If you put kids to bed at 6pm ...

[ichifanny]

Just out of interest , I keep hearing parents talking about kids getting up at 4am - 5am I have 4 including a baby and apart from the newborn stage it’s never happened to any of mine unless they are ill or otherwise disrupted . Is it not just the case that if you put your kids to bed at 6-7pm then it makes sense they will be up with the larks ? Does it happen often that kids who go to bed about 8.30pm -9pm still get up early ?

@ichifanny can you explain to my friend why since her DD was a baby she's done the same routine for years and her DD still wakes up at 6am then? As that's consistent and hasn't worked for her?

Ds1 is up every day at 6am. Always has been, from when he was one (now 13). Never made the slightest difference when you sent him to bed. So yes, YABU to assume that all children work the same.

So you asked a stupid question, qualified it by saying you weren’t judging, got a lot of responses explaining that whatever time some DC are put to bed they still wake early. You acknowledged this and said you’ll not judge the next parent to say they’ve been up since 4. All good.

Then you post your ridiculously judgemental conclusion - a consistently later bedtime will mean they sleep in later. Well I wish you were around 6 years ago to tell me where I was going wrong, such a simple solution too - what an idiot I am.

Fuck. Off.

All these silly parents who only had to put their DC to be done later for them to have a sleep in... if only we’d known!

Oh and behavioural issues and learning disabilities have nothing to do with sleep, not in every case of course but it’s not the case for us.

Both me and my brother were early risers. Always up around 6.

My DS goes to bed at 7 and is awake around about 7 too, sometimes a bit earlier, sometimes later (usually round his Nanny's ) - he's coming up to 3. We've had this routine since he was about 6 months old.

Our bedtimes are around 7 on a school night and 8 on weekends.

On weekends they tend to mess around a lot though and don't actually sleep til about 9-10. However, daughter will wake at 7am regardless of what time she went to sleep. Son, if he goes to sleep later will sleep later too.

You fuck off Toffeecakes

The later mine went to bed, the earlier he woke. He used to wake at about 3 am for the day, only getting later as he got older, it was about 6 am once he was at school.

Mine were never early risers.

When they were babies and toddlers they went to bed late around 9ish mostly (I did try earlier but never managed it) and woke around 7.

As they got older, they dropped naps and went earlier (7.30-8pm) but still got up 7ish. Still like this at primary school aged and sometimes they sleep even later, not uncommon on the weekend to sleep till 9.30am if they go to bed 8.30-9.30. I have a feeling as they grow older, they will go to bed later and wake even later, I think they are natural late risers.

7am is a pretty reasonable standard time for a child to get up surely ? My post was initially aimed at all the 4am -5am risers .

The smugness is annoying.

One of my old friends from school days, became a mummy blogger, and blogged about how she'd trained her kids to sleep 7-7. She was very very smug about it, with no room for any thought that it was partly (mostly) her kids.

I babysat for a friend (many moons ago) who's baby literally slept 7-7. I didn't have to do anything. I asked her what the secret was, and she said, no secret, just lucky.

At least she had the good grace to accept her luckiness, but my old friend...super super smug.

Then again, she did a blog about how wonderful childbirth was, and how every pain was amazing. I should have seen it coming

Ah they great joy of being a parent you are only allowed to talk about things unless you moan about it otherwise you are being smug .

mine wake up at 5 or 5:30, no matter when they go to bed. the only difference is that they are in a much better mood if they go to bed early. a grumpy child at 5:00 is hell, a happy one not too bad

The other thing... If I actually do put DS to bed earlier, say 5.30 / 6pm instead of his usual 7pm he still wakes up at 5.30am, not any earlier... so yes still pretty sure he's like clockwork on that time.

(Occasionally may put him to bed earlier if someone is coming over to babysit whilst DH and I go out)

You can talk about parenting all you like and don't have to moan

However....when you assume that there is a simple solution to children waking early and that people are either too stupid to do it or are doing it on purpose (despite lots of
People explaining why) then that comes across as knowing better and being smug

I think parents of children with sleep troubles try all sorts of solutions. No one wants to be struggling to get a baby to sleep at night or being woken too early. So many parents have some varying difficulties with their children's sleep.

It is a little simplistic to say that it is all down to 'correct' parenting techniques. Unfair to imply that parents don't try hard enough.

Just from my own limited parenting experience, with hindsight, I think my dc had very strong inbuilt sleep preferences.

Mine used to both sleep from 5pm to 5-6 am till they where 9ish. If they went to bed later they still got up at that time.

There’s a bell curve somewhere showing how much sleep is needed and whilst the 11 hours for a preschooler is average you get down to about 9 hours before you’re outside 2 SDs (so 1 in 200 children need 9 hours or less...so not that uncommon!).

I just came on to add what I now see has previously been mentioned - you can't try moving bedtime later one or two nights and expect to see a change straight away as their internal bodyclock won't have adjusted, it could take up to a couple weeks! Mine (4&6) used to go bed at 7 for 7:30 but I seriously lack motivation at the crucial 6-6:30 time when I needed to push them through the bedtime routine so it crept back and back till at the moment it's 9-9:30 🙈 and while they used to be up at 6-6:30 it's now around 8 which is lovely so I'm struggling to return to the early mornings! Plus at the mo with the lighter nights sometimes we're not even home till 6:30! 🤷 I have a friend whose DS has been getting up since 6 his whole life but is down by 7 so she's happy.... Personally that would bloody kill me, and they can't hardly Ever do anything in the evenings!

You need to Decide which end of the day you're Willing to lose the time and then persevere, IME!

My kids are 4yo and 2.5yo.
On a normal day they are upstairs, bathed and in PJs by about 7:10pm, then after stories etc are usually asleep by 7:30/7:45pm.
Their wake up times vary - 4:30am being the very worst, 6:30am being the best usually. Even over Christmas etc when they’ve gone to be late (9/10pm) after family parties etc they’ve still woken up early - the latest either of them have ever slept in is 7:30am and that’s when DS was really poorly.
Some kids are just early risers no matter what I guess!

If I leave my three year old up till nine, when is my 8 year old and 12 year old meant to go to bed?

Just because one person in the family goes to bed 2 hours later it doesn't mean everyone has to adjust accordingly. We all just go to bed at the same time, usually about 10ish. We all then get up at the same time. And because we co sleep it obviously means we get no childfree time in the day at all. But it's the compromise we have reached for more sleep and a happier household. I do miss adult tv tho!

No matter what time my eldest goes to sleep (2am after a holiday once) he wakes at 6am and is full of the joys of spring!

There seem to be a proportion (and only a proportion) of those with “good” sleepers who simply refuse to believe what those with “bad” sleepers (define as you wish) say. My 12mo has only just started sleeping longer chunks than 1-2hrs and as a result he is waking earlier in the mornings (previously 6.30am which was fine but I had very broken nights) now about 4.30-5am. He decided for himself at about 3mo that he was done for the day at about 7.30pm. This earlier waking doesn’t seem surprising to me as presumably as he is waking less the actual quantity of sleep is the same. I’m sure it will get later again with time and as I am now getting some decent chunks of sleep I am not looking this gifthorse in the mouth. Meanwhile I’m sure there are plenty of parents willing to believe that everything I do is wrong so

“you can't try moving bedtime later one or two nights and expect to see a change straight away as their internal bodyclock won't have adjusted, it could take up to a couple weeks!”

This kind of thing... do you not actually believe what people are saying when they say they have tried it for months on end?