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.

Yeah that sounds hard. When you don’t even have chance to wake up properly before the chaos starts….

I agree with you. I have one rising at 5am and one at 6am every day at the moment and I’m SOOO tired.

The only thing worse is when you or they are sick on top of it and have to keep getting up and getting on with stuff.

When they or you are sick it’s the pits I agree but it is a few days. I think it’s the fact that this is just life,‘it’s just how it is. I mean, I know it won’t be forever, although apparently I’m going to be up at 5am with a teen () but it’s certainly not going to stop any time soon either.

I spent 6 years with two early risers, but also waking every few hours during night. Didn't think it would ever end.

Now they sleep through and generally don't wake until 8ish, but 7 is the earliest.

There is hope!!!

“What a wonderful phase” (as they might say!)

I agree that vomiting and Diarrhoea bugs are the worst part. We have one easy baby and when we were all struck down with norovirus we had to have an ambulance. I’m not even joking. I felt so ill from extreme dehydration I thought I was going to die!!!! I was terrified of DS returning to crèche after that as I’d never experienced anything like it and I even took him out of crèche when I overheard another child was ill and present with D&V symptoms. The whole episode made me loopy 😁
How old is your baby? What have you tried to improve the sleep- tell us more. Do you have blackout curtains? Can you shift bedtime back? What happens if you keep them up late as you can. Xxx

I feel your pain.

My 3yo has just said “want to lie down and go to sleep, mumma”. He’s been awake since 5am & couldn’t be placated with books or YouTube so we’ve been downstairs since 5.20. I have a full day of work in front of me & may have just said “well, you should have stayed in bed, then! 😅”

It is the worst, you’re right. I think anyone saying it isn’t either didn’t have bad sleepers or has forgotten!

For the first year of both my kids lives I existed under four hours sleep a night. That was a broken four hours, because they would wake every couple of hours to feed. And that feed could last over an hour and I couldn’t sleep through it in case I dropped them. And they wouldn’t take a bloody bottle so I had to do every single night feed on my own. I had a permanent headache in the day and started to dread the nights because I knew what was coming.

There were also the several nights my eldest spent ill in hospital, which is a whole different level of non-sleep. You have babies crying, alarms going off, nurses coming in to do check ups and a sick toddler who wants you there all the time and starts screaming out for you if you so much as go to the toilet 😞

Yes teens are worse. My son is 19 and still rarely makes it past 6am - of course he doesn't want to play horsies snd can get his own breakfast...

It’s the worst. I remember thinking “I can’t believe parenting a small child is basically keeping an overtired creature calm whilst you are shattered yourself. Why won’t the fuckers sleep more”.

p.s. teenagers are lovely. They sleep, they watch tv you want to watch, they read books you want to read and they do not throw their food up the walls (often)

To add to the annoyance we managed to have kids over 16 years (now aged 12,15,17,28). The eldest stopped waking up at 6am midway through my first pregnancy. The 12 year old started sleeping past 5am aged 6. So that was 18 years of being woken up early. Now they all sleep all fecking morning whilst we are wide a fucking wake from 6am as we are so used to it. Late night out til 2am. Awake at 6am. All day walking up Snowdon, awake at 6am argghh.

If it makes you feel better I clicked on this having not even remembered the torture (mine are now 12 &15) it does get better!

I feel this deeply. Sometimes I feel so very strongly the unfairness of spending so long trying to get a reluctant small person to bed/sleep and them treating it like I'm torturing them, while I so badly long for my own bed. Sometimes when I get a 'I not want go bed!' I'm tempted to offer to swap with said toddler!

Not especially I have relatively good teens, I had relatively straightforward toddlers. For me objectively having experienced both I'd rather have 5am starts with a 2 year old than midnight pick ups (which are not a sign of anyone struggling just an absolutely standard part of life with teens).

I won’t lie, if DS(4) wakes at an ungodly hour, he’s given an iPad whilst I snooze and drink coffee. I don’t actively parent before 6 unless there is an emergency.

I had a sleep refuser - endless evenings trying to get my daughter to sleep before midnight. She was up early too - just didn't seem to need the same amount of sleep as other humans!

Far worse though we're the phone calls from drunk teen/young adult dc to say they didn't know where they were, couldn't remember how to get back to their houses, had been spiked. Very stressful conversations in the middle of the night trying to work out their location and direct them home or dashing to rescue them. I remember one occasion where dc had their drink spiked, was separated from friends snd arguing with a taxi driver, talking complete nonsense and unable to remember the way home - I had to get their big brother (in same city) out in the middle of the night to locate and rescue. That was worse than the 5am starts!

And BTW OP the solution is to:

A)take turns if you have a partner

B) Abstain from alcohol

C) Just go to bed earlier yourselves

I have a 15 yo and a 12 yo and there are stresses but it's no comparison to the bone crushing tiredness of early waking. My eldest slept through from quite little but was a very early waker for a long time. Tried earlier bedtime, later bedtime blah blah blah. It's just how he was. And it was fucking exhausting.

You are in the eye of the storm op, the sleep deprivation feels like death. I dreamt of lie ins and just waking up without a toddler sticking their little face in mine. it will pass I promise. In the blink of an eye you’ll wish for those sticky toddler hands and being asked to play the horse’s sister when you’ve had two hours sleep and no coffee. I look back with such warm memories now but in reality it was fucking awful. Coffee is your friend. Early nights. Healthy food. Be kind to yourself and each other. This will pass. Take loads of photos and vids as you’ll emotionally miss many of the sweetest moments in a fug of exhaustion. I think it’s normal but you do have my greatest sympathy and empathy.

Is your teenager Paris Hilton?! How often are they going out until midnight?

I knew someone who had teens and a baby at the same time and she said at first it annoyed her and then over time it made her laugh when all her older daughter's friends parents said to her 'ah, but you get more broken nights with the teens, don't you?'. Her exact words were 'obviously not since I don't breastfeed my sixteen year old at 1am...'

It does get better, mainly because they get to an age whereby you don't need to get up with them.

My 14yo is still up with the larks, although years of early starts has trained my body clock to a 9pm bedtime and 5-6am wake time.

For me, the worst part of small child parenting was when you're poorly you can't just take to your bed for a few days. You still need to supervise & keep them alive.

The worst is when randomly once in blue moon when they’re still asleep when you wake up and you have no idea what to do.
Do you treat yourself to a hot drink or go back to sleep. You tiptoe like a maniac and then suddenly hear “ what you doing?”

Depends on the age of the child. My big two didn't sleep through till aged 2. Clocks getting changed affected them for a day or two and then they seemed to get through it. Lack of sleep is the pits and some of us can function on less sleep than others.

Daily 5am starts almost broke me.
I’ve got 6 and of all the phases - including teen - DS’s early starts were the worst.

I got slated on here at the time for it but as soon as he was old enough he had a Tv/dvd on a timer plug in his room.
it was set up so he could switch on a DVD from 5.15am. That let me sleep on until 6am.

I also had a box of ‘morning toys’ in my room that I would rotate and put in his bedroom at night once he was asleep so he had something novel to play with in the morning.

God this made me laugh, DD got up at 4am for about 2 years and we bought the sodding groclock.

Except for she worked out that if she mashed the buttons enough she could make it switch to the sun whenever she wanted.

After a few occasions of being woken at 2am by her hissing "it's the sun wake up mummy" 3 inches from my face we gave up on that one!