To be horrified I used to wake at this time every day?

[iusedto]

At 18 months my previously crap sleeper started sleeping through (mostly) but swapped multiple night wakings for waking very, very early - 5-530 generally.

This lasted for around a year. Then he dropped his nap and sort of shifted that sleep to the morning. Gradually he’s been waking later and later and now sometimes I have to wake him. (Not often.)

I have a ‘new’ 18 month old who thankfully doesn’t seem as inclined to start the day when it’s still the middle of the night but she did just wake me about half an hour ago and I am waiting for her to go back to sleep.

But - AIBU to be horrified this was a habitual start time if you like for me once upon a time? I’ve given myself such a hard time about not properly enjoying ds as a toddler but I kind of think no wonder; I must have been sick with exhaustion!

@Lostinmusic22 ”we all decided” you were smug and wrong (decades of no sleep, oh please what BS)…..

Okay…. 🤷‍♀️
wait and see!

God my 8 and 5 yr olds are still up at 5 every morning. I am used to being a haggard knackered mess atl

If I’d stuck at 2 children I’d have had 12 months of sleep deprivation at most. It was only having my autistic child that has meant I’m long term sleep deprived.

Decades, seriously?

I know there are some dreadful sleepers and habitual early risers out there but my four year old is in a good 730-730 approx pattern and has been since being about two and a half. Obviously we have the odd disrupted routine, we’re having one tonight in fact as he had a danger nap, but he’s just not asleep, he’s happy listening to his tonie box.

As much as insomnia isn’t automatically part of the menopause, nor is long term sleep deprivation an inevitable part of parenthood. And I think the narrative that it is is quite damaging.

Was about 4 years of disturbed sleep (not no sleep) for our two children with another year of less than optimum sleep. So from when the oldest was born to when the youngest was 2-3.

Decades (so minimum 20 years) you'd have to either have a disabled child with severe sleep dysfunction (always possible but not the norm) or an awful lot of children (quite easily avoided).

In fairness I suppose it can certainly FEEL like decades!

My first wasn’t a good sleeper and I got quite obsessive at one point. I would actually fantasise about sleep. I’m more chilled now, but that’s because no2 sleeps well unless she’s teething, and sometimes it rather feels as if she’s always teething!

5 is night time and my kids arnt allowed to get up at that time.

I'm always a bit wtf when people tell me they've been up since 5 with their toddlers..... who is in charge?

who is in charge

Oh, DS. Absolutely. Because as much as I agree children need rules and a routine, some things aren’t possible. When i tried it (and although I’ve tried to have a fairly jovial tone here it did make me pretty drained and miserable at one point) basically our DS just cried solidly until the time was ‘morning.’I don't know if the people it works for just persisted for longer but we did do it for about a week at least and not once did DS go back to sleep. The problem we had was that for him it wasn't a middle of the night waking, it was morning, and no amount of being told it was night time made him feel differently.

I also tried earlier bedtime (woke earlier!) later bedtime (made no difference) dropping the nap (fell asleep at 330 pm and couldn’t be roused!) and a few other things.

Obviously as a child gets older then they can be encouraged to stay in their bedrooms a bit longer with Tonie or Yoto players or something and bribery but I’d have been on a highway to nowhere at 18 months - 2 and a half.

I feel your pain! I remember when DS was very very young he used to wake around 4:30am day after day, full of beans! Then need a nap by 8am by which time I’d fully woken up and it was daylight and it was a real struggle to go back to sleep myself. Anything before 6am is a nightmare for me. 7am rare but civilised. We had a very very rare 8am the other day as he was ill and it was bloomin amazing. I must go to bed earlier, but after working all day you don’t get much time to yourself if you go early. And randomly I seem to get a resurgence of energy at 9pm. Can’t wait for the teenage years. And I’m banning him from being a swimmer! 🤣

My second child was diagnosed with T1 diabetes at age 3. Having to be up several times a night with him made the baby waking pale into insignificance.

I totally agree with you OP. Our daughter's sleep seemed to go in stages and we had 5am wakings for around a year. We really struggled with it and found it a horrible time to start the day, especially in autumn/winter. I tried to just accept it but my body clock couldn't get used to it all, even with going to bed early. Very few of my friends had kids who woke so early so regularly. And it wasn't peaceful at all - she was awake and full of beans immediately. Glad it’s mainly behind you ❤️

@iusedto

To be fair, I did have a short period with my first born of this. My mum came to visit and basically told me to stop and it couldn't carry on, as I was expecting number 2.
We just consistently put them to bed later for about 2 weeks and they started waking up between 7- 9:30 depending on how busy we'd been in the day. We live in Europe and no kids wake up at the crack of dawn... it's an English parent thing!
But I'm glad you don't have this problem with your second child

Wut?? I lived in Europe when dc were small. They started school at 7am so waking up early was the absolute norm!

Gosh when my twins were 18 months they were 5.30am wakers. You’ve made it all come screaming back! Dealing with 2 toddlers at that time was the worst. I’ve never been a natural early waker and can’t function until midday. Now they wake at 7.30 it’s bliss in comparison!

It doesn't seem fair does it... pregnancy = needing a wee every few hours through the night, plus my dc were all early risers and bad sleepers, so I went for at least 8 years without being woken at least once, and my dc waking at 6am. Then when they got older I finally got some sleep. After a few years (I had dc later in life), menopause hit! I now wake up at 3am EVERY SINGLE DAY! Not to mention needing the loo, general insomnia and waking up due to hot sweats, anxiety etc. As a teen and in my 20s I'd consider it a bad nights sleep if I woke once in the night, now I'd be glad to wake only once.

Poor you OP - glad your second DC is easier....

I was so lucky my DTs slept through after a couple of months, and never woke me before the 8 am feed.....😀! Even as toddlers and pre schoolers they always slept well and never went for silly early starts. Obviously illness etc - but I was so grateful.....

Not trying to be smug - but I am so awful without sleep, and am a natural night owl so with regular 5am starts I would have been a zombie! (I remember the 4 hourly feeds from birth - better than lots get I know but I wasn't really sure what planet I was on for the first 6 weeks or so. It's so hard to function on poor sleep .....)

Had lots of other challenges along the way - additional needs etc - so I didn't have it easy. But the one thing I was so grateful for was sleep.

Enjoy your LOs. Mine are late teens now - where did the time go...??

Me too. Wide awake from 3.00am this morning and still on holiday too so could have slept later! Alarm usually goes off at 5.30am anyway. On the bright side, early mornings no longer phase you post children and menopause!

Some of us get up for work at 5am and get home at 7 or 8pm and then make dinner for the DC. Notwithstanding the peri which gets me up at similar times on weekends. My reflux babies never slept properly for years. I barely recollect their first 3 years through exhaustion let alone the first 18 months!

I work shifts so wake up at around 2.15am, I struggle so much because I don't nap when I come home, I have young kids to look after. It's always a near 20hr day, and then the same the following day. This shift pattern works for family life so I don't see myself changing it any time soon 😭

Well if your toddlers/babies are wide awake and no amount of anything will tell them it’s not morning what can you actually do? Listen to them cry for hours?

For me it’s easier to go for a 5am cuppa than start my day stressed to death.

This. Except I start my day anytime from 3.45am onwards. It makes for a very long day!

Think this is me in Peri as I just can't lie in

If you include the pregnancies and the first 3-4 years of each child, and then you hit the peri menopause stage by which time your children are growing into teens and start going out - yes it is decades I am sorry to say. There may have been a very small patch in the middle where everyone slept, but it was so short I don’t remember it.

Now I am menopausal with teenagers that thankfully have a social life, I actually look back wistfully when they were small and I actually knew they were safe and could solve my sleep problems by simply having an early night! They now look to me like the golden days op. Last night one was out at a party and needed collecting at midnight. The other is back at uni and I was checking they were home at 2am. At 3am I was wide awake with the menopause. I have tried HRT it made no difference apart from hair loss.
At 5am sh gets up for work. At 6am I get up for work. Yes it is hard going, but you get used to being tired.

I love it, I get to read or do yoga and drink all the tea in peace! It's the only time I am by myself. I get up early on work days anyway so I'm just used to it. I do fall asleep at about 9.30pm though