To think there’s not much you can do about early wakings

[Toooooearly]

DS woke at 530 for a year and it nearly killed me. I tried all the gro clock, treat as a night waking, later bedtime and so on and it didn’t work. He sleeps slightly later now but not much. Now the second one has started. AIBU to think some children just do wake very early 😴

Yep, you just have to go to bed at 8pm until they grow out of it!

Yep. DD is 12 and still wakes early.most days. She went to sleep about an hour later than usual last night and still.woke at 6.15

Same.as me, I always wake up at about 6am

Don’t all children do this?? Never heard of one that didn’t.

I don’t think all do no. But then may have other issues, sleep or otherwise.

My youngest was always an early riser
Even now age 12 they consider 7am to be a big sleep in. And usually wake before then but just read in bed until 7 at the weekend because they have learned we get a bit pissed off by pancake requests earlier than this! Have watched many an episode of Octonauts at 5am.

No. My daughter used to have to be woken at 6.15 to get to the childminder on time on weekdays and was constantly exhausted, at weekends she would sleep til 7.30 to compensate.

Also some children can be taught to respond to a groclock more easily than others. I introduced at 2.5 (during school holidays) and from day 1 one my child stayed in her room and never disturbed us. My nephew is 5 and still incapable of staying in bed til 6am when the groclock changes!!

i got very lucky…now heavily pregnant with number 2 and very worried he may not be the same…!!

No, my two year old is a lazy bugger who I have to wake up every morning. And after his lunch will announce ‘bed’ and take himself upstairs for a nap.

Me eldest however….yep, had a good twelve months of being pleased if wake up time started with a 5.

Yep. DD was a 5.30 girl for years. We tried eeeeeeeeeverything. I really hated the groclock for its false promises!

Just after she turned 4 she suddenly started sleeping till 7.

Yep Dd went through a 4:30-5am phase and I nearly killed myself trying everything ever. Nothing worked. She just had to grow out of it.

She’s 7 and the absolute latest she sleeps in in 7:30, and that’s only if we’ve had an unusually late bedtime. Usually it’s 6am.

Trouble is she’s trained me so well if I wake up at 6:30 and she isn’t awake I instantly panic. Parenting is fun!

I don't know...I know a few people who's kids wake early and say their body clock can't be changed, who adapt to the local time when they go on holiday. It could be that they just have a natural rhythm based on daylight etc...or it could be that it's about doing everything later not just going to bed later, so that their whole body clock adjusts. I asked a sleep consultant about this once and she said its possible to change but difficult once it's emgrained

I think you can look at their sleep routine during the day, adjust bedtime a bit and it might help. But I do agree overall. Both of mine went through a (prolonged) stage of waking around 5-5.30.

Yeah, my DS did until he was 4 almost 5. Now he'll come into our bed at around 5.30 and sleep a bit longer but that early wake up still happens.

I must be the only parent looking forward to the teenage years if only for the extra sleep!

Quite a common occurance

I don’t think you can control when they wake up but you absolutely can set boundaries about when they’re allowed to get up. It’s quiet playing in their room until 6.30am in our house!

But if you ignore them there’s still not much you can do. The much loved on here boundaries still rely on the child’s cooperation.

I think it's a developmental thing. I spend ages waking up 5am/5.30am and nothing I did changed that. Now that DD is a toddler it's anything from 6am onwards.

From what age? I don’t think that’s possible for a toddler.

DTs are 13 and still wake up before 630, regardless of what time they go to bed. When they were young anything that started after 5.30 was a good day.

No, not gloating but mine rarely woke before 7am

My mum took a "beat them don't join them" approach.

She'd hustle the whole house out of bed before 6am for various reasons. "You can sleep in the car" was her refrain all the way right until we were grumpy teenagers who could very much not get back to sleep in the car.

I agree with you, I had one that woke at 4:30 am for about a year, when I had a new baby as well. We tried literally everything and in the end we just had to wait for her to go out of it, she sleeps until 7 am now (she’s six)

I think there are some kids wired that way, but there is also a strong correlation between the people I know who did a 5pm dinner for their kids and who suffered from early wakings.

I live in a very multicultural area, so a lot of European families who eat later - not a problem for very many of them, or me when I moved bath to morning and dinner to just before bed.

In summer hols when Dd eats with us (8pm onwards) doesn’t make a single bit of difference to her waking times, except she’s grumpier than usual!

Bribery. From age 2 ish when they can understand the clock we gave ours one jelly tot if they stayed quietly in their bed until 6.30. Did the trick.

It was possible for mine! They actually did it as babies by grabbing books through the bars of the cot so it wasn’t difficult to reinforce that that’s what they are expected to do upon waking. Once they were out of the cot we had a stairgate on their door, until about 3, and made sure that they also had nice selection of quiet toys. Have had to repeat a few times that it’s not morning yet and they can play in their room if not sleepy but they’ve never really fought against it!