Early morning wakings out of hand. Any tips that don't involve a sodding groclock.

[Belleende]

My 4 year old has never slept in the morning later than 6.30am. she now wakes every day between 5am and 5.30. Today was 4.44am. she can be moderately quiet for a bit but then just gets noiser and noiser. We had trained her to stay out of our room until 6am at the earliest but this seems to have gone out the window. She came into me at 5am this morning. I was not very nice to her, but I am facing the week from hell and don't want to be woken at 5am.

we have tried everything. Gro clock, she unplugs, she has a clock on her wall, worked for a while now she ignores, taking her back and back and back, she just thinks it is a game. She just wakes up and Bing! That is her up for the day. What can we do to encourage her to go back to sleep instead of wake the house?

Gah on hideously delayed train and lost a post twice, this is a hellish start to the week from hell.

Bed time is 7. We tried moving it later, made it worse, she was a monster and got up at the same time. Her waking seems hard wired, it doesn't change with the clocks or with sunrise.

We have tried, gro clock (she unplugged), wall clock, this did work for a while, but seems to have worn off, reward chart, she lost interest after week one, positive reinforcement at bed time and heaping the praise when she doesn't wake us up, again no impact, leaving snacks, putting her back in her room over and over (she thought this was a game, but might try again now she is older). I have literally no idea how to sanction a four year old at 5am. I don't think she is being naughty, she is just four and awake and full of beans, and we live in a small house.

The only 2 things that work are giving her a screen, which I do resort to on a Sunday and totally losing my shit with her (she improves for a few days). Neither are me parenting at my best.

I fear we just have to accept this, but it is draining and I am tirrrrreeeed.

I sympathise OP, I really do. DD is 10 and always been like this. I think we used an audiobook at that age, Paddington by Stephen Fry is calm and long. I was still woken up but just turned that on and could at least doze til 6.

It will change at some point and you need coping strategies. Mine were early nights and coffee and the old Mumsnet mantra "this too shall pass".

An upside is DD is a great reader because as soon as she could read to herself she'd spend an hour reading in bed in the morning. Still does most days.

My DD was an early waker no matter what time she went to bed.It gets easier as they become able to get themselves cereal,milk and turn the TV on.
Now as a teen only food lures her out of bed.

I've lost my shit over this kind of thing a few things, doesn't make you a bad parent don't worry!

How is she with books/comics? I don't think you'll be able to get her back to sleep, so instead focus on getting her to stay quietly in her room until 7. Books and comics, perhaps something she can play quietly with - toy cars? Lego? Do you trust her to have paper and colouring pencils in her room with a little desk?

Then sticker bribes all the way. She gets a sticker if she doesn't wake you up before 7 (unless it's an emergency ofc), when she's got X amount of stickers she can choose to 'spend' them on X item, or she can save more stickers up to Y amount to earn Y item.

Keep at it, you can do it! Early waking is a fucking nightmare, you've got all my sympathy and support.

I agree with Damntheman - the deal here was always that they didn’t have to sleep, but they did need to be quietly in their own room. Drawing, reading, Lego, dressing / undressing dolls etc was all fine. I often discovered an arrangement of teddies, a train track all set up and multiple drawings in the morning! Maybe you could ask your dd what she would enjoy playing with quietly? Books will work when she’s a fluent reader, but for now maybe she needs a sticker book or a colouring book, or to be able to get at a particular toy?

Ooh meant to say will definitely try audiobooks with head phones, that I haven't tried. Any recommendations on the best devices?

You cannot out her to bed at 7 and then complain she wakes 10.5 hours later!

Honestly reality check op, you are being really unreasonable.

Later bedtimes also don't work one and its worse because they are tired.

You need to get to bed earlier if your tired. It doesn't last for long in what will feel like a few short years she won't want to be up and spending time with you. Try to embrace it and change YOUR routine.

I doubt going to bed at 7pm means going to sleep at 7pm. Bedtime used to take the best part of an hour at 4 especially if it included a bath. Even without bath it's 30 minutes for a wash, teeth, pyjamas, story, tucking in, little conversation, last goodnight...

4 year olds need between 10 and 12 hours sleep so some might well sleep through until 7:30am.

Others will of course have had enough sleep by 5:30am

Preschoolers have a natural circadian rhythm just like adults, and some are naturally early to bed, early to rise, while others naturally fall asleep later and wake later. You can only change that up to a certain point.

I had two natural early birds then dc3 was not only a poor sleeper but a natural owl who had his longest, deepest stretch of sleep interrupted by his siblings waking up fresh and full of energy to start the day - it was virtually impossible to synchronise them until dc3 was about 6 or 7 and they met somewhere in the middle (but the older ones still choose to go to bed when the youngest does and the 13 year old still gets up by 7am at weekends (and has often done his weekend homework in bed before 7am as he's still not allowed to wake anyone else or use screens before 7am)...

Obviously the OP does need to be in bed by 10pm, and ideally a bit earlier a couple of nights per week, but scolding her for not wanting to go to bed at 9 and get up at 5 doesn't help anyone AgathaVanHelsing - it's the same sanctimonious nonsense as telling a child who is tired and unhappy in the middle of exams or friendship problems that your schooldays are the best days of your life and you should enjoy it while it lasts!

Mine are aged 8- nearly 15 now and are playing a card game together, all in the same room as us. The OP's DD will want to spend time with her for a good decade yet, and it only gets better.

Children old enough to tell the time, follow rules, go downstairs and make themselves breakfast and sometimes make their parents a coffee are the best so much to look forward to after the sleep deprivation ends!

But yes, audiobook s helped us to - the kids all still use them. We just have big basic cd/radios in each room - I'd be worried about strangulation risk with headphones. They have them on very quietly.

You can get pillow cases with a tiny pocket for a mini speaker meant for playing relaxation CDs though. We had one at one point with the little speaker but never really got established using it.

You’ve had loads of good suggestions and advice here, but for the audiobooks my eldest DS (also a up with the birds kid) just bought himself a Tonie with his Xmas money. It’s a speaker that you place little hand painted figures on top of and it reads the story to you. You can get most of the Julia Donaldson ones and also collections like bedtime stories etc, you also get a blank figure with the speaker that you can upload files to. We just put some space stories in there because he’s into Mars at the minute. It’s a bit pricey about £70 but he stays in his room swapping over the characters until about 7 on the weekend.

I live for the milestone of one of my offspring making me a cup of tea.thelongdarkteatimeofthesoul

Thanks for all the suggestions. Off to bed now....

Well looks like losing my shit worked. She went back to sleep, only just got up!

I feel amazical

Yay, may it continue!

I hated the early waking so so much, it made me really quite happy not to have another child Currently living the dream as 16 year old ds is upstairs and I am downstairs doing my own thing. When he was little he woke if I so much as fluttered my eyelashes. Made me feel so chained.

I think losing your shit is underrated. If something is really important, a bit of shit losing gets the message across.

congratulations

The up side of early wakers, as well as it making night dryness easier/ earlier, is they're easy teens to get up and out on a school morning...

Oh just to say - I think the boiler coming on definitely made ds worse (to be fair it was in his room). Worth freezing my tits off, I think we got to a better place once wed stopped it coming on.

My son is awake at 5:30 everyday without fail, he goes to bed at 7:20 but gabs away to himself for a little while before actually going to sleep.

Our rule is he can only leave his room to go to the toilet, to come in my bed if he will sleep or if there is an urgent need for something, bum wipe etc. Before bed I take his box of really irritating noisy toys out of his room so it isn’t too loud if he plays. It took a few weeks to actually work without him being super loud etc, but now I typically find him asleep on a pile of toys in his room if he hasn’t crawled into my bed.

PermanentTemporary yes, I remember smug people suggesting I get up an hour before the kids to have "me time" / do housework/ exercise because it worked so well for them, and thinking

A) so you get up at 4am do you? When do you go to bed?

and

B) how in earth does anyone get up without waking preschool children, they have a sixth sense and even if they're asleep and you're just thinking about getting up, they just know and ping wide awake, and charmingly but exhaustingly can't imagine that you'd want to be up without their company...

Some children are deep sleepers allegedly...

Glad to hear it OP. I also think that 4yo is plenty old enough to understand how important something is to you, and losing your shit will get that message across.

GOD YES getting up without him waking??would have had to be 2am and even that wasnt a given. He is indeed though a very very easy teenager. And at least he always woke in a good mood too, once the 5 minute urge for immediate suicide passed he was good company while I propped myself miserably upright in the kitchen.

The 2 year old had shat on her floor by the time I got to her. Swings and roundabouts I suppose.

Is your 2 year old nappiless at night? She needs a potty in her room or to be able to trot to the bathroom unimpeded if so! My dc2 looked at me with pity, clearly thinking I'd lost the plot when I tried to put a nappy on him for night after his first dry day and told me he didn't wear nappies any more, so I left the nappy off and he was dry - that was 11 years ago and he's never wet the bed in his life - but he did trot his funny, serious little 2.5 year old self to the potty in the bathroom every morning at 5am for the next year, and then back to his room to put his CD on!

She has a nappy on, but took it off for the deed. I think she is ready for training. Getting rid of nappies will be ace