Hi

Two reasons for my post. The first to hear that I am not alone, the second is to see how you manage your day.

My 2.4 year old toddler is a 5am waker, and despite all efforts to encourage him to sleep longer (moving his bedtime, letting him get in with us, putting him back to bed etc) nothing has changed. So, I guess we just have to live with it. My Mum tells me I was an early waker too so he probably gets it from me!

Anyway, hopefully there will be a couple of other toddlers out there that do the same thing...what does your day look like if you are up at 5am?

Thanks for you replies

Oh my god. No your not alone. My DD which is 2.8 months since birth has never slept in past 6am and use to get up at 4.30am and thats when our day would start.

If she would get up early she would have an early nap about 9.30am for about 2 hours and then bed about 6pm. That was when she was about 18 months.

She has slowly started to sleep in till 5.30ish now. Which Im sure you can understand is a sleep in for us.

No matter what time we put her to bed, wheather it be 6, 7 or 8pm she would always wake early.

But I do find that if she goes to bed about 6.30pm 7 at the latest she will sleep longer for some reason. Dont ask me to explain it but she must have a better sleep if its longer. Whereas if she went to bed late like about 7.30 she would be up earlier.

So she was kind of opposite. Early night, sleep in.
Late night , early rise.

Also you DS might be getting cold aswell. I have started putting socks on DD as she got up 4.30 one morning and it was because she was cold.

I have 2 5am wakers, drives me crazy, esp during summer when it becomes 4am.

At least now it is 5.30.. bring on winter.

We have a 5am waker too!

Supposedly we both did that as kids too!

Even if we put her to bed later she still wakes early. Feel sorry for us because daylight savings meant 5am was 4am this morning urghhhhhh

Hi!!!
You are defintly not alone!!! I have 3 of them.... Thankfully they all mainly sleep through from 7pm but still!!! Oh man some morning are longer than others....
Poor us!!!!
Cheers
Nat

DS2 wakes at 5-5.30 EVERY MORNING. MY DS1 was (and still is) a late sleeper. From day dot he was waking at 8am.

We thought our DD was bad, being a 6.30am waker...but along came DS2.

We throw some books into his cot and he is usually quite happy to read to himself for 1/2hr or so.

Some days though, he is too noisy and he wakes the other two...

I am VERY lucky. My DH is an early bird. He gets up to them every morning. I sleep for another hour.

My boys infrequently rise at very early hours but we won't put up with it. They are taken back into their rooms and are not allowed to rise until the sun is up. They can sit in their rooms and talk, but we will not entertain them and will not turn on lights so they can entertain themselves.
5am is far too early for little people to be rising, after 6 am we are a little less firm but it only takes them a day or two to realise that getting up that early is no fun if they have to sit in the dark.

I feel so much better knowing that I am not the only one!

LouBlou - how do you stop them from rising? I have tried the whole "I refuse to start the day before 6am" but my 2 year old doesn't seem to understand!!!! Would love to hear some tips on how you achieve this. Perhaps it becomes easier when there is more than one child because they can talk to each other and therefore entertain each other?

You just have to be consistient and hard line, I would be an awful grumpy mum if I had to get up that early. I just keep putting them back in the room if they come out and won't let them have any reason to be up eg no tv, no books, no toys and no interaction with DH & I.
It took us ages with DS1 when he first started it at 2 and even now he still tries it on but we just march him back to bed. Its easier when they are still in a cot as they have no choice but to stay put.

Yep, another one here. I know im really naughty, but being pregnant at the moment i just cant handle the early mornings, so when DS gets up (usually 5-5.30) i put fairies or wiggles or something on for him and he will happily sit there and watch it and let me sleep for another hour.
Im a naughty naughty mummy but i just couldnt get thru the day otherwise!!

We too have two early risers...DS4 and DD2 were up at 4am last Sunday(after daylight saving ended), and same again on Monday morning. Both went to daycare whrer their awful mummy gave the teachers instructions not to allow DS to even close his eyes adn to limit DD's beauty sleep to 1hr max so they might realise that sleep was a good thing!!! Skip to Tuesday morning and our day began at 5, Wednesday 5.30. I can tolerate that, but always before 7am. 'They' tell me that between the ages of about 7-14 little monsters sleep in...not wanting to wish lives away, but I could do with a bit of that. I recall DS having a thing for 4.30am starts for a while, but when we ignored him and growled'go back to bed' often enough, he began to realise he wasn't getting any attention so he'd play quietly until we got up.
DD seems to tink she's such a big girl being able to open her bedroom door now, and that of her big brother...see her waking him (payback is an absolute b***h).
We have to deadlock the doors to the backyard or they 'escape' and terrorise the dog(and the neighbours). Surprised we've not been asked to leave the neighbourhood!
Alice.

*yawn* yep, another one here.

Its a repeat of last year. DD was waking at 6.30am (almost on the dot, every day!)during daylight savings, which I thought was acceptable. Not ideal, but acceptable. The sun was up and the birds were singing.

Come the end of daylight savings, we are back to the 5.30am thing. I cant do it. Im not going through another winter of grumpy mornings, bleary eyes and fumbling, sleepy head mistakes (drove all the way to the shopping centre today, parked the car and everything before realising Id forgotten my purse ).

SO. This week we have made some solid rules and we have both agreed (my partner and I) on how we are going to handle things, so we have some consistancy. NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY!

I have explained to my daughter that she is not allowed to wake mummy or daddy until she hears the birds singing. The birds usually start when the sun just starts to rise, so its around 6.15am. The birds are an easy thing for her to listen out for.

Ive told her that if she wakes up and comes into our room, mummy is going to take her back to bed and close her bedroom door (the handle is quite high, so she cant reach it., she also sleeps with the door open and a night light on). She doesnt like having her door closed. She understands this to be a punishment. Which IT IS!

Two out of three mornings this week, we have had to march her back to bed. Yes she yells out. Yes she is angry about not being allowed out of her room. Yes its noisy. But its not going to change until she learns that she cant get out of bed until she hears the birds. I think its a reasonable request. 6.15am is not late either! Ive explained that if she cant go back to sleep she can turn on her light and play with her toys or read a book until she hears the birds. Only then can she come and wake us up.

I have also been hard on her when it comes to her asking for things in the morning. For example, if she wants the TV on, I say "No. You cant have the things you want this morning, because you woke mummy and daddy up before you heard the birds singing". She knows Im not happy.

Im trying to give a realy strong reinforcement of what I expect from her and what we will not accept. I havent had to be this hard on her for anything in the past, but the early waking is effecting my partner, making him tired and cranky while at work.

We went to Toys R Us today and I let her play in one of those really cool cubby house things they have. I told her that if she can start staying quiet until she hears the birds singing in the morning, for two whole weeks (im going to start a chart so she can count days), we will buy her a new cubby. Maybe if she has this as an incentive, it will help her to learn this very difficult task.

I also had this with DS.

He was always an early riser. I am finding now that he os over 3 its starting to change.

He has stopped having a day sleep which seems to help. He goes to bed at 7pm now and wakes after 6am usually.

I also have a night light in his room on a timer. It turns on at 6pm and off at 6am. Now that he is that little bit older he knows he is not allowed to get out of bed until the light turns off. some days he is up at 6am SHARP when the light turns off, but more often than not he sleeps past this now.

It was always a struggle for me, but some children are just like that. I use the DVD in the mornings to help on the days I just can't handle it. I give him a banana and pop him in front of the wiggles with my door open. Usually gives me 25 minutes of 'snooze' until he comes in looking for company.

By then I have usually come to terms with the fact that I have to get up!

Sas xx

ps, DD is totally different! will sleep in until way past 7am every day. Like chalk and cheese.

Yep! DS is now 4.5 years old. He has always been an early waker. When he was younger, he would wake at 4am almost every morning. He now ranges between, 4.45am and 5.30am. We too, have tried many things, but this has not changed his waking up time. The later he goes to bed at night, the earlier he wakes up.

He has an hour "quiet time" during the day ( when at home ) where he will sit and watch some tv, or play on the computer. Without this time, we ( DH,DS and I ) would not be a happy house! He still sleeps at daycare ( approx 1 hour ) so on those days, he is really hard to get to sleep at night. This then turns into a late night leading into and early morning iykwim. One long never ending drama in this household.

I totally understand how you feel. Others don't until they experience it.

Lou

Yup, we have 2 in our house and they share a room so even if one of them might like to sleep in, the other will wake them up. This week has not been fun with the clocks changing but we are slowly working our way back from 4am to 5am.

I have found that nothing really makes much difference. I am just waiting for the day when they can get up and get their own breakfasts and I can stay in bed.