For letting the kids sleep in?

[ToastyFingers]

Dd(almost 3) wakes up anywhere between 9 and 10 and baby dd would feed and sleep all day if I let her.
I usually wake big dd at about half 9 if she is not up already and we all have a cuddle in my bed.

I give her breakfast in her pjs, because her hand-eye coordination isn't great and she usually ends up covered in it.

We are never washed and dressed by 10am, unless we have somewhere to be, and I thought that was fine but apparently most people are up and about earlier than us.

Am I a terrible slattern and a useless mum?
Should I be waking dd up earlier?

Genuinely looking for advice this, as I thought it was normal to take it easy in the mornings if you didn't have anything important to do.

For the record, we do go out every afternoon, usually to the park/forest/beach or just the shops or a friends house to play, and dd gets plenty of exercise.

YANdefinitelyNBU!!! Enjoy sleep whilst you can, sounds lovely to me.

I suppose it depends on when she goes to sleep? The only reason to move anything forward is that at 3 you will be hitting preschool soon, and school at 4/5, and then you'll need to be in a more "early rising" routine, so it would probably be better to move towards that gradually, rather than it being a terrible shock to the system!

I'd totally stay in bed till at least 10 if I could, though.

If you're all getting enough sleep and you're happy with how bedtimes happen then there is no problem. One of my eldest children was an early riser and bouncing from the moment he awoke. We would be those people waiting for the shops or attraction to open on a Sat morning becuase we had all been on the go for a couple of ours by then. I wouldn't have thought anyone was a slattern if they weren't in the same position as us.

Agree with NoSquirrels if issues when she starts preschool then you just start to move things.

Yeah, we'll have to get our arses in gear for preschool, I shall get started with that soon.

To be fair, bedtime isn't too bad, a cuddle and a story and she's usually happy to go to bed, if she's not tired she'll play with her teddies for a bit but we never hear a peep from her. (Her behaviour in the daytime is another matter though!)

Baby goes to bed with us but falls asleep whenever she fancies, as 4 month olds do.

Glad to hear I'm not terrible and lazy, my sister looks at me like I've grown another head when she calls and we're still in our jammies.

It sounds really lovely. Enjoy it whilst you can!

Enjoy it. As a PP said, it'll be over soon when she starts preschool so make the most of these days.

It sounds fine to me! You have nowhere to be, so why force everyone to get up and out of bed when it's not necessary?

I would try and get into a routine a couple of weeks before she starts pre-school, though. I assume she'll need to be there for 9am-ish, so it might be a good idea to give her some time to adjust to the new routine :)

Sounds fine. Mine never woke before 9am until they started school. Suited us great

My lot are late risers, they are continually nudging their mornings to be a bit later (meaning they aren't ready for bed til later). I try to keep some sort of lid on it, so I wake them around 9, to get up a bit later. In the past I used to do the 7pm bedtime thing, they just used to be irritatedly effing about until 9:30 anyway.

Giving up trying to get them to bed has improved our quality of life immeasurably. Mine are 5 & 3 and we HE so they don't have to be up and DP and I get up around 6 to get a few hour's work in. Evenings are relaxed and they get to come out for dinner and at the moment we aren't in a hurry to leave the park in the long days. It really suits us and we all like slouching around in bed for an hour in the mornings.

Stealth boast?! Sounds lovely to me. On the rare occasions my DDs decide to lie in, I leave them to it and MN in peace, with a hot coffee.

Course YANBU! My DD will be 4 in August, goes to bed between 8-8.30 every day. We get up at half 7 twice a week for preschool, but other than that we usually roll out of bed about 8-half 8 and potter about for an hour or so in our jammies. I am also happy to lose the routine if we go out in the evening - if we go to (eg) a restaurant, she will almost always come out too and then we'll have a lie in the next day!
I'm frankly dreading her starting school in September and losing our lovely relaxed mornings. Very tempted to keep her off an extra year/HE - for lots of reasons, but that is definitely one of them!
Sounds to me like you have an awesome thing going, OP. It's obviously working well for you all, why change it?!

Haha, not a stealth boast, I promise.
I've always been a late sleeper, and quite a lazy person and it's not really a trait I want to encourage in the kids but I think I'll make the most of the lie its for now.

I'm jealous of your late rising! Sleeping until 9 is a distant memory, I consider it a lie-in if DD sleeps after 6.30!

Enjoy the sleep! My daughter has always been a fantastic sleeper. It was not unusual to have a lie in on a morning at all. Even when she was a few weeks old she rarely woke for a night feed and slept a solid 12 hours at least per night..she has never really been one for naps through the day though so I guess her long sleeps were making up for that. The son came...he woke for 3/4 feeds a night for the first few months, and after that he still wakes for 2 or 3 drinks usually. I have stopped giving him milk incase he was waking just for that but he still gets up just for the water. I don't think he has ever slept past 8am ish except when he is ill. A lie in sounds like bliss. As does an unbroken night of sleep.

Mine have always had a night owl type bodyclock, even as babies, they wouldn't wake in the morning till gone 8.

We get into a bit of a bad routine in the summer holidays, because I am also a night owl, so we all find ourselves waking later and later and going to sleep later and later.

Whilst it's "only a problem if it's a problem", they do need to be up earlier for school and son gets a bit anxious if he can't sleep in the summer, even though I explain to him that it's because he woke later and only needs a certain amount of sleep, so this summer i might draw the line at 8:30am and set an alarm for us all to get up then, even if we then just hang about for a while and not actually get dressed till a little later when we might go out.

On a school day I try to wake them by 7:45 so it's not too much of a rush.

Whilst it is nice as it gives us the option of a lie in on weekends (though mine are getting to an age where they get their own breakfast and entertain themselves), there is definitely something to be said for being an early riser, imagine all the time you'd have before school if you were up and awake at 6am.

Friends hate me when this is discussed, not that I bring it up, but it does come out from time to time and they cant' believe my luck but it goes both ways a bit - like i say the school week would be easier if I didn't have to literally peel them out of bed and shake them into a uniform some days.

Son has recently taken to setting an alarm for 7:15, getting dressed and getting his breakfast on a school day, which then gives him an hour to play on his xBox before school, which works well as he gets off to sleep at a more reasonable time at night.

Daughter could benefit from that but seems to want to sleep. So do I, but I always set my alarm for 7:30 on a school day.

So I'd say, it's only a problem if it's a problem. You might well find that this is their natural body clock and you'll always be working against it to have them up earlier, and therefore you need a proper reason to do so, and school/preschool etc will provide that and it will fall into place then, and no reason to stress about it till then.

Sounds amazing. DD thinks the day starts at 0530, so for us 10 is practically lunchtime!

I always let DD sleep in until she started at daycare but even then I arranged that she doesn't go in until 10 in the morning so we don't have to get up too early Don't have to worry about regular early mornings until she's 6.5 and starts preschool so I'm enjoying this while I can.

At weekends and on holidays she doesn't usually get up til 10, its great!

My dcs don't like to get up early so like you, we're only up and dressed before 10 if we have somewhere to be.

We'll have to be more organised when DD starts school but that's not until Sept 2017!

Enjoy it while you can!

It sounds exactly like my life was, when the dses were little - and I had exactly the same worries as you are having, Toasty. Things changed gradually, as we got into the swing of playgroup and school - and the boys (now 19, 21 and nearly 23) have all survived and thrived.

They are all self-motivated, and able to get up and get themselves to work/university lectures unaided. I, on the other hand, need a crowbar and a fork lift, to pry me out from under the duvet on a normal morning! And I still worry that this makes me a slattern and a useless mum (even when the boys are away).

Well after that post yesterday...funnily enough my 2 BOTH slept til 11am today. They did have a busy day yesterday mind with no naps and refused to sleep until about 10pm ish.

I'm so jealous of most of you, my kids have always been early risers and this year my daughter started school so we have to be up and out. Before that, even though they would get up at 6.30am, we would STILL be in our pjs at 10am!! [hmmm]