Morning wake time for 8yr old

What time is too early for a child to be waking in the morning? My oldest son is turning 9 next week, he has always been a fantastic sleeper, sleeping on average 12hr a night since 4 months of age. As he has gotten older, we have allowed later bedtimes, currently he goes to bed at 7.30 and can read til lights out at 8pm. The problem is, lately he's been waking at 5am!!! It's crazy! He's so grumpy and irritable by the end of the day, but seems to not be able to return to sleep once he wakes in the morning. Has anyone got some ideas on what we can do to help him get back to sleep in the morning? We are ok if he's up at 6.30am, but any earlier affects his behaviour :/

No ideas here sorry. My oldest will be 7 in January and wakes at 5am every morning. Will not sleep in ever!!

We make him go to bed earlier, so at least he gets about 10 or 11 hours sleep. We went out the other night and the kids didn't get to sleep until 9pm - we thought yippeeee they'll sleep in, but nope ds was still up at 5.

I'm in the same boat as Arimeh. Mine is 7.5 and has always been an early riser. SHe just gets up and potters around quietly. Has done so since she was 3. She goes to bed with the little kids at 6-6.30. I don't care if she doesn't go straight to sleep, as long as she's 'resting', but usually she does go to sleep pretty quickly.

Lol, ok, at least we're not the only ones in this boat haha! I just had my sister & her two kids stay with us and she was going on about how it's detrimental to his health to be waking so early etc.. Kind of made me nervous. Her kids aren't perfect, but did I tell her? No! Grrr family dynamics!

Nope...between Arimeh and myself we have two highly intelligent cookies and I can assure you it won't stunt their growth either as my 7yo is as tall as your average 10yo and then some.

Are you some where that has day light saving? My two have started to wake earlier and earlier. I hoping they will start to sleep longer with the change over to day light saving.

It is starting to get light earlier...block out blinds? Or, an earlier bedtime... :(

I was thinking blockout blinds or curtains too. When I was that age I was always up with the sun. In summer that often meant 4.30am :o My parents never did the blockout out blinds. The first time I stayed at someone's place who had block out curtains, I slept in until 9am :o. By that time I was 21 lol. That is a lot of years of lost sleep.

Glorious, unfortunately I'm not in a daylight saving state :( honestly, WA is sooooo silly! Really would love my kids to sleep longer in the mornings lol. We are currently renting, so I can't change the current crappy blinds they have, but I can blu-tack up some aluminium foil which may help... It just makes the room so dark during the day though :/ worth the pay off I guess?

Sadly my daughter is the same, no matter what time we put her to bed it's 5:30 wake up. I have told her that she needs to be quiet until 6am so she usually plays or reads or colours in. anything thats quiet.

I think we naturally wake earlier in the warmer months because the sun comes up early. Block out curtains would be the best idea. Are you allowed to put a curtain rod up and have a set of curtains as well as blinds?

Tinks, I am off to their bedroom today to sort something out haha... I'm sitting in my room this morning planning what I can do here to block out the sun... They boys room currently has a blockout roller blind, but the sunlight gets in around the sides, so I may just put strips of alfoil around the edges of the window, so I can still let some natural light in through the centre of the window... Ah the things we do for another hour of sleep :)

You can buy curtain rods that just push into the window frame...kind of on a spring I guess. No marks and easily removed. We got cheapish kids blockout curtains from Spotlight on special - about $80 for two double sets I think. DS' wake ups went from 4:30am with the sun to just before 7am last Summer :)

I have two very early risers too, DS2 (who is almost 3) and DD (who will be 7 in April). The three of my kids are all in bed at 7pm, and DD and DS2 wake up at 5am. That is a sleep in from the 4am it was for a long time, until DLS started recently. DS1 is my best sleeper, and sleeps until about 6.30am.

My 8 yo goes to bed at 8 and wakes between 7.30 and 8.