Hi - i have a friend who has asked me to ask for advice on here as she doesnt have computer acess at the moment!
Basically her 4 year old son has started waking at 4am (ish - sometimes a bit earlier 3:30am, sometimes later at 4:30am) and he will not go back to sleep. He goes to bed at 7pm (same time as his sister who is 18 months younger than him) and he will go to sleep straight away, sleep all through night until he wakes at 4am! She has tried to restart the whole bedtime routine at 4am - ie, warm milky drink,story etc etc!! but this doesnt work… I have suggested that she tries to put him later at about 7:30-8pm he is maybeng his full amount of sleep between 7pm and 4am?? She is going to try this but does anyone have any other suggestions - has anyone else experiences this?? Its so hard for her as because of him waking at 4am, her and her little girl are both also awake from 4am - so theyre all shattered by teatime and my friend had a really hard job having to try and keep them awake at 5pm!!!
Try changing bed time to 9 pm. That would at least boost him to 6 pm if he’s got enough sleep after 9 hours.
Of course, all the kids tend to wake up at the same time. Soon as my little boy gets up, my girl is up right behind him.