4 Year Old Waking up at 5Am

Maybe try an earlier bedtime, believe it or not, an overly tired child won't sleep but be disrupted sleep and not sleep well. If they are tired at bedtime it backfires. My son is the same age and same way , not matter what time he goes to bed he wakes the same time. However my son is four and is in bed by 7:15, sleeps until 7:00 am. On non school nights I let him make it to 7:45-8:00 sometimes, however he is still up at 7am so I need to make sure he is well rested and gets his sleep. Even missing that 45 minutes can cause him to be a grump the next day.

Try 30 to 45 minutes earlier, see if that extra helps him get the rest he needs. Also don't get up unless you have to. At 4, he needs to be able to get back to sleep.
Also, what helps with my son is a bedtime bowl of cereal, piece of toast before brushing teeth. He is typically really hungry after sleeping 11 or so hours so I found if he has a snack close to bedtime, something healthy and filling he sleeps in better.

My kids adjust sleep patterns on occassions, get blackout shades if he is trying to wake with the sun. Just don't go into him.
If he gets in a habit of waking you going in there, giving him a drink he will not learn to fall back to sleep himself. Just remind him if he wakes up and you are still asleep HE MUST stay in bed unless he just needs to pee and then must go back to bed. Try hard not to go in to his room if you don't have to.

I see that someone else already suggested this but my daughter had the same issue until we got her an alarm clock. We set it for 6:30 and tell her that she has to stay in her room (or at least out of ours!) until her alarm goes off. It has helped us tremendously. She is now 6 and we still use the alarm clock as a tool to keep her on a schedule. Good Luck!

Maybe this sounds too simple, or you've already thought of it, but I've found that when my little guy wakes up that early, he usually has to go to the bathroom. Sometimes it seems that he's having a nightmare, but he really has to go to the bathroom. Just a thought.

I faced the same problem with my 4 year old. Then I read about the BabyZoo Sleeptrainer, teaching children when to stay in bed. (www.mybabyzoo.com) I have been using it for a few months already and it really works. My daughter now stays in bed until 'the monkey wakes up'.

i totally know how you feel, with the son and the husband. i wondered if one of my neighbors was leaving or coming home from work at 4am, waking my son with the noise every day. i still don't know why he was waking, but it eventually stopped. what i did in the mean time was to set up some rules for my son if he wakes up too early.
1. he must first go to the bathroom.
2. there are specific snacks he can get on his own and go back to bed until i get up.
3. he may play music or a book on tape at a specific volume in his room to help him go back to sleep.
4. he may read books in bed until i get up
5. he is not allowed to wake anyone but me. (this was both to keep him from waking his brother and to avoid my husband's temper blowout at a time when he was working nights and being woken early was not something he handled well).
earplugs for my husband were also helpful.
my son enjoyed the independence and the crying stopped (maybe because he knew he could do something about waking up when i wasn't already there for him?). he started going back to sleep on his own and eventually he stopped waking too early and we all slept again.
good luck!

This is just a thought... My oldest was waking up a lot at night for a long time, she used to go to bed at about 9 or 9:30. She would get up earlier cause she would wake up and it would be light out, and also get up several times a night with either nightmares or something, who knows what.

Anyway, I read in a parenting magazine that sleep begets sleep. If he is up that early everyday I'm sure he's over tired and that never lets kids sleep well. A small nap might be in order. He's old enough that you can explain that it is important to get sleep and a nap is a good thing. Can say things like "we don't want to be grumpy do we?" or "even mommy and daddy like to take naps when we can and we feel much better after we do". Give him some toys in the bed and have him play by himself in his room on his bed and try to make it as dark as possible and maybe some white noise and he will probably fall asleep. I t may not need to be a big nap, 30 to 45 mins in all. Just a recharge.

Then I started moving her bedtime back to an earlier time little by little and start putting her to bed around eight and after a bit she started sleeping better. The other thing was that after she potty trained at nightime, her body would know it needed to relieve itself, but couldn't wake up enough to do it, so she would wake up crying. So we started to take her to the potty and she would go and was able to go right back to sleep. My nephew still has issues with that and he's almost 10. Just sound sleepers. Anyway, Hope this helps, I'm sure you'll get all sorts of advice, I just thought I would share... good luck!!!

My oldest son has always been an early riser too. What helped us (I was also pregnant around the time he was 4 and needed sleep!) was as soon as he learned his number, we put a digital clock in his room and told him he could wake us up when the first number was a 6. Sometimes I would go in there and find he fell back asleep while playing on the floor, but most of the time he'd come in and get us a little after 6. I hope this gets better for you! I know how hard that first trimester can be with no sleep! If you need anymore help, I am a birth doula in Denver and would be happy to talk to you some more. Take care!

Does he have a night light? Could he be scared of the dark. The little ones imaginations grow immensely at this age. My son, now 13 always gets up around five or five-thirty. He's always been an early riser. Even when he was 18 months. It was h*** o* us. I'd see about getting him a lamp, sometimes the night lights just aren't enough and see if that helps. Can you teach him to be quiet in the morning and just play or is the lack of sleep causing more problems? My son never had any problems, just started his day out early. Good luck!!!