Do You Have an Early Riser?

My Daily Reality

By 11:30, I am finally done with all of my evening chores and work that has to get done AFTER the kids are in bed! I think, “yes, I can get at least 7 hours of sleep!” At 4:15 am, in my exhausted stupor, I wake to my sweet girl telling me she is “full of energy.” Five hours of sleep just doesn’t do it for me! You? I am sure many of you have had a very similar scenario in your early mornings! Isn’t there any way to keep them in bed (or at least from waking everyone up)?

Helpful Strategies

I have two kids who wake me unacceptably early in the morning. We found success combining some strategies with a secret weapon, the Sleep Training Clock. Review this post to understand how to use the sleep clock and which ones I think are best. This strategy is not necessarily a quick fix, but it will work if you are patient and appropriately Choose the Goals and Choose the Motivator! See the posts on goals and motivators for ideas and strategies for these portions of this behavior intervention. After choosing your goal and reward, define for your child the exact initial goal and discuss how they can earn their reward.

Be very specific in defining “success”. Do they get any Sleep Passes? How many can they use? What will the clock do when they can get out of bed? What if they get out of bed once, but go back by themselves? May they go to the restroom during the night? May they get water after going to bed? Try to imagine every scenario that could become an excuse.

Now, start setting the wake time on the Sleep Training Clock for a few minutes before they generally wake (yes that meant 4:10 for us!). You decide whether to tell your child what time you are setting the clock. One of mine is up for the challenge and pays hawk like attention, so I could not “fool” her. The other I can’t tell (and she can’t tell time) because she will perseverate and worry about it all night. You know your child best! Be flexible.

Setting the clock to “wake up” at about the same time as they usually wake up, allows them to have immediate success because when they normally get up, the timer’s light is and they can get up anyway. After a few celebrations and rewards are earned, move the wake time to 10 minutes later. After a few more successes, 10 more minutes. And so on every 5-10 days until you reach the preferred time – for us, 6:00. Make sure the child is consistently succeeding at any given time before moving to a later time or they will start to fail and give up. If you get to a time that they are consistently failing, move the time back 10-20 minutes for a while until they are consistently successful. Then start over.

It is also crucial that you pair this strategy with a highly preferred motivator or reward (Choosing a Motivator)! You will also want to choose whether the motivator is an Instant or Earned Reward. There are tons of ideas for motivators and earnings on the Resource page.

Initially, our daughter needed to know that she would be instantly rewarded if she stayed in bed. No earning over time, just immediate rewards. So, together, we chose something “collectible” that she could choose from. I bought a dollhouse with some dolls, furniture, and all of the accompaniments. I put all of the dollhouse pieces into a large glass jar on the floor of the dining room next to the dollhouse. She could not play with them, but she could look at them whenever she wanted. By the way, she did not have to earn the dollhouse itself, that was a given.

When she got up, she came downstairs to me and told me whether she waited for the light or not. She often came down before the light and said one of two things, “I am full of energy,” or “I tried my best.” If she went back to her bed alone, she could still earn her reward. If not, she could not get it that day.

For several weeks, if she was successful, she got to pick one small item out of the dollhouse jar to put in the dollhouse that day. I would take time to excitedly play with her with the new item several times that day and make it a big deal. Before bedtime, we would often play with the doll items she had chosen thus far and talk about which items would be fun to have next to get her excited about earning the next one. Right before bed, I would remind her of what she was hoping to choose the next day if she waits for the sleep light.

Eventually, we got to where she was earning larger items for sleeping several days in a row. Initially, I would let her choose a small item for one night’s sleep or a larger item for several successful nights sleep. She realized that earning a larger item was fun and wanted to “earn” over time. Generally, we are now exclusively earning items over time. The larger the item, the longer it takes to earn it. I have found with her that 10 days is her maximum attention span.

I now get up in the morning before 6:00 only if I choose to go running that early. My kids are all sleeping until 6:00 or later consistently and I am able to either sleep or get some exercise!