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 ?

Yeah my DD goes to be at 7 and wakes up at 6:30.

If she goes to bed any later she will still wake up at 6:30, just grumpy. At some point over next few days she will catch up but it’s not as simple as putting them to bed later.

@ichifanny DD used to sleep 6PM till 5/6/7AM she now sleeps 10/11PM till 6.30 AM 🙄🙄🙄🙄 kill meeeeee

Pretty lucky here - both in bed at 6.30pm. One wakes at 6.30am and the other at 7.

My 4 year old sleeps 12-14hrs a night no matter what time he goes to bed, he goes to sleep at 8pm and is up between 8am-10am. He's been like this since 4 months so think it depends on the kids, my kiddo is lazy!.

Of course if your child usually sleeps 7pm til 5am and you occasionally let them go to bed late, they'll likely still wake up at 5am. The same is true of adults. Your body gets into the habit. There are tons of adults who struggle to sleep late on weekends because they're so used to waking up early Mon-Fri.

It takes time to change that. It rarely works for one-offs.

OP, do you really not think that parents of early rising children haven’t tried putting them to bed later? Obviously that is the first thing we try! So your “non judgmental” question isn’t pretty insulting to exhausted parents of early risers.

My 3 year old sleeps 7 till 7 most nights. Whilst on holiday she went to bed between 10 and 11pm and woke between half 6/7 the next morning feeling very tired and grumpy. Oh and she needs at least half hour nap in the day.

Some kids are just different. My youngest goes to bed around 7pm with lights out at 8am and she doesn’t wake up until 7-8am sometimes I have to wake her even then. My eldest goes to bed at 9pm and wakes up at 6.15am. But he wakes up whether I send him to bed at 8pm 9pm even 10.30pm etc and he is wide awake before 6.30am.

When I only had dc1, I would have been all smug as she slept perfectly (which was obviously all down to my perfect parenting methods), going down by 7 and sleeping through till 8ish the next morning.

However my excellent parenting didn’t work on dc2, who preferred to go to bed as early as possible, wake every 2-3 hours and then wake for the day by 5am. Honestly, it was horrendous (I love my bed), and I tried everything to get him to stay asleep longer, but he was having none of it. He still wakes early (before 6am every morning) now he is 10, it’s just I have trained him not to wake me until a more civilised hour!

If you have an early riser, I think there is very little you can do to break them out of it. More naps, less naps, later bedtime, earlier bed time, black out blinds, nightlights, complete silence, low level noise all night, feed them more, more absorbent nappy, less toys in the room. I can’t even remember what else we tried, but I was so fed up of taking advice and it not working. The only thing that helped was learning to entertain himself so he didn’t need me as soon as he woke up.

Oh I just love these sleep threads! So many people who don't have early risers full of advice about consistent routines. My very favourite recent one had the whole first two pages of people saying oh I just don't let them get up before 7am, they have a clock and know to stay asleep. Hilarious.

Both of mine were very early risers. And bedtime refuses. And dropped daytime naps early. They just dont seem to need as much sleep as other children. Now he is at secondary school ds1 needs a bit more so in bed by 9.30 and alarm set for 6.15 on a school day but 10ish to 7.30is in the holidays. Ds1 still up before 6 and asleep by 9ish.

Yes, you are being most unreasonable. Parents of Larks have tried every option you can think of to change an early riser schedule.

I could put my son to bed at midnight and he would still wake at 6am. It's like a bell rings inside him. We tried later bedtimes, lavender, lots of exercise during the day..nothing has ever changed his sleep except, flying to a different time zone. However, four days later he will be back to his 'normal' wake up time.

My DD goes to bed at about 8.30-9 doesn’t always go to sleep until sometimes 10 and is awake by 6-6.30 but sometimes earlier

My nearly 3yr old goes to bed at 6.30pm and wakes 7/8am with an hr or two nap in the day, I am aware I'm extremely lucky. If she has missed a nap or has a restless night, she's a grumpy mess the next day.

Mine go to bed at 7 and after stories and teeth brushing they're usually settled and asleep by 8. They are both awake between 6.30am and 7am in the summer and between 7 and 8 in the winter. The warm light mornings wake them up earlier. Mine are 6years and 3years. We have strict bedtimes because we prefer our evenings of quiet above later mornings.

I think you know full well you are being unreasonable in asking this question. No offence, but you're either stupid or trying to boast. For the record, your kids don't sleep well because of your magnificent parenting, it's just the way they are made. Just like my insanely early risers don't do it because I haven't tried putting them to bed later.

Doesn't matter whether our DS goes down at 6pm or 9pm. He wakes at 5:30am :/

“It takes time to change that. It rarely works for one-offs“

And again... what about the people who have said they tried this for months on end? Did they try hard enough for you, or do you just not believe them?

I mean DH and I have always been early risers ourselves. Ideally DS would sleep till 6:30 am. But it is what it is.

I don’t have an especially early riser (he is temporarily so at the moment as his sleep pattern is changing on its own), but I believe what those who do tell me. And as I said upthread - if you read the sleep board here and many many “sleep trainers” the first thing suggested for early risers is an earlier bedtime, so it goes to show people are just clueless and extrapolating from their own experience of maybe a handful of children

For what it's worth, my kids are now adults.
Dc 1 if I had put to bed at that time would have been up for the day at 2 am . We tended to let them work with our own sleep pattern . Given dc 1 despite being overdue and 9lb spent several weeks in scbu . ( we found out what was wrong when they were 17 years)
It was a case of going to sleep near 11 pm and from that to 8 am + a few hours during the day.
Dc 2 slept usually 10pm to 9 am . But rarely during day .
As long as I got reasonable sleep that was the main thing. I did not mind what hours .
A friend put their kid down at 6pm, but spent at least an hour settling them, and could not go out as baby did not do with babysitter .
Just do what suits you.

No matter the time I put my youngest to bed he would wake up at dawn. He is 11 now and still is the first to wake up in the house. It's just the way his body clock is. By 8 pm he is very sleepy though even if he wants to stay up.

I think later bedtimes can be equally draining for parents, just in a different way than early risings. I really value the few hours to myself of an evening and think I would find the days very long indeed without that!

My DS who's 3, always wakes at 7am, unless you actually need to be somewhere like preschool and then he sleeps in.

I can guarantee that at the weekend he'll be awake at 7am. It's manageable, but isn't asleep until 8.30pm. He was terrible when under 2, he'd be awake for hours until midnight and then only sleep 8 hours max. Dropping naps really helped, but oh I miss lunchtime downtime.

Echoing pp's, with it being different for every child. Mine are in bed at 6pm most nights. They wake 6am or earlier. They have spells of waking at 4am which is hell. If I put them in bed later they just wake up grumpy. Keep them up past 6pm and they either meltdown and sob or get hyperactive and you miss the window to get them to bed. It can then take hours and is unpleasant for all involved. They still wake up early the next day and everyone involved is in a foul mood! We've learned the hard way and don't deviate from the routine unless it's a special occasion like a wedding or holiday and even then we try and keep it consistent.

Suggesting later bedtime is like me telling someone who kids don't wake up until 9am to put them to bed at 6pm. Sounds the obviously solution but is harder than it sounds!

My kids are fabulous eaters and always have been, so I cannot understand the difficulties for patents who children are fussy eaters as I have not experienced it. I wouldn't dare give them advice though!! Every child has thier challenges!

I did try to change their bedtime. The advice was too gradually change the bedtime by 30 minutes every week. I had some degree of success as he stopped getting before 6. Now at secondary school the early rising is quite useful at he needs to be up early but still on the weekends he is up around 7. His brother will happily stay in bed past 10