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 ?

One of my twins would sleep till 10 am most days given the chance even if he goes to bed by 8. The other needs 10-11 hours sleep and will usually be up by 7.30. They are Really bad at going to sleep though despite a regular routine for past 7 years !! Sleepy boy could sleep for 18+ hours out of 24 when a baby. He would nap for 3 hours be awake for 2 then nap for another 3. Lovely except his twin didn't nap at all really...

You can get kids to go to bed later and get up later but you have to sort out their whole day. It's actually obvious that this is possible because kids (eventually) adjust to clocks changing or moving time zones.

The difficulty is that you also have to makes sure they eat late and get more daylight in the afternoon than the morning.

As toddlers, my kids slept 9-9ish for a while. Friends moaned about their early starts, had a routine of early bedtimes and thought it made no difference putting them to bed later. They also gave their kids breakfast very early, lunch at 11 and dinner at 4.30. Our timings were 9.15, 1pm and 7. Naps etc were also later. When I told then how I had got onto a later schedule, they decided it was too much effort, wouldn't fit in with childcare or they really preferred child free evenings.

Everyone finds the routine that suits them. If they genuinely wanted to make a change long term (and work, school or childcare didn't prevent), they could.

Oh it’s not about your preference, it’s about the child

Oh, this x a billion

My 9 year old has always been an early riser, it doesn't matter what time she is put in bed she is up about 6. She woke up at 4 today. She has been a delight all day

Everyone finds the routine that suits them. If they genuinely wanted to make a change long term (and work, school or childcare didn't prevent), they could.

Yes, all the people on this thread who've explained that they've tried for months obviously actually just prefer their child getting up at stupid o'clock...

DC2&3 would go down at 6.30pm and wake around 7.40am😀. From 8/10 weeks with dreamfeed and 16 weeks without.

DC1 did not.....

If sleeping was an Olympic sport my DC would win golds.
DD slept through from about 3 months, DS used to wake on average once to feed and usually dropped back off within 5 minutes.
Both slept well as young children, DD’s days start very early due to her work, she naps for 2 hours at lunchtime then back to work.
DS (13) would sleep on average 12-13 hours a night if I let him, he’s a devil to get up for school. I haven’t had a sleepless night with either unless they have been ill.
I appreciate that I am very, very lucky. This is no means a stealth boast.
I am also a good sleeper, my DM says I could sleep on a clothes line.
I have total respect for all the parents out there who don’t get enough sleep due to their DC.

Mine go upstairs any time between about 6 and 6.30 - aim of them being asleep by about 7.15 - they tend to like to read to themselves and chatter utter nonsense but are quite good at settling down to do that.

I've worked out through long periods of experimentation that they tend to be awake around 6.30 am whatever I do - so I'd rather have them awake and cheerful than awake and tired and pissed off all day. I keep gently trying to push the bedtime later, and it is for the nights of the week they have activities on - but DD2 in particular gets tired so easily and is about 90% sloth. If bedtime goes too late it becomes an overtired battle as well - so where we are now works OK for us - early bedtime the nights of the week we're not doing much, later bedtime when they are, and a relatively consistent get up time that just about fits with the time we need to be up to be ready and out of the house at the required time anyway.

Some kids are quite malleable and you can develop a routine that works for you as the parent. But lots of you kids seem to wake up early and then they’re exhausted in the evening. Putting them to bed later may mean they get up a little bit later but not enough and you have a tired kid all day. For others, getting them up early means tears at breakfast and putting them to bed early might get them off a little early but it’s still two hours of requests for the toilet, a drink, check the monster under the bed, tell teddy that you love her too, etc.

I think, to some extent, kids have their own rhythms and you can have some impact on that, but not always as much as you’d like. So people find something they can live with until the pattern changes.

Mines not been the best sleeper, she's now just turned two, we've always put her to bed late and she sleeps later but I think the few night waking episodes we have also help with the later mornings. One of my NCT buddies puts hers to bed at 6.30pm, I'm not even home from work then (London commuter!). We aim for 8.30pm but at the weekends later sometimes as we're out. Putting her to bed tired works better than her fighting it if she's not ready. I'm not a routine person so works for us! She does have the occasional 6am something wake up....shocks me to my core 😂

It really really is whatever works for you and your family.

My two children (7 & 4) both generally sleep 8pm-7am. They both have blackout blinds as well as curtains, so bright mornings won't wake them up early.
Most of my friends seem to put their children to bed early, and complain that they rise early.

Use blackout blinds and thick curtains if your toddler wakes up with first light. Make sure no lights on in hall too. Light wakes toddlers up so no light they sleep in.

I have never been convinced by parents saying their kids will always wake at the same time no matter what, this can't be true because their children wake at the same time the whole year round, despite the clocks moving backwards and forwards in spring and autumn. Surely children would wake at 6:30 in summer and 5:30 in winter if they always woke at the same time! Yet a couple of days after the clocks have gone backwards or forwards they slip back into their usual routine.

DS could go to bed at 6,8,11 - would always wake at 7!.
He's 15 now and would spend until midday in his pit if I didn't get him out of it! Make the most of it!

I have never understood how you make someone sleep when they don't want to. All mine sleep when they are ready and wake when they are ready. No amount of putting to bed any earlier means they sleep earlier -the oldest and youngest are still awake till 10pm most nights (often till 11-12pm) regardless of what we do and have been since birth. DS2(4) is the opposite and is asleep earlier at 8pm but awake at 6am but often has a couple of night wakings where he decides it's chatting time. DD(2) wakes at 5-6am for a bf and then sleeps till 8am and DS1(6) will sleep till 8am or later if he can.

If any of them go to sleep earlier than 8pm we know we are in for a terrible night as they wake at 1am and often don't go back to sleep till 5am. So we are happy for later nights and then a solid night sleep.

Yet a couple of days after the clocks have gone backwards or forwards they slip back into their usual routine.

Try weeks and weeks and weeks of adjusting by 5/10 minutes (himself, not on my part) until sure as nails he's back to his usual 5.15am.

That makes me feel so much better MrsKoala. DS2, from early age till just before 3, always slept 9pm-7am. Now he's at Nursery he normally sleeps 8pm-7am. If he ever falls asleep before then he wakes in the middle of the night . Last time he fell asleep at 730pm he was wide awake at 1245am.

Clocks changing make no difference to mine. They stay an hour later/earlier till the clocks change again. We just went on holiday and it was 2 hours ahead and they went to bed between 12-1am every night (which would have been their normal 10-11 pm) for 11 days.

Mine went to be with us and got up with us. They were awful sleepers no matter what we did but this way we got more sleep and trained them to wake at a sensible time.

DS11 sleeps from 9-6 and dd 6 usually sleeps 8-6/7 at the weekends they both go at 10and usually get up at around 7/8

My 6 and 3 yr olds are pretty much 7-7 but once/twice every few weeks will wake at 6/6.30 😭

We tried putting dd down later, she started waking up at half 4 instead of 6! This is definitely a thing for early risers it seems the more overtired they are the earlier they will wake. We eventually cracked it by moving her bedtime forward to half 6, she was sleeping through to 7 for a few months after that and she’s now back to 6am wake ups after adjusting to dropping her nap.

It makes zero difference what time she’s gone to bed, even if we have a really late night out somewhere, she’ll usually wake up even earlier. So annoying.

My 2.5 year old goes to bed at 6pm and sleeps through to 7 or 8. She doesn't nap every day but I cap her nap at an hour.

My nearly 6 year old is a mammoth sleeper. Goes to bed at 7 and sleeps til 9! I love it.

Have those who have early risers with early bedtimes, who say that their DC will still wake early with a late bedtime, actually persisted in imposing a different routine? Or are they saying that in the odd occasions their DC go to bed later they’ll still be up early? That’s to be expected, surely?

I've admittedly never really tried hard to change my ds's sleep routine. I don't mind him being up at 5:30. On the weekends we've usually run our errands, done the weekly grocery shop and are back at home by 10 am. I quite like that.