To just want to have a tiny self indulgent cry?

[teacher54321]

Ds (4) is an early riser. Always has been. Woke at 5.15am today and DH is working nights so isn't here now and then has to sleep all day so I can't even have a lazy day at home because he'll disturb DH. I work full time and have a long commute. I am permanently just fucking knackered. Trying to lose weight, but lose motivation when I am so physically exhausted. I go to bed early, DS has black out blinds, and have tried altering his bedtime. Of course ironically he often has to be woken at 6.30am on weekdays when we go to school.
4 years of this. It is honestly putting me off having another child as I find it so hard.
All I want to do today is go to sleep. Not spend the whole day wrestling and negotiating with an overtired preschooler.

I have early risers and sorry to say they haven't grown out of it (age 10 and 12 I'm afraid.) 5.20am on average every day this week. Doesn't make a difference what time they go to bed or if it's a school night or weekend. I might get an extra half hour if they are absolutely exhausted.

Just posting with sympathy. My DD (has SEN) got up for 1-2 hours every night between 1am - 3am until she was five. She would then sleep until 9am. But DS got up at 6.30.
Between the two of them I was like the walking dead.

Once they can go downstairs and flick the tv on themselves it gets better. I leave a water bottle and a couple of crackers/breadsticks out.
I also bought DD a heavy weight duvet which has made a huge difference - something to do with the extra weight settles her. No idea if that will help you.

My DD isn't bad at all as she's a 6.30 gal but apparently I was horrendous for early mornings as a toddler.

My DPs set up a little table in their bedroom with weetabix in a bowl and milk in a jug. I'd arrive in, bring the jug over to have them take the cling film off, add to weetabix and eat. Then head to sitting room where postman pat VHS would be sitting in the video player. I'd push it in, Pat would come on, and I'd sit and watch it for an hour or so and then be joined by one of them like a good little robot.

Seemingly I was amenable to be trained in that but not in waking up at a less ungodly hour!

My son has HFA and has always been an early riser. He can now stay up till midnight and wake at 7 bright as a button (he's 7 now). I put a portable DVD player in his room and he has to stay in there until a reasonable hour (not 4am).

Sympathies.

I am not a morning person.

ps I put on two stone during the waking in the night years. Got rid of it as soon as she started to sleep through. Sleep deprivation is used as a torture device for a good reason.

I do have some sympathy with him as I think he's inherited from me the inability to fall back asleep once disturbed. Once he's awake after 5am that's it. However If he sleeps past the sort of danger time of around 5.30 then he seems to be really deeply asleep again. (On bloody school days when he has to get up early!) I think something is waking him early and then he's wired.

I find that even if I've gone to bed quite early, a very early start makes me feel ill the whole day. Your schedule sounds exhausting to me. I agree with everyone, put out an apple and a DVD on and go back to dozing/sleep yourself, I would never get out of bed and start the day at anything with a 5 in it! Now I can't drag mine out of bed, different age, different stage!

I would a couple of times a week go to bed earlier. If your a teacher (your name indicates so) I would look to cut back a bit too just for the time being. 8-10?.
Some children are just early risers. I let my son watch google box last night and he is year seven at secondary.... still up at six this morning!

I was that early rising child, especially in summer (sorry, Mum). Agree with putting a TV or interesting toys in his room, asking him to stay quiet until you're up, explaining that you have to do a lot of things and it makes you tired. Worked on me.

Totally sympathise. I used to be in the same situation myself.

I used to leave a single duvet on the sofa, a drink in a lidded cup, a couple of biscuits etc on the coffe table. The minute DS woke up I'd whizz him and me downstairs (quick, so I'd barely wake up), tv on very low (iPad these days, I'm sure), both under duvet...me to sleep and him to watch tv (thank god for Nick Jr. playing all night long).

I felt the key was to get down there and get him sorted immediately so I barely woke up myself.

I also would always always do a similar thing after lunch every day, tv for him, snooze for me. It was the only way to survive.

I know we didn't worry so much about screen time then, but really, sometimes you just have to survive, or the lack of sleep will make you unwell.

(I'm also a teacher).

My sleep-is- for- Wimps child is now 25, but I remember it well. Do WHATEVER you have to do to get sleep, bribery, iPad, tv. Nap with ds on the sofa (cuddle time) ask him if he can tell YOU a little story so that you can go to sleep. There is nothing worse than being sleep deprived. Good luck!

I'm not sure that your DS is the problem compared to your work schedule - the number of hours you're working plus the commute sounds insane! 7 hours sleep a night should be sufficient for most people. There may be nothing you can do about that and 5:30 is an ungodly hour to be awake

If you are a teacher, I'd be looking for something more local. An hour each way in commute after a day teaching people? No wonder you're tired! Feel like your cry at boot camp starts is totally justifiable. I'd forget the diet until your life is more manageable too!!

We had a gro clock for ds at this age which worked really well. Also if you don't like an idea of tv in his room could you have one in yours? We had to set the gro clock for 6.30 to be fair to ds as he was an early waker but that was still too early for me on a weekend so he would get in bed with us, tv on low and I'd be able to go back to sleep for another hour. Would you be able to do this?

Seven years later and sleeping is cracked, he now plays in his room until an acceptable time. But we have just added a new baby to the mix so off we go again

Just a thought. Mine slept through a bit longer if i put them on the loo about 10.30 when I was going to bed. Might be the urge to wee in morning waking him.

It's hideous I feel for you. My DC2 was the same and I (stupidly!) went on to have my 3rd DC who is worse during the night but however bad the nights are I have immense gratitude every day that we don't have to go back to those terrible 5/5.30 starts, which we've never had with her! They are a killer. I seem to have an inbuilt thing that means I feel terrible waking before about 6.30 no matter what time I went to bed.....

Definitely at age 4 if he has no SN, he can be trained (bribed!) to safely do something until 7am and the "sun comes up" on the groclock. Whether it's toys/books quietly in his room or going downstairs to watch the TV (used to do that with my eldest when she was nearly 3 onwards but she was v sensible and had to come and wake us first so we were sort of aware she was up, even though we went back to sleep!).... Definitely also agree with leaving him something to eat and drink...

OP nothing to add really apart from sympathy and to say he will grow out of it. Dd (6) is an only child because she too did not sleep until she was 5.
There is nothing quite like the bone crushing exhaustion of those years. Be kind to yourself and have lazy day today.

Only way I survive was in bed at 9 and asleep by 9.30.

At 4 he is plenty old enough to play with toys and look at books in his room until you tell him it's time to get up. My four year old does. She also knows she can help herself to fruit if she's hungry. Her siblings could do this well before four. Waking you up at that time just isn't acceptable behaviour.

I would treat this as really naughty behaviour actually and when he asked for things from me I would be too tired because he woke me up. He would lose privileges if he woke me up.

The extra stuff in the evenings will be finished next month and then it will go back to just Monday to Friday 8-5. The job is worth it for a variety of reasons but the relentlessness of it is very tiring. I'm definitely ready for half term! (And the long summer holiday!)

Thank you everyone for being kind

You have my utmost sympathy, ds3 got up at 4.45 today.

It makes the day so long, by eight in the morning i have already done three and a bit hours..