Really struggling with 5am starts; is it likely to get better?

[toobloodyearlyforthis]

I know children do wake up early but like a lot of things the actual reality of it is somehow different and it’s hitting me hard.

Is it likely to improve? I thought maybe with the dark mornings it would but if anything it’s getting worse - 455 today!

Oh yeah, I bet the OP found that 'light hearted' post really funny, she must have just been rolling in the aisles. I remember having non-sleeping babies and toddlers and people telling me 'it never gets easier hahaha!' - they made me cry, and were also completely wrong.

It does get better, OP. Mine are now 8 and 5 and they don't do this anymore. At 3 it was still a challenge. It just isn't true that this is your life forever now. Even if they are inbuilt early wakers, as they get older their ability to just lie in bed thinking or reading, or get up quietly and do their own thing, changes so that if they're still up early they don't need you constantly.

I mean, if that works for you and you wanted to go for a run then lovely but 8 is absolutely old enough to know and be told pretty firmly that waking up other people while they're sleeping like that is not ok.

That's what I did. I used to say it's the middle of the night go back to bed. It didn't always work. 5 minutes later is it morning yet.

They're old enough to be told that if they're awake before you they must keep very quiet and not wake you up.

Absolutely. I’d have turned on light, and told him not another word or tomorrow he wouldn’t XYZ

We got a dog when the kids were grown enough to be staying in bed (6 and 7) so not little. So I am retired now and have the joys of still getting up at half 5 for the elderly dog shuffle to the garden. Not exactly my relaxing lie-in view of retirement

I really understand this as the one of mine who was a poor nighttime sleeper wouldn't lie next to me in bed, she'd only sleep if actually lying on me. Obviously this got her extra sleep, but it didn't get me any as I couldn't move and couldn't sleep like that even when I could have slept standing upright.

Letting the toddler sleep in your bed works for lots of people but it doesn't work universally - I found cosleeping evangalists almost more difficult than cry it out proponents when I had a poor sleeper, as I would have been happy to co-sleep but co-sleeping parents just didn't believe it wasn't the solution for everyone. In the end saying "well don't let her lie on you, make her sleep a few cm away" is exactly as realistic as saying "don't let her get up at 5am".

If waiting for two hours in your warm comfy bed is "pretty shit", then you've lived a very charmed life.

People need sleep, especially if they're going to work and/or have responsibilities. If you're awake, you don't disturb others. Children have to learn that sooner or later and learn to fit in with the household.

Agree, this is what I would do or get her a double bed and you snuggle in with her at 5am

Yeah but I think the pendulum has swung pretty far. I think there’s a reason there are so many parents struggling with parenting so much more than they ever have and schools struggling with entitled kids. There’s a balance to be struck. It doesn’t have to be hernia operations and terrified children, but equally it doesn’t need to be 5am wake ups either.

Mine always came into my bed at that age. If they were quite awake, as your DD sounds, we’d play gentle games (where I could half-nap), like drawing letters on each other’s backs or the alphabet game.

Or they’d sit watching tv/playing while I half-napped.

Hang in there. If they’re 3 and 6 it won’t last much longer. Before long, you’ll be despairing that you can’t get them up! Mine are teens/young adults now and at weekends/on holiday, rarely surface before lunchtime.

If you can’t fathom why it might have been hard/frightening/lonely/miserable to lie for 2 hours alone in the dark every day and know that your parents weren’t to be counted on or there would be ‘consequences’ at 5 years old then I’d suggest you have had the charmed life.

What were your parents otherwise like as parents?

My 3 year old (now 4 year old) did something similar, it was two fold, linked to the sun rising and me overestimating her sleep needs and putting her to bed too early. I pushed bed time to 7:30 and bought black out blinds and it seemed to help. Doesn’t sound like that’s the problem here though if she’s not going to bed until 9pm?

They didn’t ‘tolerate’ a lot - and saw that as a flex. The fact that none of their children got out of bed before 7, ever, is definitely something they would take as an example of their good parenting.

Edited to add: this was not intended to derail the thread, just wanted to reply to some of the more sneering comments that it’s a failing of being too ‘soft’ and older generations had it right.

We got ours double beds so the waking would go like this-
hideous o’clock, wakes, creeps into my room and stares or pats my face until I’m awake,
Child- “I’m scared/cold/need a hug/
me- “ok I’ll get in bed with you but we have to go back to sleep”
child- “ok Mummy”
we sleep for about 20 minutes then the face patting starts again
child- “Mummy you’re snoring, go back to your own bed I don’t want you anymore”
If I was lucky they’d creep out without waking me and get in bed with Daddy but that was rare and often ended up with “Daddy farted and it woke me up” 🙄

Now my earliest waker does a sport requiring 5am starts for training three times a week, I am the one doing the face patting to wake them and telling them they’re snoring too loud as we’re driving to the activity.
Swings and roundabouts!

Gro clocks work for some - but not all children. Also, some parents sprinkle magic dust on their kids and they somehow stay in their rooms quietly playing with toys until 7. If your kids (like the vast majority) don’t do this and ignore gro clocks as they just want to be with their parents, then, I’m afraid you just have to wait until their older and sleep in a bit. It’s so tough! But they will get there in the end.

Ok so in the context of what sounds like an unhappy childhood

Gro clock and firm with back to bed until it’s time. Will the three year old settle in bed with you until it’s time to get up? I used to put cartoons on the telly and they would sit and watch.

5am starts would kill me off!

No. I love my parents, my childhood was not unhappy. But there were unhappy parts, for sure - this being one of them.

My parents were very, very far from alone in boasting about what they wouldn’t ‘put up with’

There are lots of helpful suggestions on here about how to help this situation. Hopefully some of them work for OP. But simply ‘not tolerating’ something very rarely does anything good except convenience for the parents. If that’s OK with you crack on but don’t dress it up as anything else.

They didn’t ‘tolerate’ a lot - and saw that as a flex.

I mean they don’t sound great and certainly you have a pretty depressing recollection but if you say so!

I know you’re not arrogant enough to try and tell me what my entire childhood was like based on a topic on an anonymous forum! So are you instead suggesting that your own childhood didn’t have any parts in it that you wouldn’t want to repeat with your kids? Wow, that’s great for you.

But surely everyone has things they don't tolerate! You can make it clear that a behaviour isn't ok in your house without terrifying your children into submission, and that can include behaviour around sleep. For instance, it just isn't ok if my 5 year old goes in and wakes up his brother, and it isn't ok if my 8 year old puts his light back on after we've told him it's time for it to go off because otherwise he'll be too tired in the morning. They don't get shouted at for either behaviour, but it's absolutely not tolerated. For both of them that sometimes means they lie in bed a bit bored. It also means that we very rarely see either behaviour, so it is very much achieving something.

You joined the thread telling us how horrendous and indeed fearful you found the two hours imposed isolation on the dark you recalled in your childhood.

You then state that your parent “didn’t tolerate a lot” and even “saw it as a flex”

It doesn’t sound happy. And they don’t sound very nice! But if you say a happy childhood, then sure - you had a happy childhood 🤷‍♀️

No I rebutted some posters’ glee at recalling how their parents simply wouldn’t have tolerated early wakings, as if that was the answer.

It will certainly get them their lie-in. I was just offering the counter that it might not be a solution, or a great experience, for the child. If you want to try and dismiss that by inventing all the rest of my experiences for me then I can’t stop you, you have free will.