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Honestly, locking him in his room is just going to rile him up further. It's not his fault he wakes up early. When our LO wakes up before we're ready to get up for the day we let her hang out in our bed and watch tv while we snooze. My friend who has an early riser leaves the ipad by her LO's bed and when she wakes up, she watches shows for a little while. Screen time isn't the best thing in the world, but it's better than him being in danger because he's jumping off furniture while he's locked in his room.

If you remove all his toys from his room and lock him in his room....what do you expect him to do? I don't mean to be snarky, but what is he suppose to do to entertain himself except be super loud to get your attention? Sounds like a power struggle and like he wants more of your attention - even if its negative attention. Maybe fix that root issue and the behavior will improve?? I dunno, sorry. Sounds miserable.

@Modern Daisy: Even my child is not that wilful and he still wakes up earlier when we have people over and asks very loudly for them all morning. So no help but commiseration. I kind figure it is part of visiting someone with a toddler.

@Modern Daisy: if he's overtired, maybe trying putting him to bed earlier--he may still wake up early, but he will be in a better mood. We went thru a long period of early wakeups around 14 months when he was too young to play by himself and too young for screentime and I just chugged coffee and tried to get through it.

My oldest has always been a bad sleeper complete with early wakeups, and still is. She's not particularly "willful" though, but when she's up she's up, and nothing we do will get her back down.

The thing that helped the most for me was realizing that she is low sleep needs and she can't go to bed at 7 unless I want her up at 5 every day (we had 5 am or 4:50 am wakeups every single day for 1.5 years). Finally after age 2, I realized that my baby does not follow baby sleep advice like "sleep begets sleep", and "early bed times mean baby sleeps in longer", and I moved her bed time back. She will never sleep more than 9.5-10 hours overnight. So now she goes to bed about 8:30 pm and wakes between 6 and 6:30 am.

We also have the Okay to Wake clock and that helps a *little*, but she still won't go back to sleep. She will sit with one of us in her room, playing with books or whatever--not shouting or anything, but not whispering either. Just normal awake behavior. We don't lock her in her room or expect her to manage herself in the morning because that just isn't our style of parenting. But I totally understand your frustration with sleep challenges, because we've been dealing with them with our girl for 3 years now.

When we have visitors (like in-laws), they get up with her early! And when we go visit inlaws, they get up with her! It gives us a break....so I don't have the same issues as you in that respect. She tends to get more excited when inlaws/my mom are visiting, so she will wake up even earllier than usual, but my mom and my FIL are early risers and they will just make coffee and get up with her--my FIL even takes her outside for walks, so MIL can sleep in a bit (they sleep in LOs room when they visit, since we are in a 2 bedroom).

The later bed time took a couple of weeks to take effect. The first few nights, she would go to bed later, but wake up at the same time at 5. But eventually she pushed it back to 6.

Honestly, I drove myself so crazy trying everything to get her sleep longer (Have you tried concentrated tart cherry juice, btw? It's supposed to help kids sleep longer), and in the end, I've found the best thing I can do is regulate my own behaviors expecting that early wakeup---my husband and I try to go to bed earlier than we used to; he and I take turns waking up with her; he and I switch off who does the baby's overnight wakeups and who does the older LOs early wakeup, we each get 1 day to sleep in on weekends, etc.

Sorry. I understand the frustration. Bad sleepers really wear parents out. I have felt it every day of the last years. =/

I think you have to figure out a way to make getting up less appealing for him than staying in his room. We had a period of a few days when DS was getting up at 5 (when he normally wakes after 7) and the first time DH got up and started playing with him. I was like "Oh Hell No."

Does he ever fall back to sleep? With DS I know he's tired and he's not ready to get up for the day. So he could either come in our bed and be quiet, or he could go back to his room. After we started locking the door (I know you said you do this) he just went back to sleep.

I'd set him up with some quiet and special toys, and also a reward system. And then do not give in. If he wakes and screams and bangs things, quietly and calmly go in and tell him it's not time to get up but if he wants he can play by himself with X or Y. Promise him some treat if he stays quiet until you come back. Give him a short amount of time and then go in with the reward (if he does it, of course). You want to set him up for success. Then extend the time longer and longer.

@Modern Daisy: Also wanted to say, there's no way our LO would stay in her room awake without us with the door locked--she would definitely scream and cry and bang on the door. One of us always has to be there with her, playing quietly--and then the other gets to "sleep in" till about 6:45 when the baby is up, too.

On weekends, one parent will get up with both kids and the other can sleep till 8 or so, but generally in our house, we've had to shift our "night" to be more like 9pm to 5am rather than a lot of other people who might sleep 11-7 or whatever. Well, we are never in bed by 9, but usually by 10 and we know that means we have 7 hours (with the baby wakeups in there) until the big one is up. That's why we also trade off baby wakeups--whoever does baby wakeups does not have to get up with the older one in the morning.

@Modern Daisy: Yeah, you might want to try moving bedtime back to 7:30 or 8:00. Other than that, can you move his bed so he doesn't have access to walls to bang on? Is the room dark enough?

@Modern Daisy: I would try wearing him out before bed - around 7pm go for a long walk - come home, have a snack and a bath and then go to bed -

@Modern Daisy: maybe you can give him a snack to eat in his room when he wakes?

@Modern Daisy: I'm sorry you are dealing with this. DD is an early riser too. We just go with it bc it actually works for us during the work week (ps. weekends SUCK). As she's gotten older she'll sleep in later, but it's a miracle if she sleeps past 630am.

As you mentioned I have adjusted my sleep and go to bed as early as I can (I am high sleep needs). DH and I also try to alternate weekend mornings so one of us sleeps in while the other takes DD downstairs.

As far as having company, heck I don't worry about it. I mean I try to keep DD quiet if we are upstairs and try to get her downstairs asap but it's her house/our house. They are guests... I actually get annoyed when my mom sleeps in until 10 am and then complains when DD would go down for a nap right after my mom got up.. well ok, HELLO, if you want to play with her or spend time with her get yo butt outta the bed... So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't worry about others when they stay at our house. I do warn them that we are up early and to bed early. It's just our way of life for now.

I'm sorry you are dealing with this. I honestly have no advice with regards to the behavior but maybe it is time for him to shorten or drop his nap? Mine is that age as well and we are lucky she still mostly sleeps well but several of the moms in our daycare room tell me that their toddlers don't nap during the weekends and they sleep much later the next morning (they all still nap at daycare but apparently the kids wake much earlier on those mornings).

Our DD has also been waking up a bit earlier lately and I think it is a similar issue to what @Madison43 mentioned, which is that she was recently potty trained and now wakes when she has to pee. However it is still usually at least 6 so we haven't been affected too badly.

Also, the snack is a great idea.

@Modern Daisy: My 2.5 yo is not a sleeper- we have to coax her down and she can stay up so late and still get up early. I have found doing something active with her in the afternoon (walk, park, swimming in our neighborhood pool, even just putting on Disney Pandora and dancing in the living room) helps her get tired and sleepy so she will go to bed at a reasonable time and not wake up at 4 am ready to PLAY.