Seems like alot of us with 6 or 7 year olds are having issues... My questions is: my 7 yo has been getting up VERY early over the past 4 months or so. I caught him the other morning going downstairs at 4:30 am.... and I know from the bright green glow of his glow-in-the-dark dinosaur that he had had his bedroom light on for some time before that. Now, this kid has never needed alot of sleep - his behaviour is pretty good, and he goes right to sleep when he goes to bed at night, so that is not a problem. But I am worried that this type of behavior is probably affecting his performance at school. He is having some trouble learning to read, and is getting extra help in that area. Socially he is doing great.

I have problems with early morning wakefulness myself, and dealing with a bit of anxiety. I guess that is one thing I am wondering about, whether this behaviour in a 7 year old could be related to anxiety/mild depression (although he does tend to be a "worrier", he doesn't seem depressed or overly anxious in any other way). Or is this just a case of the kid wanting to get as much play time into the day as he can scrounge? :rolleyes: We've set a new rule that he isn't allowed out of his room before 7 am, but I still think he is rising early and just playing in his room.

Comments??

I don't have a grade-schooler (a fact that I am VERY happy about given all of the recent posting...in fact I am scared out of my mind to have a grade-schooler so this is 100% amateur advice...) but I remember at that age waking up really early so that I could read my books. My mom would make me go to bed even though I wasn't really ready...and I was so interested in my book that I would wake up early (no alarm of course) in order to finish it. I can't remember anything else going on at the time...

I think that if he seems OK behavior wise (no signs of anything wrong or any new anxieties) and is doing OK in school I wouldn't worry too much about it. You could also try moving his bedtime back a little bit in order to keep him asleep longer (not sure if it will work, just a thought!).

We have struggled with this at times with our 6 year old. When he started a new school this fall, he was up about 4:30 for awhile, and up before 6 for months. It really stank. His behavior deteriorates markedly when he is tired, and he WAS tired. We tried all kinds of things to deal with it, and we were SO relieved when it finally ended. :p We tried putting him to bed a bit earlier. We talked to him endlessly about it and how important it was to sleep later. We forbade him from TV and GameBoy and anything else we thought might be getting him excited to be up early until after 7. (These things aren't allowed much anyway, but briefly we had allowed GameBoy when he was up too early and we regretted it.) We pointed out all sorts of things we couldn't do with him in the evenings because we had to put him to bed so early without fail every day. We tried to talk to him about relaxation things to try to go back to sleep, etc.
But it felt like it went on forever...

I do think he was a bit anxious starting new school. Not depressed. For our son the issue is behavior, but I certainly could imagine it affecting learning instead.

Just last week he had a cough that woke him at 4:30, and he hasn't ever in his life been able to go back to sleep once he is truly up after that time so he was up. :rolleyes: This happened one more day and the next time I gave him a narcotic cough syrup at 3:30 when he had a coughing fit and since then he is back getting up near 7. Whew!!

Good luck!!!

My 7 yo son does this too sometimes. Usually to read. Sometimes it's a nightmare. We also made the rule that he couldn't get up before 7, and keep the GameBoy out of the room so he can't do that if he wakes early. It hasn't happened in a few months. Maybe it's just a phase he's going through?

Thanks for your replies... I guess I shouldn't worry so much :rolleyes: .

Thanks, Mimi

you all are just trying to make me grateful (!) that I have a son who says "I'm a night person" and sometimes has to be physically lifted out of bed sometimes to get him up :rotfl:

I'm with rs4 on this one, for my 5yo daughter, at least - most every day has to be carried out of bed while she screams and kicks; after 5-10min of cuddling downstairs then she's OK.