Are children always up at the crack of dawn?

[ohnowhatdidido]

I remember me and my siblings used to love our sleep and would love sleeping in on weekends. Or we would want to be up early for our favourite TV shows but would often prefer to sleep in instead of get up.

Just wondering as I've just read someone ask another poster about whether they might have young children who wake up at the crack of dawn. I am a new mum and assumed one day my baby will grow up and prefer to sleep rather than want to wake up so early.. OR were my parents just very lucky?

Really depends on the child, 2 of mine were always up before 7 till they hit about 12. My middle child would sleep till about 10 when there was no school even when he was 3/4. My 4 month old grand daughter is a little lazy lump. She has never woken for a night feed and wakes about 9 now.

My 2yr old is still asleep now. Sometimes they have to be woken for nursery!

My 2 year old very rarely wakes up before 6:30. Sometimes he'll wake as late as 8. More commonly it's 7-7:30. I co-sleep with him, so I do wonder if he sleeps in longer than others because he isn't desperate to come see me. If it is a work day for me he will tend to realise im gone and wake earlier. It also does make a difference what time he goes to bed - go to bed late, he wakes late (I know people usually say it doesn't work like that with kids, but it does with him!)

DD never was. She was a midnight till noon sleeper. Can count on the fingers of one hand the times she was awake before 9am before she started school.

I was always up early until about 11-12 years old. I slept loads as a teenager and now as an adult I like to be up by 9am latest at weekends, normally earlier.

Weekdays I'm up at 7.30.

Older ones all sleep late now if they have chance. 15month old still believes morning starts at 4am at the latest (despite every effort to persuade otherwise). I think when older ones hit secondary school was when they started sleeping later which ironically coincides with them being able to do their breakfast on a weekend without supervision!

I think it probably depends on the child. I’m one of three and my mum has always said my middle sister would sleep in late from a baby. I however, was always an early riser and still am now! Much to my husband’s dismay when he wants to snuggle in the morning! Our 7 month old is a lazy little thing, he goes to bed at 7pm, wakes for a feed at 7am and then wants to go back to bed immediately, he gets furious if we try and keep him awake. On childminding days I drop him off at 8, so I leave a little early because he likes a nap in the pram on the way there 🤣.

I think it is genetic. We’re both night owls and our babies have both been hard to put to bed and then later sleepers than other people’s babies. My 9 year old would sleep until after 10 at the weekend if we let her but I get her up as otherwise bedtime and then school mornings are horrendous. My 6 year old generally wakes at 8 at the weekend but if tired will sleep until 9. As a baby the eldest’s best long sleep was always 8am-noon no matter if we were at home or out and about.

My experience has been they wake up horribly early (one of mine though 5.30am was the morning). They then do this until teenage years at which point you have become so used to waking up at some ungodly hour that you wake up at 6am every Saturday. Meanwhile little miss 5am is snoring until midday 😭

Same. We’re both night owls too.

I used to start work at 7 when they were toddlers and they'd still be asleep when the babysitter arrived to take them to nursery. Weekends they would probably get up around 7/8 depending on the season. Primary we had to be out for 8am and it was a struggle. High school DS is up at 6:30 but the house could burn down at noon on weekends and he wouldn't move. DD loves her sleep but loves her routine so has 9-10 hours every night whether it's school or weekend.

My dd is like me and likes her sleep.

As a baby and young child she slept 7 til 7, on wends she would sleep later.

As a teen she slept until 10/11 on a wend (like me!)

I had two who were early risers as toddlers / children and one who liked her sleep. Now they're all teens, and one of the early risers has become a typical teen who lies in bed for half the day, but the other is still up bright and early even at the weekend. At least he can get his own breakfast now!

Mine started sleeping in about age 14.

As adults one is a owl and one is a lark,

Mine would always rather sleep in, they are 13, 9 and 3. We do a lot of active things in the waking times though so downtime is for chilling and sleeping

My.youngest would sleep til lunch time if we let her, and has been that way since she was born.

My eldest has always been a 6am kid, and it's only now she's 15 that's pushed back to 7
30/8am, but also, she's 15 so it no longer impacts me.

I have 6 kids of various ages and none of them have been early risers, but neither am I.

I woke my 3 year old up at almost 9am this morning to drag him upstairs.

The earliest they've ever woken is 7am for school.

Both of mine have woken consistently at 7am since they were tiny, weekdays and weekends and through school holidays. I've always had later bedtimes on average too. It works for us.

Early risers here 😭 anything for 4am. Oldest is 9.

Growing up I remember at my first sleep over the other children got up at 6am and I was just thinking what is this fresh hell. I'm a natural night owl. So having 3 early risers has been quite something to adjust to.

DS woke between 5-530 for a year and honestly it was awful. It really started to get me down. It stopped when he adjusted his routine and dropped the nap.

My two (9 and 6) sleep until about 7:30/8 if left to their own devices. It’s been like this for several years. The latest they’ve ever slept is 9 but that’s only been once or twice.

DS1 is a throw back lark in a family of owls. At 11 he still believes that anything after 6 is a lie in. Luckily it’s been some years now since we had to get up with him too. He’s up and ready to go at that point too, which I envy. Going to bed late (we got in from a concert at 11:30 last weekend) results in him being up at 7 and grumpy as hell by teatime.

My ds was always up early. Aged 18 now he still wakes up 8 am even if he goes out drinking the night before.

When the question is about "always" the answer is never "yes".

I think there must be a cultural component to this. My Mauritian friend thinks it's hilarious that we all put our kids to bed at 7pm and then complain when they are up at the crack of dawn. I know from my own experience that a later bedtime just didn't seem to work for my own children, so it felt like we had to do it this way, yet across the world lots of people don't and I expect their children get up at a more sociable hour.

I think on some level it must be the payback for our cultural expectation of child free evenings.

Once my kids got to about 8/9, they started sleeping in til about 11am at weekends/holidays when they could.
As they got to their teens, they sleep to well in the afternoon. They’re mostly nocturnal in school/uni holidays.