To expect my 3 year old to stay in his room until the bunny clock wakes up?

[JoshandJamie]

My first ever AIBR post - and I genuinely want to know if I am being unreasonable.

My 3 year old has always been an early waker. Recently he's improved slightly by sleeping till 6 instead of 5am. Now his younger brother has taken over the 5am wake up slot. Sigh.

I have tried for months and months to explain to the 3 year old, that if the bunny clock is still sleeping that means mommy is still sleeping and that he must stay in his room reading books or playing with toys until the clock wakes up.

But every bloody day he comes through to our room (which by this point invariably has younger brother in my bed because he's been up half the night yelling and has finally passed out) and the 3 year old either:

• starts yelling because he wants us all up OR
• gets into my bed and starts writhing around, scraping toenails down my back etc.

Ultimately he wakes up the little one which means game over, the day starts.

Am I being completely unrealistic trying to make him stay playing in his room for an extra 30 mins to an hour (depending on when he wakes up). Is he just to young to get it? And if so, when will he be able to understand this?! Because I wake up in a foul mood every morning now and it makes me ratty with him all day.

Three years of 5am starts is starting to wear a little thin.

lol colditz

as it happens i don't have a playpen anyway..but my dd loves playing in her cot whilst i'm bsuy puttong away her clothes etc and quite often yells when i want to get her out again...

JandJ, have you considered sorting ds2's sleep in their bedroom, rather than moving him to the spare room? My ds1(3.3) and dd (19 mo) share a room and have learned to sleep through each other's noises. Dd has been teething over the last week or so, so has been crying a lot in the night and ds1 just sleeps through it. Ds1 also wakes a lot earlier than dd (he's another one with a sodding bunny clock, but his trick is to stay in bed and shout 'MUMMMMMEEEEEE, MY BUNNY IS STILL ASLEEP BUT I'M NOT!' Grrrr!) but she sleeps through him shouting for me and him getting up.

It did take a few weeks for them to get used to each other's noises and I have to admit we did question whether it was worth it when we had both of them up at once in the night but it really was worth going through the rough nights. Like you say, they love sharing and I think, except when they're ill, etc, they sleep better in together.

I'd keep trying - ds2 has just turned 3 and if he wakes up before 7am (most mornings) we tell him very firmly that he has to stay in his room until we come to get him - he's got books, toys in there etc. Over 50% of the time this works and although we can hear him singing to himself and pottering in his room, it's better than having him jumping on the bed at 6.15am! Ds1 (5) has always stayed in bed until we've told him he can come out - don't know why, other than he likes his rules!

Ds1's got a digital clock and he knows he can come and wake us when the first number is a 7. We're just about to get one for ds2 so that he knows when he can come in to our room - I know you've got the bunny clock but if your ds is OK with numbers it might be worth trying a digital clock as well/instead? Good luck!!

anna - how old was your dd when you moved her into a proper bed and was it a low toddler bed or a normal single bed?

oops didn't realise this was so old