AIBU putting my DD to bed at 6pm

[cavycavy]

My DD is 4, very nearly five. She is a VERY early riser. All her life it has been 5.30/6. But at the moment 4.30am is has become our new normal (and this was before the clocks changed). I think part of the reason is that DH is up at this time during the week and he must be waking her (he is as quiet as he can be). At the weekends when DH wakes up at 7ish DD still wakes up at 5.

As a result I put her to bed at 6. Any later and she gets over tired and really struggles to settle and then still wakes at 4.30 anyway.

Part of me worries she’s only getting 10.5hrs of sleep at night (shouldn’t it still be 12 at this age?) and part of me is just SICK of waking up this early every day. I go to bed at 8 to compensate and feel I have just enough sleep.

So what do I do? Accept this is how it will be for a while and go with the flow? (I like the ‘path of least resistance’ approach to parenting so this is what I’ve done so far). Or should I try and play around with bed time? Or have some kind of gro clock system in place?

My daughter, as it happens, also appears to be going through a massive clingy separation anxiety phase (maybe because she’s just started school - although she really loves it) and I think staying in her room alone for an hour in the morning would be torture for her at the moment.

Or maybe this is normal and children are programmed to wake up at stupid o fucking o clock in the morning?

WWYD?

@cavycavy good sounds like you have some options and a strategy! If she's usually a reasonable child you should be able to bribe/convince her to stay on her room a little longer each day quite easily.

Re the DH though I know how it is. My baby was a totally shit sleeper (survived on sleep in 20min-1.5 hour bursts for 18 months) and somehow it just always felt like "my job" - a hangover from tiny babyhood where it was always my job due to breastfeeding on demand. Once she got a bit older and could wait for milk of COURSE he could have done some wake-ups, but the pattern was set both for us and for her - she'd give him awful shit if he went in instead of me, and o always felt like I was asking him for a "favour" to go to her, it wasn't established.

Sleep deprivation is terrorism - it makes us so tired and anxious we don't feel like we have the reserves to do anything that might improve the situation as the effort involved seems too enormous when all we want is sleep. Night weaning was the mountain I had to climb and it felt impossible - but once it was done sleep really improved (still likes to get up at 5.30 though and has boundless energy on around 10 hours sleep all in per day - some kids just don't need as much I think!). Good luck to you! Long may you sleep!

Hi, I dont know if they still do this. But my sons used to have a really bad routine and at the time I use to go to a sure start centre baby group, they had someone there who helped me make a sleep routine and adjust the bedroom etc. They came to my house a few times.

Thats crazy, 4.30 am isnt morning. O always treated waking up at this kind of time as night time wakings, so not going downstairs and breakfast , but stay in a dark room(welcome to come to my bed , easier for them to snuggle up and fall back asleep). I would get bedtime later as well, might be cranky for few day but eventually her body clock will adjust. Can sleep till 8 if she goes to sleep that early!

And not all children do this. Among many other countries that have a late bedtime as a habit, children waking up this early is unheard of.

put him to bed at 9pm. simple isnt it? Just dont do what everyone else does, and treat your kid like an individual, its is one.

My dc never slept long hours. Not even as a toddler. I was worried, but reassured when I posted on MN. There are so many children who don't sleep like people think they should. If she fall asleep at 6 if you put her to bed, then I think it's great. But when school starts, you may not be able to.
One thing I trained my early riser dc is to stay in his room until certain time, read, play with the toy, but not to come out.

I have this exact problem! 4.30 today. 4am Monday. However it’s all very well saying play in your room until 6 or whatever but what do you do when your kid is exhausted?! DS is 4 and he does mornings in nursery. He’ll be crying for Daddy around 12pm as he is exhausted. His behaviour gets bad when he’s tired, he won’t nap and it’s affecting his day to day life as he no longer wants to go out in the afternoons and he normally loves it. I’m really stressed about it. I just want the poor thing not to be permanently tired and grumpy. And I want to go out in the afternoons! I do drag him out sometimes but this normally involves me having to bribe him with promises of a kinder egg.

Ugh sorry wrote that so fast I forgot my paragraphs!

my daught and my son have been up till god knows what every night, my daughter i a bright as button. it makes no odds when your kids goes to bed, its a load of crap, only to you. Half what they tell you is to make profit somehow, baby baths, baby wipes , milton fluids, danger of death fear , or illness fear. Look at a Somlaian baby or South American indian, born in the desert or jungle, miles from a hospital, hundreds of them born, no propblem at all. Then work backwards. NHS is a company.

My kids uses to wake pretty early (more often than I liked we were up before the start of cbeebies) and to be honest I got
So fed up when they came in our room in the morning I just used to say, its still night-time, get in our bed and go back to sleep (this worked very well in winter of course when still dark!) and nothing else and they would always just back to sleep for a couple hours; They did try to chat or play but I just kept either saying go back to sleep darling or just soft breathing pretending I'd already gone back to sleep 😂 always worked after about 10 minutes! Mine were a bit younger too, 3ish? Also did the grow clock thing with varying success (DD better at understanding). They both sleep ok now! although ds comes in our bed most mornings still

My kids were both early risers. Is your DD awake awake or would she be happy to come into your bed for a nap and a cuddle? That’s what I did with mine and it worked well and we all got a bit more sleep. They’re teen now and I can’t get them out of their beds!

put them to bed anytime as long as you dont activly help them get addicted to your phone , using phone as a nanny, in return for your privacy and childs inner workings...... thats a real issue, drugging children with phones, if its not a drug, look what happens when you take it off them....... CRACK BABIES spring to mind. Sorry ....Tangent.... and yes i do it, yes i,m guilty, no i cant seem to stop it. Going to bed is the least of your worries.

X-post with it's on!

Was in your situation for years and at 10 he is still an early riser, but not normally before 6 now but for the last few years he gets up himself at those god awful hours. I found it hard to cope with i will admit and nothing I did made him sleep any later, you have my sympathy!

Probably a fro clock and a reward chart will fix it when you’re ready.

But as she’s suffering separation anxiety can you tell her to come to your bed at that time but that there is no talking or playing, it’s still night time?

My kids were both early risers. Is your DD awake awake or would she be happy to come into your bed for a nap and a cuddle?

I would do so too, LellyMc, but never had that problem. My son always liked a lay in :-).

They’re teen now and I can’t get them out of their beds!

That's a bit more like it! Teenagers certainly do need a lot of sleep, mine could sleep for England. I was like that too, still am at times.

This is interesting to me though, I'd never before heard of children having to sleep or supposed to sleep for 12 hours.

Kidlacky You do sound a bit like a conspiracy theorists dream. Lots of babies born in low income countries die, as do their mothers because they don’t have access to healthcare. What do you mean by ‘illness fear’?

Mine have always been early risers. They are not allowed breakfast until after 7, ever. 4.30 is not breakfast time lol.

What has worked with my 6 year old recently is explaining that most kids his age go to bed later than him, but I can’t let him stay up because he won’t sleep later in the morning so he’ll be tired. So if he stays in bed until 6.30 he can start staying up a bit later (until 7.15!) Sometimes I think it’s just a case of resetting their body clock, which isn’t going to happen if her body is getting breakfast and ipad at 4.30.

Re 12 hours. Mine have never slept 12 hours. 11 most of the time, more often 10.5ish. If she’s happy then don’t worry about it

What do you do when they’re not happy though? My son is so so exhausted. 😫

My DS has always woken at 5. I refuse to get up til 6, so he usually gets in with me and half dozes til 6. Then we get up. I see it as my time with him (I have to wake DD at 715 so it's definitely a personality thing rather than anything I've done!). We sit on the sofa, he reads to me, we look at books etc. He's allowed the tv if he's filled his chart from the previous day.

Hopefully the darker mornings can help you convince her it’s still the middle of the night.

Do you usually get up straight away with her or do you stay in bed?

I’d be staying in bed and saying it’s still dark so it’s still night time. I’m going back to sleep for a while and then rolling over. Hopefully she’ll get the message to leave you alone and play quietly alone for a bit or head back to bed. That way you’re not denying her your company but you are denying her action and attention.

Get up to make breakfast at the time you’d prefer her to be getting up, for example at 6am. That way her body clock isn’t so used to being fed breakfast much earlier and she may sleep longer. Maybe keep the heating lower until 6am so it isn’t fun to be up in the cold now either - although that may not work for other early risers in the household!

Many I’d just be limiting attention and action. I certainly wouldn’t be getting up to make breakfast at 4.30 😮.

I hope your path of least resistence "parenting style" doesn't apply to all the other important things. You will end up with a spoilt brat.

You need to say no. The more you say it, the less she will argue. But you need to say no. Send her back to bed and tell her it is still night time. Keep doing it. Keeo her up 15 minutes later each night, and keep sending her back to her room in the morning. She can play quietly, but she cannot come out.

My Dd is 4. Bed time is 8 and she wakes herself at 7. If I put her to bed at 6 her wake up would be 5.
Putting your child to bed at 6 is just looking for an early wake up.
If she needs 10 and a half hours sleep why would you put her to bed at 6 unless you want an early wake up?
If she needs 10.5 hours sleep surely you put her to bed at 8 and wake up would be 6.30?
It could take up to 2 weeks for her body clock to adjust

I agree with Lulualla. You've been getting up at half 4 to indulge a 4yo. My response would have been "its bedtime, go back to your room". Every single time. Until she gets bored and stays asleep.

Putting her to bed at 6 means she has hardly any evening time to chill and play