sleep in later. A lot of people tell me, “Keep her up later!” That seriously never works. She may be too young to try this, but she is learning her numbers, so I look forward to trying this little trick in the future!
Hi. Unfortunately that idea really doesn’t give my daughter more sleep because she will still wake up early and just play in bed (she has a great imagination). Any ideas on how to actually get them to sleep that last hour or so?
Thanks.
How are you getting your child to stay in their bed though? I can tell her to- I can take her in there but unless I physically hold her…I can’t make her.
I can bribe or coax her- but she is very strong willed and I can’t seem to find a way to get her to stay in there. Today I held her kicking and screaming and trying to beat the day lights out of me from 5am – 6am. Soooo I’m not theoretically saying I can’t, I actually can’t without sitting on her.
I know it’s an obedience thing…but, still- I don’t know what to do.
I have a post about that – https://www.yourmodernfamily.com/child-in-bed/
My daughter wakes up by 7:30 but she doesn’t go to bed early she is up until 10 PM can you help with that
All that I can say is that our kids would do that if they could. Our 8 year old would be happy to stay up as late as can be. We just do lights out by 8:00 in his room. He reads for 20 minutes before bed. He just doesn’t get a choice. I know that sounds so “Do it this way”, but I’m not trying to say that. 🙂 It is just that we have had to do it like that or he will not get enough sleep and will wake up grumpy. It’s better when he gets enough rest. 🙂
Hi my little girl is 21 months old has 45-60 min nap in the day, and is in bed by 7pm but always wakes up between 4.30 and 5am screaming for us, she is alway so tried in the morning and moody. Any ideas we could try as I don’t think she would understand the clock?^
I would try the one in there that changes colors. Do you think that would work? If not, I would just keep putting her back to bed. It is really hard, but one of our kids went through this, too.
I will give it try and see, I read the blog about waking during the night and tried the technique of distributing her sleep without waking and for the first time in weeks she slept till 5.30 woohoo, so fingers crossed a mixture of the two will help. We have tried the putting back to bed if she wakes before 4.30 it works, anything after that time she shouts and bangs her feet on the bed, very loud which then wakes my 5 year old so then he is very tried. ☺ thank you for advice.
wow, great article! My 5 year old was always waking up because he was cold and did not like wearing heavy pjs. I found this great product to help keep his blankets on at night — bedbelts.com. Works so well and he gets up a whole lot less often now.
Thank you for the digital click trick!!! Our previous 3 year old sleeping in child dtarted waking at 5 and we had success on the first night! Let’s hope it continues! Glad I didn’t spend money on an expensive sleep training clock!!! Thanks again.
Kate in Australia
I loved the part about moving the time on the clock to get their internal clocks to adapt. It reminded me of a bed wetting problem my granddaughter had. I determined what time of night she was wetting by going in every 15 to 30 min. After she was asleep. I found it was only a couple of hrs after she was asleep. Even though she had gone potty just before bed! I went in the first couple of nights after that about 30 minutes before she had wet and got her up to go to the bathroom. She stayed dry all night after that. Then I began moving the time out by 30 minutes every night until she no longer had a problem. It was so worth the effort as she was 6 yrs old when she came to live with us.
This is such a great idea! I am so glad I found this article. My four – soon to be five – years old son still wakes me up at night. We didn’t do sleep training or try to ignore him at night when he was a little baby. I would always come to him whenever he needed me. But it starts to get frustrating because I couldn’t have a good night sleep. I will definitely try this.