For those of you with DCs that were habitual early wakers - when is there hope in sight?!

[artifarti]

DS is 2.3 and since he started sleeping through at about 8 months has never slept in past 6.30. Now 6.30 would be amazing, don't get me wrong but he also goes through loooong phases of waking betwen 5 and 6am. It can go on for months and months and then he reverts back to 6.15ish. Not really connected to light/noise, possibly something to do with teething (he's a terrible teether).

We used to try everything to change the very early starts but have now pretty much resigned ourselves to it and just get on with it. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't of my friends who have toddlers that sleep until at least 7am. I don't know anyone at all now who has such a consistently early riser as my DS (although I realise it's not that unusual).

Presumably at some point this will stop?! If you had a DC that always got up at horror o'clock (i.e. starting with a 5 or less!) when did they start to get a bit later [clutching at straws emoticon]?

From the age of 1 DS1 would wake up before 5am every morning and wouldn't settle back down or snuggle in the bed with us.

When he was about 3.5/4 we showed him how to work the TV and put on his favourite DVDs, we would leave out a drink and a biscuit to keep him going until we got up about 7am.

It's not great parenting to send your child downstairs to the electronic babysitter but it kept us sane and helped me cope throughout the day. I simply couldn't do any more 5am starts with Barney the purple dinosaur.

I agree that there will come a point when your Ds is around three that it may be safe to send him downstairs to watch tv. That is what I did/do with DD1 and 2. DD1 is 9 now and I have to wake her for school while DD2 is 6 and often wakes before 6 - but she is happy and fine and I don't care because I stay in bed until DD3 wakes.

Yes - I think it's quite common at this age. We used to get up and put the telly on and give a drink and snack then go back to bed. Or one of us got up for an hour or so, then went back to bed when the other one got up. It does pass - especially when they start pre-school and lose their daytime naps. I put mine in pre-school every morning from age 3, then had quiet afternoons so that she didn't drop off to sleep late afternoon. Would give dinner really early, say 4pm to stop her nodding off. I think it stopped at around age 3.5. Do sympathise - but it will pass. Mine is 5.5 now and never wakes up before 7am.

We have just started using a sleep trainer clock with DS1 (just turned 2) after months of 5am starts. It's sort of working - he understands that blue clock = sleepytime and yellow clock means he can get up. We've set it for 6 and each day he has woken up before 6, but a bit later each time and there has been less whinging each day. If we do get him to go regularly to 6, we'll start setting it gradually later.

Maybe worth a try?

Oh I want to know this, DS is 2.1 and generally wakes at 5.40. He can actually work the TV and DVD player, but I wouldn't want him downstairs unsupervised (actually probably won't for years as the living room is open plan to the kitchen).

Naps, bedtime etc make no difference. Yawn.

Thanks everyone. I do live in hope that it will improve to something starting with six when he drops his nap/starts pre-school and yes, in the meantime, we are training him to use the DVD player!

I am also encouraged that some of you have had the energy/courage to produce subsequent children.

Hello artifarti! - I completely sympathise, as (if you remember?) my ds, also 2.3, was not making it much past 5am for a loooonnngg time. This time last year it was 4something o'clock, and it was horrible, horrible, horrible. He now wakes pretty consistently at 6.30am, sometimes edging into the 7s if he hasn't napped, which happens about once a week. If he's poorly at all he'll still go straight back to 5.30-45, but what has made the difference is:

1. Not napping. To my shame until relatively recently I was still taking him out in the buggy every lunchtime in rain / thunder / snow to get him to sleep, then parking him up in doors. I decided that I couldn't do another winter of trudging round and round the block so we starting putting him in his cot. He didn't nap for about 10 days, but in that time started waking at the time everyone else's kids seem to wake up (7.30-8am). Would it be worth doing a couple of days without naps just to get your ds into the possibility of waking later? My ds has now gone back to napping, but somehow his sleep patterns have clicked into waking later.
2. Spending 30 quid or so on a groclock. My ds really likes his, and it has helped massively with the nap issue. I feel I can now say: I'll come back when the sunshine comes on, he knows exactly what that means, and he'll either sleep or read the books he has in / near his bed. It's worked for the mornings too - again, if I hear him then I feel I can leave him to get on with it, as he knows it's not morning yet, and now very rarely wakes before 6.30 (which is when we set it for, not wanting to push our luck). Whereas previously my days would begin with: "mumma, morning?" "morning mumma?" then a slow crescendo to: "MORNING MUM-MA COOOMMMME IN NOOOW!!!!"

Hope that helps, and that otherwise all is well with you and your little one!

Hi
both ds and dd were early wakers. For long periods it would be between 5 and 5.30am. Then for both of them when they were approaching 3 they started sleeping until 7am. I can't tell you how good it feels! Lots of people said to leave them to cry but DH is a light sleeper so he always got up to them.

Take comfort - it gets better!

averagemum!!! Do you know I was thinking about you a couple of weeks ago, wondering if you were still on MN, seeing as I don't really frequent the Sleep threads anymore!

Thank you for your hope. I read your Point 1 and immediately thought "Nooooo, I can't drop the nap! I'm not ready for 14 hours of DS bossing me about!" but then at the end I realised he had gone back to napping again. That is interesting and I will certainly ponder it. I do think it's often to do with patterns they get into, to a certain extent.

Your second tip - I was looking at the Groclock the other day as the dark also seems to be freaking DS out a bit these days. That sounds worth a try as I do go into him and tell him I'm going for a wee and he reads in his cot until I'm back. So I could try that. I know exactly what you mean about the crescendo - in the summer he would chat to himself for 20 minutes but now he's straight into full on 'Cuddle, mummy, cuddle, mummy, cuddle mummy' mode!

Look forward to bumping into you on a future sleep trauma thread...preferably the one where we're looking for tips for getting them out of bed...

also have ds at 3.5 who gets up at 6 every single day. he has always got up early- it doesn;t matter whene he goes to bed ( he is in bed and asleep by 7.30pm) as also cannot have him awake all eve. he doesn't nap now, and he is at nursery every monrning 8-12 but even when he did nap, he still got up at 6.

he wakes us up and is very jolly and affectionate

we (my dh) gets up and goes downstairs, gives him his breakfast and goes back to bed. i am bf in bed:) dd likes to wake up at 6 too, but she is too little to go and watch tv, so if she won;t settle i go to and watch kids tv. used to be all keen and do play do and paint but things slacken:)

i met the dad of 5 yr old twin boys and he said they always get up at 5.30AM

ds only slept in once and we had to wake him up as we had a plane to catch

Yes, I still do lots of lurking on mn - it's my way of zoning out for half an hour with a glass of wine at the end of the day and getting how-to-deal-with-tantrum tips at the same time! Honestly arti, if I could crack the napping in bed rather than the buggy thing after two years of ridiculousness I have every faith you'll get there sooner rather than later with the mornings. I think the trick is to somehow make them think they're in control - and the fact that it's his clock and he can tell me when it's morning rather than the other way round seems to appeal to my 2 year old control-freak! On not napping, I was in despair when I thought it was all over. But as it turns out he can nap or not, but as he's in his room reading / sleeping I still get an hour off - and again he feels more in control while I get things my way! But I feel sure that just going through an extra sleep cycle a couple of mornings in a row due to not napping made all the difference.

(I'm probably going to be punished now for my smug sounding know-it-all posts: potty-training hell and a cot-to-into-big-bed nightmare await me, I feel sure of it - Have you made the leap yet by the way?!?)

DS has been getting up between 5 and 6am ever since he started sleeping through at 3 months old. He's nearly 6, we have tried groclocks, keeping him up a bit later and all that, but nothing has worked so far.

Will be checking here to see if anyone comes up with something that I haven't tried yet.

The dds didn't start sleeping later until they were well into the school years. Then they slept a little bit later.

It was more a case of waiting until they could amuse themselves for a time. So when dd1 was 3 we'd set up a video for her and then they both got bigger and they would read/play a bit.

Now they are teens are love a good big lie-in at weekends.

pointydog - are you ever tempted to hoover outside their bedroom door in revenge for all those early starts?

averagemum Good work with the napping! DS is being so random at the moment - over the last week we have had everything from 5.15 to 6.40 (this morning he must have been reading over my shoulder) No, we haven't transferred to a bed yet - no way! I know that it will mean many weeks/months of putting him back to bed, he will find that very funny. We are hoping to move house in the spring so will hold out until then (too many lethal stairs in our flat too). No to potty training too - he likes to sit on the potty, pretend to do a wee then go and poo behind a chair, so that was the end of that experiment!

How does your DS read/play in the morning when it's so dark at that time - does he have a nightlight? And is your Groclock the one with the stars/sun?

Ds started sleeping longer when he started school. Although sadly I think he is getting used to it now and was singing songs from his Christmas play at 5:45 this morning . Can't wait until he is a teenager and I can't drag him out of bed.

We had to drop his nap when he was 22 months to stop him waking at 4:30am.

Oh good, no way to big bed and potty here too! The groclock is actually fairly bright (tho you can dim it I think) - so he can see enough to fiddle about with toys, but looking at books he tends to do more at nap time, when I leave the room quite light anyway. Nowadays he tends to wake up after / with the clock at 6.30am, but if - like this morning!!!! - he wakes up before (must be because of this thread!), he's not totally silent, but much happier to doze a bit, play a bit, possibly shout a bit... but all much better than the instant "I'm awake!" we had before! Yes - it's the sun and stars one.

Incidentally, should we ever have the energy to conceive a sibling for our lo's, what do you think the statistical likelihood is of them being:

1. just as rubbish at sleeping in the first year and beyond.

1. much, much better at sleeping in the first year and beyond - as in sleeping through at six weeks better.

1. worse??

I ask because I think about this A LOT!

arti, I am just gratefu;l for every single morning I choose my own waking up time.

pointy - Good point!

averagemum - we ponder that one a lot too! Most other people I know are already pg with no.2 but haven't been able to face the thought of it until recently, just too knackered! DP is a total sleep wimp and goes to pieces unless he gets 7 hours sleep.

I suspect they'll be the same, sorry! But then I like to remind myself (or rather my mum likes to remind me) that my sister and I were very different:

Sister: slept through from 6 weeks old. Like a log. Never any problem.

My parents: Hurray, we're very good at this, let's do it again, no problem...

Me: didn't sleep through the night until I was four years old. Mum put on valium and harbours lifelong resentment, haha.

(obviously I like to think that we would get the easier one second!)

My friend has a perfect sleeping DD and is about to have another DD...I am watching carefully...

artifarti, my mum was the same re valium plus lifelong resentmemt- she finds it v amusing that my dcs are doing the rumba all night - she kept me in a cot til I was 4 as well! apparently i didn't fall asleep til after 9 and then woke up in the night plus awake and raring to go at 6. no naps during the day etc.

have been reading lots on this as seem to be knackered all the time. seems the experts say if nothing works its just your luck and hopefully your child (ren) will grow out of it...