to want ds1 to stay in bed until 6.20am?

[ZombiePlanB]

or is it an impossible dream?

He is 3.5 and goes to pre-school. He's always woken up early. We have a bunny clock and if he stays in his room until 6.20 he can have TV and juice.

But recently he wakes me at 5.50am. So I am a bad tempered baggage and there's no TV.

Is he just too young to understand?

[beast emoticon]

You're probably NBU, but then again, neither is he. Our DSs are early risers - up by 5-5:30am. DS2 has sleeping problems (ASD related) and sometimes wakes up at 3am or 4am and can't get back to sleep. It's sometimes frustrating and obviously exhausting, but I kind of look at it as "he can't help it" and "that's the breaks with having kids" and just carry on. And drink lots of coffee.....

AT 3.5 he's old enough to understand - can he turn a light on in his room? I'd suggest he stays in bed and looks at books till you come to get him. DS1 has always been an early waker and has the bunny clock too - he knows not to come down till 6.30 (when bunny wakes up) so if he wakes up before then he'll play quitely in bed or read and sometimes even doze back off..

Thanks all. He does stay in his room for a bit. I think he was up at 5.20am this morning and made it till 5.50am till he came in.

The thing that annoys me is that for a really good bribe he can stay in his room. It just seems like some mornings he'd rather have miserable mummy and no TV than wait 30mins.

Plus on early mornings he is a complete beast as he's tired so everyone is tired and cross. What does he get out of making us angry, that is what I don't get. if I could see the reason then I could deal with it better.

Maybe I just have to deal with the fact that my mornings start at 5.30.

boooo hooooo I really do feel quite sorry for myself. sorry

DD was a very early riser as well (all my kids seem to favour 5am... wonder why ), and I did start to make her stay in her room until 6 or 6:30, then realised it was rather like punishing her for having a body clock that wakes up early and for being a morning person. Not exactly fair on her, is it? So I just got up and went on with the day. (again, lots of coffee)

My 14mo gets up at 5am, so UABU, if I am up you should be too!

You DON'T have to put up with it. Put juice in his bedroom, and tell him you will wake him. He shouldn't be waking you so early. Push it slowly forwards 10 mins a day before you get up. Change time on Bunny clock to suit you, it doesn't have to be real time LOL.
GET RID OF MORNING TELLY until things have changed. Put a little pile of toys and books out for him to play with, snuggle with. Imo, and ime, children WAKE UP to WATCH TELLY. Why else do my children spring out of bed on Sat morning (they are allowed to watch telly from 8am - should never have encouraged this but dh is determined on this policy) but have to be dragged out on weekday mornings at 8.10 when there is no telly.
I remember my little toddler nephew getting up at 6.30 and watching telly, almost asleep, sucking his blanket, clearly not ready to start the day at all, his parents saw it as only solution to his early rising but it was one of the reasons why he never went back to sleep.
Perhaps your ds a bit peckish too, what about a sustaining snack before going to bed - bread and butter and milk that sort of thing?

Anyway you said it yourself, he IS tired when he wakes up, he is waking for wrong reason and can't resettle.

I think it is like that feeling we get as adults when we are "preparing" for something and just wake up really early. I think children get programmed into that sort of buzzy tense feeling - have to get up, have to find mummy, have to go downstairs. They can be re-programmed to take morning in a more relaxed way - he's not going to miss anything, the day will still start, he will see Mummy, you'll have a lovely breakfast together etc etc...
No point getting angry, I think that just makes things more fraught, and then they are even more determined/desperate to be with you at 5.30am. I think you need to make him feel as calm as possible in the mornings. 6.30 as a goal is a good start! It's still pretty early by anyone's standards.

I'm sorry but most of you guys are missing the obvious...

When did they last eat? The British have supper ridiculously early..

I would probably wake up at 5am starving as well!

IYO Mistyop, not that you are generalising or anything...

well we have 'given in'. All of us will wake up [slowly] when ds1 does. It's what we used to do before I got pregnant with ds2.

It just means we are breeding another early riser! but I can't see a way around it. The flat is too small foe me to take ds2 off somewhere where he can sleep after 5/5.30am.

swanriver I think you are right. It might ease the anxiety that ds1 (might) feel, if he knows we'll wake up when he does.

So awake at 5 this am but spent two hours in bed drinking coffee so not too bad.