Stop Telling Women to Just Wake Up Earlier

It’s 4:12am on TikTok. A woman switches on the kitchen light and surveys the empty room for a moment. The house is dark. Crucially, it is silent.

For a split second, the quiet feels almost lonely. No small bodies yet. No little voices asking for the one toy you have no idea where to find.

Just the dog lifting his head in mild confusion at your presence. The low light over the kitchen counter.

In that second, she reminds herself this is the point. Enjoy it. Even the loneliness. Especially that.

But there’s a faint hurry to the enjoyment. The silence has an expiry time.

And these are the women I keep watching.

They wake before their children.

They work out.

They journal.

They wash their hair properly.

They prep lunchboxes.

They light a candle.

The house is still.

The coffee is hot from start to finish.

Then I kept watching.

And slowly, it started to look… appealing.

The idea that calm is available — you just have to claim it before anyone else wakes up.

For a moment, I caught myself thinking maybe that’s the answer.

But every time I’ve woken early in the past, something else has happened.

The soft pitter-patter of feet in the hallway.

A small voice at the door.

“Mama? Is it morning?”

Any time I’ve tried to carve out “me time,” it has quietly become “we time.”

And that’s when I stopped to question how I’d found myself awake at 4am. Intentionally. 

When did sleep become optional?

Why are we scheduling self-care before sunrise?

But these women aren’t chasing luxury. They’re fitting in essentials. Exercise. Quiet. Basic grooming. A moment to think. 

Why are those things only available at 4am?

The Unspoken Privilege of the 4am morning routine

Not everyone can wake at 4am.

You probably can’t if you work shifts.

Or if your partner leaves early and you handle mornings alone.

Or if your baby still wakes at night.

Or if you don’t have childcare.

Or if your body is already stretched thin.

The 4am routine assumes something: that there is margin somewhere else in the day.

A partner who shares the load.

Predictable work hours.

A body that isn’t already depleted.

That doesn’t make the women wrong.

But it does make the narrative incomplete.

TikTok Loves a 4am Girly

On TikTok, the caption usually reads something like: “4am before the kids. This changed everything.” The comments fill with fire emojis.

TikTok rewards optimisation.

A woman waking at 4am to get ahead of her day is aspirational. Disciplined. Extreme enough to feel impressive.

The algorithm thrives on transformation.

“This changed my life.”

What doesn’t trend is:

“I slept until I needed to and felt more stable.”

Quiet regulation doesn’t go viral.

So we are shown, over and over, that if you’re overwhelmed, the answer is to manage yourself better.

Wake earlier.

Systemise harder.

Be more efficient.

This isn’t new.

In the 1950s, women were handed efficiency manuals for running a home “properly.” In the 2010s, we were told to lean in, optimise our mornings, hack our productivity. Each era repackages the same message: if you are struggling, improve your system.

It is rarely: maybe the load itself is unreasonable.

The Real Morning

Before 7am, many mothers have already begun the invisible work.

Is that cough normal, or does the baby need the doctor?

The toddler won’t eat that cereal anymore — what’s a healthy alternative?

Those shoes look tight — we need the next size up.

Is today bin day? I should have put them out last night.

The dog needs grooming — this week or next?

Did I reply to that school message?

Did I pay that invoice?

The mental load begins before the kettle boils.

So 4am feels like the only hour untouched by it.

And that’s what should give us pause.

Because the problem isn’t the time of day.

It’s the volume.

The Cost to Your Body

Think about the newborn stage.

Waking every three hours. Sometimes more.

Remember how you felt.

How hard it was to think clearly.

How thin your patience felt at times.

How your body seemed to age overnight.

We don’t romanticise the lack of sleep in that season. We survive it.

Yet somehow, when sleep loss is self-imposed in the name of self-improvement, we call it discipline.

Your body doesn’t know the difference.

You remember what it did to you — the brain fog, the short fuse, the way your body felt slightly not quite your own. Women’s bodies are already hormonally dynamic. Layer persistent sleep loss on top, and the cost accumulates.

You can function on less sleep.

But that doesn’t mean you’re thriving.

What These Women Are Reaching For

I don’t think the women waking at 4am are foolish. I understand them. 

I think they’re trying to reclaim something.

Calm.

Control.

A small piece of themselves.

And they’re right about one thing: the house is quieter before anyone wakes.

The air is different. The demands haven’t started.

The structure of modern life isn’t changing anytime soon — work hours are long, school schedules dictate the day, and care is still unevenly divided. The invisible work looms, largely unshared.

So it makes sense that women look for small pockets of agency wherever they can find them.

4am is one of those pockets.

But sleep is not indulgence. 

It is not something you earn after you’ve done enough.

It is basic maintenance.

In a life where so much is given away — attention, patience, care — maybe the most radical thing isn’t rising at 4am.

Maybe it’s refusing to steal from yourself.