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?

She might also be waking early as she’s hungry? She must have her evening meal very early to be in bed so early. So as well as moving bedtime a bit later, give her her meal or a snack just before bed. And use a groclock to keep her in her room until the agreed time in the morning.

You could try extending the time she goes to bed but may find it won't make much difference to the time she gets up.

You can get clocks the show the sun and moon … and set them so that the sun shows when you want them to get up. This worked for my granddaughter - took a couple of weeks but she soon cottoned on to the fact she had to stay in her room (regardless of if she heard anyone else get up) until the sun came up on the clock. It's worth a try.

My dd who is nearly 3 always stirs at 4.30, her Dad has always got up at that time. He just pops her in with me, she goes back off until 6 / 6.30ish.

Could you do that?

I would never have put my nearly five year old to bed at 6pm. When do you get to spend time as a family? No wonder she is up so early. mine had supper at 7, bath and story and asleep by 8/8.30 at that age. Up for 7 ish. Its too long in bed imo

Why should you have to “ask” your husband? He should realise it needs doing. How does he think it happens now? The breakfast fairy comes every morning? Jesus.

I suspect DH is not nearly as quiet as he thinks he is. She is just responding to the rhythms of the household. But putting her to bed so early means she may not be able to settle back to sleep when DH leaves the house.

Mine loved to come in for a quiet cuddle then would fall asleep in our bed for another hour or two. Could you try to adjust her schedule to something similar? It may help with the anxiety. And gradually shift bedtime to 7-7.30?

I hope you find a solution. It sounds rather miserable for you.

It’s a phase, it won’t last forever. My DD used to get up at 5:30for years. Yes, put her to bed earlier, it has no bearing on what time she’ll wake. She’s 11 now and on the weekend she has been known to sleep until 10.

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.

I agree with this, though understand if there's another early riser in the house that it's not so easy. Are you sure she's not waking up because she's hungry OP? I found a bowl of porridge before (7pm) bedtime very quickly put a stop to my DD's hideously early rising (plus no attention whatsoever other than 'it's not morning, go back to bed if she was up before 6).

Also, did someone suggest leaving breakfast out for her in her room? Um, please don't do that! Young children really do need to be supervised when eating, and eating is something we do during the day - not at night. No iPad, no food, it's not the right time for either of those things.

I never understand this getting up so early, it’s the middle of the night. Would people do it at 3am or 3.30am.

Mine go to bed at 8 and wake 630, so the same amount of sleep. If the 5yo wakes earlier than us at the weekend he can go downstairs alone and watch tv until we wake. He can also access bowls, spoons, cereal and milk himself.

Try bath before bed, a story, tv/tablet maybe an activity you could do.

When mine woke early it was nearly always worse when the night temp dropped and/or there was an early dawn.

So with the cooler nights, I would pop an extra blanket on them when I went to bed at about 10pm. And it almost always meant they slept longer. I still do it now.

Get a groclock and use it if you really don’t want to be up at that time. We started using one at 18 months and DD very quickly understood how it worked - we’d always, from the very beginning, differentiated between night and day so I’d always treated any feed before 7am as a night feed, for instance. Move it forwards in small increments until it’s at a time that suits you and make sure your DD knows what is and isn’t allowed eg our DD is allowed to play quietly in her room, look at books or colour but is only allowed to leave the room to go to the loo. She’s 3 (almost 4). Obviously if she’s ill it’s totally different.
We initially did 7am and it’s now set for 7.30am. She has lights out at 7.45pm and is usually asleep by 8pm. (We don’t get home from nursery until 6.40pm).
It has been work (best friend’s mum at nursery is constantly commenting on how lucky we are but she’s never tried to implement anything similar and gets up v early with hers every day) but it’s been well worth it.

your dd insnt going to stop the seperation anxiety though i she isnt taught how to be alone.and in her room in the momring is the safest place possible to prove this.you arent going anywhere you are in the house just not in the room.by running in to her your teaching her this is first ok and two the right thing to do.she needs to see that upon waking mum is still sleeping but still there and she will be ok.

One rule we have is NO BREAKFAST and NO SCREENS till Mummy gets enough sleep or Daddy gets up- usually 730 or 8. Books only. If you feed them and expose them to blue light, their stomachs and brains get programmed to insane o'clock. They are basically gremlins. I had a friend who was struggling and tried our method for a week or two and broke the cycle.

My son is 4 this month , he has a bath at 7 and bed half 7 asleep by 8 since small.

He goes through phases of waking up at 4 / 5 however usually around 6 am.

If I put him to bed at 6 he would be awake by 3 ! .
Are you sure she is not cold between around 3-5 am the temp really drops , my son gets his covers off and then he is instantly awake ! . We have had the heating set to 21 at night and he has been sleeping through fine , he has his duvet , blanket , pyjamas and a vest and is nice and snug!

If he isn't warm enough he wakes everytime x

My son isn't ready for bed at 6. Can you push the time to 7?. Even if she is overtired for a few days maybe a weekend x ?

Our rooms are also Pitch black xx

A PP asked when we spend time as a family, weekdays we are all home by 3.15 so it’s then till 6. And then all day at the weekend.

Bedtime tonight was 7.30 again because we went to see fireworks. We did a lot of talking about waking in the night and why she needs to go back to sleep. She’s a very clever little girl, she ‘gets’ it. She’s also very headstrong and will try her luck. So its just a case of me sticking to my guns even when I’m totally exhausted.

I’m feeling way more positive about it now. And can’t believe I was so off the mark thinking 6pm was normal. She’s always been an early riser (6am) but I think it gradually crept earlier as she has needed less sleep over the last year. 5.45 became normal, then 5.30, then 5 and so on. So I understand it will work in reverse gradually too.

Thank you for all the help and advice.

My daughter is same age and had every similar sleep pattern untill few weeks ago each night I put her to bed 5 mins later at first she still woke same time but after a week she started sleeping longer. She did go to bed at 6 got up at 5 now she goes bed 7.15 an gets up any time from 6.30 I get my first cup of coffee in peace now.

Dont let her eat in her room alone

Our ds’s used to be early risers when they were small.
We tried a couple of kid style light up clocks but this OK to Wake was the best.

When they were younger they leant (reward system) not to get up until it turned green (they would come dashing in declaring, ‘clock’s green!’) and as they got older they recognised the numbers ( seven oh oh in our case!)
You have to decide what time is acceptable for you and it has to be the same at weekends as well as weekdays and you have to be very consistent with it. We got there gradually after getting the clocks (the green light was the initial sign that it was ok to get up then we progressed to the time as they got older so that worked well).
Ours would always get up at the same time regardless of how late they went to bed so bedtime was pretty consistent at about 7pm too while they were in nursery school.

Should have said we’ve never allowed food or tech in their rooms either.

I think you're effectively hitting the 5/5.30am danger zone, but an hour earlier because she goes to bed earlier. My experience with both mine, and friends say the same, is that a child who will sleep through a smoke alarm/hoover/lights on (or all three at once- true story....) at 9pm, will wake because a sparrow farted in the next road over at 5am. Your husband probably is waking her, and she hasn't learnt to go back to sleep. In my experience that comes at around 3 - but it's still hit or miss now with my youngest, at 3. If he wakes at 5.30 and wants a drink, and then lies back down, we're ok. If he gets up to go to the toilet, we're on very dodgy ground. But it's getting better, it's a learned skill, I think. Keep treating it as a night waking, and gradually push bedtime back, and she'll get there. She's old enough for a gro clock, that might help.

What time do you give her breakfast? Our body clocks are programmed by our digestive systems so, if your DD has breakfast soon after waking, then she is probably waking so early because she is used to eating at that time. Maybe try holding out her breakfast by 5-10 mins each day? I certainly would try to avoid feeding her at 5am!

As a side note (which kind of backs this up), a tactic to avoid jet lag after long journeys is not eating on the plane... or being very strict about only eating at a normal meal time according to UK time zone. It's the eating at odd times that throws sleep patterns out of sync

Watching with a lot of interest here.
We have a nearly 4yo, a 2yo and a bloomin noisy 6 month old who is up in the night several times at the moment.

It’s so hard when your kid is up pre 6am as your day just isn’t meant to start then; I mean CBeebies isn’t even on!

Our day now starts at 5:40 as the baby has a screech then and our son then wakes and as he’s in a cot is shouting for Mummy or Daddy which then wakes our oldest up.

This now means both are cream crackered at 6 and keeping them up much beyond is a recipe for trouble, they literally lie on the ground and rub their eyes.

So we eat at 5:30, bath is 6:15 and the older two are in bed for 6.40 with lights out at 6:45.

Our gro clock has made fuck all difference.

So basically OP - solidarity. Keep us updated though. Seems a later bedtime for your DD is working x

I bought my early riser a digital clock, and he wasn’t allowed to wake me up until the first number was 7! I also taught mine at a fairly early age how to make a simple breakfast (eg cereal) and turn the telly on (I’d make sure to leave it tuned to CBeebies or whatever the night before) so I could lie in a bit on the weekend.