Early morning starts with children

[Sacmagique75]

When I was a child in the 90s I used to wake up super early. I’d quietly put the tv on and watch live and kicking for hours until my parents emerged, I did not dare open their closed bedroom door before they woke and came out. Which was never before 9am on a weekend. I certainly didn’t barge in, demanding breakfast at 5:30, crying and whinging until they relented. My two young children have always been early risers but now at the ages of 6 and 4 is it too much to ask that they quietly entertain themselves with tv for an hour rather than demand I get out of bed before 6:30?

@Sacmagique75
we used to do this too; though in retrospect the buttons on the remote were “on->1/2/3/4” not on->tv guide->scroll to CBeebies->enter etc. mind you we also used to let ourselves into the garden to play (poor neighbours)

Another vote for the Gro Clock. We’ve had one since DS was about 18mo (it was cheap in Aldi) but he only started to get the concept at 3yo or thereabouts. If he does come through before the sun comes on, he gets taken back to bed or I ask him to go back. Sometimes he gets a book or just bumbles around in his room.

My 7 year old was up at 6.30 this morning, unusual for her as on a school day I've to drag her out of bed. She's happily eating cereal while I'm scrolling Mumsnet with another coffee

Mine know not to wake others up in the morning. (I made that clear from a young age, it’s not cruel to insist everyone is allowed to sleep). Before i go to bed at the weekend I leave the channel on CBeebies so if they turn it on that’s what’s on.

We get up between 4.30 and 5.30, but I won't allow breakfast until 6.30. I always remember those days but look back and realise I was actually pretty lonely doing that as a kid, and felt a bit unloved so I'm happy my child feels they can wake me. Each to their own!

Omg yes you have just unlocked a memory- there came a time I used to make my parents tea too! Thank you for this reply, I feel immeasurably better knowing there is someone experiencing this and feeling the same way as me about it. A lot of my frustrations with parenthood come from silly things that I as a child just wouldn’t or didn’t do (jumping on sofas, drawing on walls, turning into an absolute lunatic at bedtime) and scratch my head as to how I was just so obedient?!

I'm baffled by the fact that you would treat your DC waking at 4am to start the day as a normal parenting thing.
4am is a night waking. Surely you treat it like that? Put them back to bed, teach them that being up and about at that time is not OK?
DS1 was a nightmare for early wake ups, but until 6am it would be back to his room to try to sleep again.
He's 10yo now, he's often up before 6am, but knows now to just sneak downstairs and not wake anyone. He's done this for years now.

Thank you. This makes me feel better! I often wonder what did my parents do right that I’m doing wrong and perhaps I need to reframe that thought as I’m just a different personality to my own children!

Mine are now 12 and 9, so a bit older. But since they were little we’ve used the gro clock and it has worked so well. Yes my eldest did reset it when she was wee a couple of times, but she got a consequence for doing that (can’t even remember what it would have been!!) so didn’t do it again.

We have a rule that no one is allowed to get up before 7am. If they waken early they can play quietly in their room or read. They do have iPads, but they aren’t allowed to go on until 7am either.

Before the gro clock age, there were many mornings when I was up at 5am waiting for CBeebies to start watching my eldest dd eat porridge!! So I feel your pain.

But once we got the gro clock we would put them back to bed and treat early rises as a night time wakening.

Interesting view point. And actually very fair point. (Where were you when I needed this advice?!) She was my second and I was very concerned about not waking others in the house - my goal was to always just stop the crying as swiftly as possible. I appreciate now with the benefit of hindsight this was probably not the best approach.

It's tough Op! We went through a 430am phase during lockdown and it killed me! The groclock didnt work for us. Happily now DS is 7, he wakes up, goes down, make his breakfast and watches telly. He's savvy enough to work the smart TV. This means at the weekend we get a lie in until 9am. Bliss! There is light at the end of the tunnel. Hang in there xx

I have these thoughts about my childhood obedience levels too, I would never wake my parents/jump on the furniture/throw a wobbler at bedtime. But I think part of it is I have little boys and they are naturally more physical than I would have been and partly different personalities.

My eldest it NOT a compliant little boy, whereas my little one is much more like me in this respect. However, I'm an awful doormat people pleaser as an adult, so I'd rather be like my eldest who knows his own mind tbh. Mindless compliance has a lot of downsides.

Op are your parents still around? It might be worth double checking your recollections with them...

Yeah I totally understand wanting to just stop the crying. We were lucky that DS2 is a sleeper. But in the early days I would do anything to stop him disturbing DS1.

❤️❤️❤️

@Sacmagique75 you have made me feel a lot better too. Also the comment from pp about some children just being more compliant than others. I know I was more compliant than my daughter is but that was due to me being quite frightened of my parents! And although I struggle more with her compliance (and my lack of sleep!), I know she’s not frightened of me and we have a really close, loving relationship which I console myself with on these early mornings. Not saying those with better-trained children don’t have close relationships of course!

Ours went downstairs too from age 5, if they came in I’d just tell them to go away it to was too early.
Could turn on the sky TV fine as well and get a snack.

Before that DH and I took it in turns to get up at the weekend.

Mine got up and stayed up by themselves from probably 5ish. Now they are teens and sleep in and I get up at 5am if not earlier! Lord knows why I wake up so early but my dreamed of lie in’s never happened due to my body waking up so early! Sigh

My ds in 10 and this naturally started happening around 8. He'd let me sleep for a bit then come in "just to say hi" cuddle and chat to me around 8am. Gradually this has changed and he chills until I get him moving, so perhaps yours are too young still?
When he was younger I did find that having jobs/homework to start "once we're both awake" encouraged them to let me sleep.

Mine are 6 and 4 and they rarely wake us up. On the weekends they open our bedroom door a little and if we're still asleep they go back to their rooms and play. They usually go downstairs for breakfast around 8am once one of us is awake. But we don't necessarily have to go down with them, often we stay in bed messing about on our phones or whatever.

I'm not sure how this happened. As toddlers, they used to come in as soon as they woke up and do the whole "wake up mummy, I want breakfast" thing. I suppose that once they got to about 3 we just started telling them that we are still sleeping and they need to go back to their bedrooms and play. Then one day the eldest said they didn't want to wait for breakfast so I told them to go downstairs and eat something. Then it just became a thing.

I think it helps that they get on really well so they are happy enough in each others company. Also the eldest has always been very keen to "look after" her younger brother so she's always happy to help him with stuff. I'm always having to tell her that he's my responsibility not hers because she constantly wants to do everything for him 🤣 it's very sweet tbh.

Just wait until the teen years and you have to get them up. Bliss compared with your stage which is brutal !

Can you teach the 6yo to get them both a simple breakfast of cereal and milk? Then they're fed at least.

My 7yo does this for herself and the 3yo, but the eldest can work the TV too so that helps. The 3yo does puzzles sometimes on his own for a bit.

I remember going in to my parents bed when we woke up (early 80s) for a cuddle but I think it must have been around 7am. Don't remember my folks lying in at all but I was probably unaware!

Maybe be happy that your children aren't afraid of you like you were of your parents

My eldest is an early riser, we don’t go downstairs before 6am, at the moment she’s waking around 5:45 and it’s really tempting to just go downstairs but I know from bitter experience that 5:45, would turn into 5:30 and so on.
She generally comes into our bed until 6, she rarely falls back to sleep but has learnt to lie still and now asks ‘can we go downstairs now?’ Every minute in a very quiet voice as I’m
waking up instead of the screaming whingy voice she used to use!
Thankfully I’m a morning person, but it can take a few minutes to wake.

Thing is though as a morning person, I don’t want a late riser. I just want some
time to myself first thing and I’d happily be up at 5:30 if I had the time to myself
which atm wouldn’t happen.

So if I can just eke put an extra 30 mins from DD I’d be more than happy!