With these light mornings may I pass on some advice to cope with early starts with babies??? Feel free to ignore!

[oliveoil]

Nobody likes to start their day at 5.30am unless mad. And the first response is usually "FFS are you having a laugh???? " when you squint at the clock.

So I have found the best thing is to accept this phase (and it usually is a phase) and start your day.

I have found the following to be correct in this house:

1. Leave them to cry if you wish. They will not go back to sleep and more to the point neither will you with all the racket. If they do go to sleep, it will usually be about 5 mins before you have to wake them up anyway to go to work/school/out

1. Cbeebies starts at 6am

1. Men have select deafness but are just as capable of getting up as you are. I find elbowing and hissing "it's your turn" works wonders

1. Bring them into your bed ffs. This didn't work on dd1 but did on dd2, went straight off to sleep. Ignore weirdos preaching bad habits, whatever they are, it's a baby

Anyone agree or disagree?

[Carmenere]

Well we always brought dd into our bed in order to grab the extra vital hour in the morning.

[gomez]

My day began at 4.30am today - after DD2 (nearly 3) wet the bed and DS (6 months, got up to play too. No amount of snuggling in would do the trick with either of them.

DH's day began at 5.00am when he got up and took a chattering DD and a boobed DS downstairs for some quality bonding time .

You speak wise words OO.

[mumto3girls]

I would agree to an extent, if you really do have a little one determined to get up and not just grizzling...

BUT my dd3 wakes up, cries out, sometimes actual rying and shouting mummmmmeeeee!! tis is at 5-.30 every morning for past week or so.../by the time i have fallen out of bed and put on a robe and rushed to bedroom door she is fast asleep again. DP tried getting her up at this time when she was really crying and she promptly fell asleep on him after 10 mins...
so In our case we try to ignore her for 5 mins to see if it a wake up wail or a nighttime cryout...
We also have had good results from her completely dark bedrrom thanks to blackout curtains.

[oliveoil]

I used to fight it with dd1 "it's too early, go back to sleep" Like an 8 month old was going to obey

so I got up, put the tv on and pretended it was 8am

and what is not to like about sleeping next to a squidgy baby?

I did a thread once, will look.

[REIDmylips]

we leave ds for half an hour to sing, coo what ever in his cot then bring him in with us. He does not go back to sleep but he will lie and look around the room etcgiving us another half hour or so before we have to 'start' our day.

[mumto3girls]

my dd3 is 23 months old..if we put herin our bed she kicks dp in the nads, sits on my neck and wants to play tents under the duvet!!! Then when you finally get up she will fall asleep whilst you're getting her bfast!!!

[REIDmylips]

lol mumto3girls! i know i shouldn't but i couldnt help it sorry!

[LadyMacbeth]

Agree.

[oliveoil]

olive's barf thread from when dd1 (4.6yrs) was about 7 months old

ahhhhhh soft cuddly babies

[kittypants]

agree!

[kittypants]

aaawww thats lovely link oliveoil!

[Cloudhopper]

Agree - so many parents can't be getting it wrong IMO. It must be natural for babies to wake early and for parents to get more sleep by putting them in their bed.

[Pruni]

Message withdrawn

[compo]

wow even cod joined in the squidginess

[oliveoil]

I remember staggering downstairs with one of them - forget which child (lol) - and seeing cbeebies ON LOOP at about 5.50am

just before it started properly with Tellytubbies

I did lose the will to live quite frankly, the same clips and the same song on rotation

praise the lord for caffeine

[Tatties]

May I add that putting them to bed later DOES NOT MAKE THEM GET UP LATER.

If anything it makes ds wake earlier

I remember one morning an incoherent dp telling ds "you can't get up when there's a 5 in the time"