To feel so resentful of having no evening

[Bedtooearly]

My DS (2) wakes at 5. I’m not necessarily looking for advice on this because believe me I have tried … and for a while myriad of reasons it is me who gets up with him, a couple of times a week I get to go back to bed for an hour or so but I’m always awake by then anyway.

I have to be asleep by nine which means in bed by 830, and it’s really shit. Even so I’m knackered all the time, there does seem a difference in going to bed at 10 and up at 630 and going to bed at 9 and up at 5, I once briefly had to do this because of trains and I was always knackered then as well. I regularly get a headache, have cracks in my lips that won’t heal, spots and grey, tired skin.

I know kids wake early but AIBU to be really fed up with it?

@SleepingStandingUp like I say, I’ve felt like this before. I’m not naturally an owl and I think without a toddler I would naturally wake between 6 and 7, bed between 10 and 11 which is probably ‘normal.’ I don’t think I’ve managed to sleep beyond 7 since I was a teen. But if I get up really early I do get this sick, shaky feeling even if I’ve had the requisite amount of sleep. I also find it does strange things to my bowels Night workers have the same: I think research has been done on it where if you sleep 10 am - 6 pm it’s still worse quality sleep than 10 pm - 6 am.

I get that. But honestly, once the baby comes this will be worth its weight in gold... whatever gets you 15mins of lying down is a win.

And yes, you will miss this stage sadly, it's awful and adorable at the same time. Although I'm still in the ptsd as I have a middle of the night bed creeper still at age 5!

Just saw your update about being pregnant etc. my first who used to wake early etc slept badly till 18 months when we night weaned him off bottles at night.

We had our second when our eldest was 2 1/2. Again at the back of my mind I did think about the awful sleep we had with the first - 4 month sleep regression started at 12 weeks and went on for 4 months.

With our next - note I am formula feeding - he was a good birth weight and I never woke him to feed in the night (did with the first) and focused on lots of day time feeding, walks outside in the daytime and naps in the daytime by a window. And he was a January baby.

Now he didn't sleep through at 2 days out but naturally only had one night feed not waking every hour like his older brother.

But this baby is a sleeper - he is so different but at the same time I wanted good habits from the start

OP - When you did your sleep training, was a big part of that not treating the early morning wake ups like night time? As I think that is key & even if it's tough, it may help to continue the training until it works (obviously as gentle as possible to suit your child).

I did sleep training with two children & it worked with both. They do 7-7 & I count myself very lucky but I swear the training is the reason not 'luck' as lots of people suggest.

We do have wake ups at 6am sometimes but we have rules to help this not become the norm & some other things definitely have helped:

• No breakfast, TV or devices before 7am
• Gro Clock set for 7am
• Reward Chart

Due to the early bedtime then 6am wake ups are obviously not as hard for us & we take turns to get up with the kids but we still follow the nothing before 7am rule so it's there is nothing the kids think it's worth getting up for - we did learn the hard way when DH started to give his phone some mornings & of course our DS got excited & expected it every morning & got up for that reason.

Good luck. I hope it gets better for you

Oh god OP YANBU!!!!!

My DD was a non sleeping early riser. Honestly a big part of why we only have one child.

She's now 9 and we have to be up early as her school starts early (we live overseas)

We leave the house at 7 am, I drop her and go straight to the office. By the time most people roll in I feel like I've done a full day's work!

She does have an early bedtime but even then I feel like I have an hour to myself before I have to go to bed. Latest I go up is 9. I often am in bed for 830!

Sympathies, honestly.

No, it was entirely different problems then @DaddysGirl36 . And I have tried treating them as night wakings but it just doesn’t work. The problem is that DS isn’t waking up upset and in need of reassurance to get back to sleep, he’s waking up ready to start the day. If you treat it as a night wake all that happens is he cries and whinges until 6.

I can't function without sleep and as a single parent I had to be able to function and work during the day.

I considered all walking before 7am, night wakings. So no light, no eye contact, no talking, just check basic needs and put back down. Ime (3dc) they don't keep waking if there's nothing to be gained from it.

But then I was also the parent who let them up til 10pm, and taught them to put on screens themselves age 2.

Those were the compromises I was willing to make for my sleep and a healthy happy mum.

My kids are older now and were early wakers.
I use to get so angry about it and my "wasted evenings"
I now go to bed around 8.30-9am and get up at 5.30am naturally. I love it. I feel more energised in the daytime.
There are lots of people who wake up at 5.30 out of choice. I would say just accept it and then it won't feel as stressful.
I would get a health check (bloods) done too though.

YANBU
My middle one was like this. 5am every day.

I went into a department store and asked at the makeup counter for help to hide my horrendous dark circles. The woman looked at me and actually said there was nothing she could sell me that would help 😂 You know it's bad when someone on commission doesn't try to sell you products!

It DOES get better. My dc is still an early riser but can entertain themselves now! Even likes a lie in on occasion and moans if we wake them up by being too noisy hahaha

We have the early rises although we never get up before 6am, 15mo DD’s cot is still in our room though so I can engage with her through the bars. I feel lucky to get an evening between 7pm and 9.30pm as my friend doesn’t even get that, she has to co-sleep when her 12mo DS goes down to sleep and then is still up loads in the night.

All that being said I’m hoping we can shift thing forward an hour when the clocks change!

Have you tried a gro clock though? Then he knows it's night time and still and either stays in his bed, or at the least stays in his room? DS2 was very similar with waking early and being wide awake but it did help. Some days he'd shout that his clock was taking ages/broken etc but most days he stayed there. We never got up at 5am and played with him as that would never have resolved the issue as there was no incentive to change what he was doing.

If he is just whinging rather than actually crying can't you just go in, tell him it's night time still and then leave him whinging?

Also do you have black out blinds? Proper ones so it always looks like night.

I tried a Thomas the Tank sleep training clock with mine. It took 2 nights for him to figure out how to turn the dial on the back to wake Thomas up. I was gutted.

Yep been there. My DS2 was way more mischievous than DS1, he found all sorts of ways to ignore it however some nights it worked and that was better than none.

Definitely this. My 2 yr old DGS has learnt that until the sun wakes up he stays in bed and plays with his toys. Took a little bit of patience from all us adults but he's learnt the same applies whatever house he is in!
Good luck 😀

Totally okay to be resentful of that.

Maybe for the time being you could adjust your idea of what a good evening is, though? What is it you want to be doing late into the evening that you're missing out on?

DS gets up at 7am reliably so I'm up at 630am each day to get ready before I get him, totally fine with that though and realise it's a good starting time (worked pretty hard on a reasonable designated wake time when he was younger). I like some time to wind down of an evening before sleep so I usually make sure I'm in bed around 8pm and then sleep around 10pm, that way I get loads of sleep. But I do nice things in bed: read books, have a hot chocolate, watch something on my phone or whatever, I feel like I'm getting rest without actually being asleep too early. 9pm feels like a late night to me now 😀I used to be such a night owl and would rather sleep around 1am and wake around 9am if I had the choice but needs must with a kid.

We ST at 6m and I swear by it, before then DS couldn't sleep longer than 45m at a time and was awake for hours and hours in the night every night.

He's three now and sleeps 615pm-7am every night reliably, no naps. I've had people say we're so lucky and I can admit we're fortunate that we had the know how and ability to sleep train, but it wasn't lucky that made him an excellent sleeper, he sure as shit wasn't when left to his own devices. So many people don't realise that good sleep can be taught from an early age and leave it up to chance then end up in a right pickle when kiddo is older and harder to teach.

I'd definitely get a blood test.

I know we're all built differently, have different sleep requirements and natural rhythms, but you're getting quite a lot of sleep and sound like you could be run down or deficient in something.

Completely agree 👍

Completely agree 👍

(Sorry for double post. Reply didn't work first time)

You’ll find it’ll just suddenly change and you’ll be screaming at him to get out of bed because you need to leave and it’s 2pm 😆😆 When I was a knackered new mum I used to long for that and then it finally came, along with the strops! It’s swings and roundabouts really.

@FatSealSmugSoup thanks, I am a delight.