To think this is the worst thing about parenting small children?

[Iheartherain]

5 bloody am.

I thought the clocks going forward had reverted us to a more civilised wake-up time of around 6, but no.

Please don’t give advice as a year or more of trying to fix this hasn’t worked 😅 but honestly it is pretty miserable. I can’t have hobbies in an evening or watch ‘adult’ TV or nights out or date nights if we got a babysitter.

I am sick of being tired and yawning, fat because I seek sugar to boost my energy and always have a headache. It’s shit.

Well, mine climbed out. But I’m glad you were so much better at parenting than I was.

I think I would crack up!

I was that child.

But my parents deserved it.

The sad thing of all this business is that by the time my son hit teenage and started sleeping beyond 6 am, I was wide awake at the same time due to perimenopause.

I wish for you a better timing!

I was too, I have paid for my sins.

Let your kid stay up later ....they obviously don't need the sleep. If yoy out them to bed 8pm, 9pm, they will sleep until 8am

My kid is 8....we like him, so weekends and anytime that's jot a school.night he can stay up as long as he wants. School nights we try try 8pm but he's not tired and will read until 9pm or 10pm and fall asleep with a book, but school days he's fine for 7 30am and we have a great perfect balance.
But I don't care about nights out, adult TV and all that.

I expect you will be slaughtered for this comment 😀

@Comedycook That may well be true but I'm not sure it will be much comfort to the OP to know that it will all be worth it in 20/30/40 years time!

Teens are definitely not worse. Teens are bloody brilliant! They sleep late and put themselves to bed and even cook dinner / wash the dishes on occasion. Plus they’re excellent company. (And maybe I’m lucky, but I’ve never been called out to a late night rescue from a party.)

I'm really happy that you made the best decision for you. I'm really confident that I made the best decision for me, because the positives of having children, for me, outweigh the negatives many many times over. We're both happy and neither of us would swap. Isn't that grand!

Why do you think people are putting their children to bed earlier than you are?

Grow up and stop complaining. Loads of people get up willingly at 5am,they don't have a headache and don't miss out on evening activities. Get yourself to bed earlier when you can and stop eating all that sugar. You'll feel better and have more energy!

😂 if anyone thinks we’ve made it years to have never seen a blackout blind they need a dose of common sense slapped in 😂.

one child sleeps 7-7
child 2 is Batman. Sleeps no longer than 2 hours (with medication and a fancy Velcro’d round the window blackout so you can’t even see Batman jumping off his drawers) up could be 2am could be 4 on a good day he’ll wake at 4 and fall back asleep so I’m late for the school run 😂. He only communicates through screeching when he’s excited.. or he bites you laughing…

then child 1 is awake demanding you be a tractor but not that one and I’m sat looking shell shocked.

it has to get better… I’d take a house party any day

I am absolutely 100% with you.

I will absolutely be able to cope with my teen's friendship issues, exam stress, anxiety, DS breaking up with a girl or boyfriend when I am not being woken up at 20 past sodding 5.

Now DS is 4 we give him the tablet and kids Netflix and he doesn't come back down til 7. I don't care if that's frowned upon, frankly, as a working parent in a complicated job. 😁

haha this!

@Iheartherain do you have a partner? A spare room? Can you take it in turns to have a slightly longer lie in in the morning?

And no, it's not a competition, but teens aren't worse. Nothing beats the sleep deprivation of the early years imo. (but it does end, eventually).

So, people (this post is so going to get ignored!)

DS started to wake crazy early last summer. At the time, we were in rented accommodation temporarily and I put it down to disruption from that. Plus, he was actually sleeping through so after the hell of broken nights it seemed like a fair exchange.

Then the clocks went back, and 5 am in November is bleak. Then we had a week or so of 6am in December and I’m actually OK with that.

Then we were on holiday so fair enough a bit all over the show.

By February I was hoping that the clocks going forward would reset things and they did - bedtime was later but so was wake up so it worked! I was all thrilled and smug.

Except now we still have the later bedtime and have reverted to 5am wakeups and it’s a complete arse.

I can offer DS food before bed but he often doesn’t want it. It’s a good quality of his as he really does only eat when hungry but it can be frustrating too!

Also, I’ve had awful insomnia on and off through this pregnancy. I often wake at 2 and can’t sleep until 5, then DS wakes. So it’s not unusual for me to effectively start the day at 2, which explains my ranty outbursts when parents of teens old enough to shower themselves, feed themselves, set their own alarms and be generally independent inform me giving a lift sometimes is the same. I hope you are all condemned to at least five years of 5am wakeups in your next life.

OP I remember those times. It's bone crushingly tiring.

I once cried because I went to a friend's house and she sat me down and made me a cup of tea and I could actually drink it without getting up eleventy billion times. It was bliss.

Also the time I watched terrible tearaways, a TV programme by a psychologist which was supposed to show you how to get them to sleep and had a range of really poorly sleeping toddlers. It was all about taking them back to bed and not engaging. Anyway, even the worse toddler gave in after about 75 times. I tried 125 times without success. I was the one tantrumming in the end!

It's probably not much consolation to know it will get better because you can't imagine that when you're in it. So just two things:

1. You're doing a fantastic job
2. If they don't sleep it's nothing you're doing wrong, it's just them and their biorhythms/individual make up etc.

NO THEY WONT.

FFS. yours will. Other kids won’t. Pipe down.

This sounds like a partner problem too. My house is tiny but we always alternated lie-ins. Earplugs and an eye mask and you can sleep through most things.

Your partner should be able to deal with a tantrum on his own and stop your child running in a jumping on your head. It doesn’t matter if your child is ‘obnoxious’ and nothing makes him happy, he needs to be able to parent him without bothering you for an hour or two every other day.

Your life will feel a lot better if you have a few lie-ins each.

that’s the spirit, great try

Oh just bog off. Smugness isn't a good look.

Just checking you have foiled the windows? I’ve taken mine down now but my kids rooms were in total darkness for at least 3 years

We do have a cleaner who comes on Fridays and DH is a bit anal about ensuring the house is tidy for her to clean, which I do realise has to happen but hence why he wasn’t really ‘on’ DS this morning.

DS does sleep reasonably well at night - he isn’t one of the real nightmare sleepers. I just wish he’d stop waking up so early.

If it helps at all, I found it easier once the baby arrived, with my early riser toddler. Yeah I was knackered and had three children to look after but I WASN’T PREGNANT and that made a difference

The glorious thing about teens is you get your revenge for them waking you up at 5 am, although you don't have to get up at 5 am. I found vacuuming just outside their bedroom at 8 am on a Sunday morning got a good result.

I’m kind of in two minds! I’m going to be thrilled to not be working and not pregnant but a bit terrified of the madness of newborn days with a toddler thrown in the mix!