how do i get my 3yr old to sleep to 7am at least?

[saif]

Please any ideas. She wakes up now between 6am to 6.30am it ends up being a very, very long day for her and for us. She then gets grizzly during the day because she has had not enough sleep. She has dropped her day time naps now but every so often she does have a nap just after lunch for an hour or so?
Is there a special clock i could buy? Any ideas please?

[rony]

I think some kids are just programmed to wake early so I actually don't think there's much you can do.

DS1 could go to bed at 7:30pm or midnight and he will still wake at 5:30- 6am. He is 7 now but has always been the same. The only way to make him get a decent sleep is to make sure he is in bed at a reasonable hour.

If she is grumpy I would suggest making an earlier bedtime for both her and yourself so you both get a decent sleep.

[baba]

Yeah, you could buy a clock and she might be old enough for it to work. "Work" would be defined as staying in her room/bed until 7am, though, not necessarily sleeping longer - although after a (long) while she may just get used to sleeping longer. I do agree that some people (children included) seem to be naturally earlier risers, but it's part nature part nurture. (And it takes a lot of nurture to bend nature even a little bit.)

I would think about a rest period during her previous nap time (a bit of down time in her room, either alone or with you reading books depending on how she takes to it). I would also try and set bed time earlier and see what happens (I don't think that will happen overnight necessarily either, but she may adjust more readily to an earlier bedtime if she's a morning person). If the afternoon nap is altering her bedtime by more than a fraction, I would also consider not letting her sleep so that bedtime each night is more or less consistent (if it's the same no matter what, definitely let her nap if she's falling asleep - you could also try waking her after only half an hour as a compromise if neither extreme work).

[khassa]

As a child I use to sleep in the day time and use to wake up at night.But with the passage of time passing things change accordingly.You should get a clock first and then divide your time accordingly as child sleep once they get milk.So you have to manage things in such a way that you feed your child accordingly

[girl]

My eldest wakes up at 6am too and I figured that no matter what I do she still wakes up at that time. There have been times when due to circumstances, she went to bed really late like 11pm. I always thought she was going to wake up later but NO, she would still wake up at 6am and then make up for the lost sleep during her afternoon nap.