Cried for 90 mins

@ProfessionalPirate getting troll vibes tbh, someone stirring the hornets nest. Maybe they spent the 90's working in a Romanian orphanage.

Not at 4 am. The parents who did pander to their children at those times looked like they were in the wars. Ops child didn't need a nappy change and it would have been a bad idea to feed him at 4 am.

You can’t be serious

Her child wasn't crying it's fake tears. He wants attention at the wrong time of the morning. The op would be giving him negative attention. She would have been better off laying him down and telling him to go back to sleep. If parents pandered to every tantrum we will become walking sleep deprived wrecks.

Yes and small children don't need attention. Just a clean nappy etc, digestive system needs fulfilled.

It sounds like you did your best. Sometimes at this age they can get night terrors or just want to be up and about.
Or they feel not well or maybe wake to pee.

@oilead I wish I could agree with you but my son is 7 and still wakes up between 5&5.30. He's always been like it, as long as I can remember. He would to wake up, scream, would always have a full dirty nappy so couldn't exactly ignore him. We do NOT get up for the day at that time. I can't remember exactly what we did when he was really small. Pretty sure we kept the lights low and quiet. By the time he was 2.5 we had him in a low toddler bed and he would look at books quietly in his room, but wasn't allowed to get up for the day until the gro clock woke which used to be at 6 but we slowly pushed it to 7 as he got bigger. It's great these days as he has a kindle and will happily read until 7 when the rest of us are ready to get up. He's just an early bird. I used to wake up naturally at 6 before I had kids and became an exhausted pigeon. Mum is regularly up before dawn. She used to be in the supermarket at 5.30 doing the weekly shop! so maybe it's inherited.

The fact that you think culture might have anything to do with it tells me you do not understand the biology of sleep at all.

Well, that's how I parented and I didn't have a terrible sleeper, I had an occasional early waker, so I think what we've learned is that your way isn't the only way 😊

If it was an angry cry for wanting to go downstairs I don't think you did anything wrong. If it was a distressed cry from a nightmare or illness then you need to be with him. You know your own child if you think he wanted to go play then i think you were fine about it. I had a child who constantly thought it was morning and I tried everything to convince him otherwise. I could be in and out of the room at intervals all night. The only thing that worked was controlled crying and it was hard for me too but he eventually learned that night time is night time. I would sit silently in the room so he knew he wasn't alone but made no eye contact or talking, then left for periods and back again, then eventually let him cry. It took weeks of almost zero sleep but it was worth it because prior to that I was woken constantly anyway and would spend ages soothing him back to sleep only to be woken 20 mins later.

OP you keep saying 4/5am- which was it?
Because toddlers getting up at 5am isnt that uncommon, if incredibly draining/annoying. Both of mine went through the early phase and we just rolled with it.
I definitely wouldn't have left mine for 90 mins to cry. Possibly 5-10 mins, if they didn't settle I'd go in, try again and failing that would have just resigned myself to getting up and getting on with the day. Unfortunately one of the shit parts of toddlerhood.

I mean, you’re not far off tbh.

And you think you can based on a forum post?

Even if this started as a temper tantrum, after 90 minutes you can be sure it has evolved into genuine distress.

Still not ‘day time’ why are you being obtuse?

Children need a decent amount of sleep to be able to function properly.

It's not real tears it's attention that he wants.

In Scotland there’s daylight from about 3am in the summer and none until 9am in the Winter. Are we another culture? Or are we not in the UK?

My children are now adults.

When I was pregnant with my first I read parenting books as most of us do. The one I liked the most was written by David Attenborough. He said that sleep training works in the same way that breaking a horse works.

I decided I wasn’t going to “break” my children.

We went with their sleep patterns. The second was a nightmare as he didn’t seem to need sleep. He wasn’t a baby who cried much but after three hours sleep he was awake and ready to play.

We got through it.

They’re not babies for long and didn’t choose to be here.

Some people on this thread can’t tell the difference between actual distress, and a temper tantrum.

6am at least. Ideally 7am. In the uk. Other cultures may be set up differently

honestly, i remember that stage. and we went down stairs. i've walked the streets at all hours with them. i've had baby telly on with them in their bouncers whilst i tried to light doze on the sofa. it was hell but it did stop. they'll wake and get into bed with me and snuggle or ill get into theirs.

but i think just closing the door and letting them cry because you don't like the noise is awful. you're not meant to like the noise. that isn't the point.

the only time its ok to close the door and walk away is if you think you're at risk of harming your child or yourself, and in that case if the feeling doesn't pass within a short time, you need to get help.

poor kid.

Just an idea for a future time, recently my niece was struggling to settle (was nap time though not 4am) and we were actually all downstairs having some quiet time (reading that sort of thing) so Dbil brought her downstairs, showed her that we were all sat with chilled lighting on, being quiet and boring, then took her back up and she settled.

So if you're ever in a situation where you're feeling like nothing is working, perhaps taking him downstairs, but keeping the lights off and saying 'nothing happening downstairs see? Because it's sleeping time. So we're going to go back upstairs and stay in our beds until its time to get up', is worth a go? Might not work obvs, but just throwing ideas out there.

It's blooming horrid when they won't settle and you're knackered!

Yes I do think you’re a shit parent if you think the answer to a child in distress is to shut them away for 90 minutes.

And I don’t know why you are talking about Teletubbies. I never said anything about putting the TV on. It’s the OP who stuck some crap on her phone in the first instance, and yet apparently ‘there is nothing wrong with her approach to parenting she did the right thing’.

What???

About half the people on here are saying very similar things to the person you responded to. You are also on a forum called mumsnet and a post specifically about a toddler's sleep. Unless the person explicitly said they didn't have kids, why would you assume anyone commenting here doesn't have children?

Yes I'm sure the blue light from your phone wasn't over stimulating at all and definitely didn't lead to him then struggling to sleep.

Another ipad kid?

But you've posted in AIBU which is for people to tell you whether they think you're unreasonable or not, not specifically to give you advice. If you want advice, there's an entire topic for 'parenting' or 'sleep', plus probably others where you could get advice. AIBU will give you a mix of opinions, some more pleasant than others. I wouldn't suggest posting here if you're just looking for people to reassure you that you're right as you won't get that.

The fact that you've come on here to ask suggests you're worried its not ok. Because if you thought it was all fine, why would you need to ask?

Personally, I think a child crying for that long is more than just a tantrum and I couldn't leave my child for that long.