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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

early waking in a 3 year old - please help - I;ve tried every trick in the book

50 replies

sickandtired · 05/02/2006 07:34

DS1 (3) keeps waking from 4.30 onwards, nver later than 6am, today I have ben up since 5am, and whilst he is now on the sofa happilly watching tv complaining that he's tired he is literally sleep depriving the whole family, he wakes me by getting out of bed, that in turn wakes dp and that in turn wakes ds2 (nearly 2). We have even resorted to putting ds2 in to a travel cot in my ds's room when they are not with us but its not really fair on him.

DS1 is in a bed (has been for a long time), he goes to bed at around 7pm (this is later than he used to go) and I have stopped his nap, even though it makes him a misserable turnip about 4.30 in the afternoon.

I have tried just walking him calmly back to bed with out saying anything (did this for a month - no result) I have tried a reward system (worked once) I have tried shouting my brains out at him (no result, he cried, I felt awful).

Basically, if I don't get some sleep soon, I'm going to cry

OP posts:

Original poster

sickandtired · 06/02/2006 08:32

his bed time used to be 6 o'clock (from when he was a newborn) but when this all started I pushed it out....
Today was an improvement, he stayed in his room till 6, and only got up cos he needed a poo.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring? The bunny clock is on order.

OP posts:

Simplyred · 06/02/2006 10:39

Oh sympathy Sick&tired - my 6 year old is the same. When he was 3 I bought him a clock - with a bunny face and you could set it for bunny to wake up when they could get up. However ds soon learnt that is you thumped bunny he woke up - so that didn't work - even tried putting the baby gate over his door - so he stands at the door singing! Have a 20 week old baby she sleeps through ds is a herbert and has been since he was 3!

Going to set the alarm downstairs tonight so if he tries to sneek downstairs the alarm will go off - I will warn him I'm doing this!!!

nitfreecod · 06/02/2006 11:02

the red amber green clokc is fantastic
finbar knows hwere to get hem from
youc an try and email her

mousie · 06/02/2006 11:14

hi sick and tired - i am in your situation entirely - and have posted similarly now and then on mumsnet. ds2 gets up before 6 - often before 5 - everymorning, whatever i do. I like you have tried everything wtih no luck. whole family sleep deprived and furious. want to hear about this red amber green clock though!
let me know if you manage to crack him somehow - mine is three in a week's time. he is tired all day which makes me doubly furious - since so are we all. very vicious circle all round.

Mascaraohara · 06/02/2006 11:22

dd is 3.5yrs she started getting up early we now have some rules in place that work..

She is allowed in my bed if it's after 6am (as we get up for work about 6:30 during the week) but she's not allowed to get up and go downstairs until my alarm goes off. Then on the weekend I set my alarm for an hour (or so) later - ha ha ha!!

I haven't got her a clock as at the moment I can tell her it's not 6 yet even when it's 7.30 and scoot her back to bed. Am I evil?

Original poster

sickandtired · 06/02/2006 11:27

and now I think i am getting the flu - helpppppppp

probably run down from lack of sleep

OP posts:

Original poster

sickandtired · 06/02/2006 11:27

and now I think i am getting the flu - helpppppppp

probably run down from lack of sleep

OP posts:

PennyLess · 06/02/2006 14:19

I haven't read all the posts, but I have exactly the same problem. Mine is exacerbated byt he fact that it is ds2, who is almost 4, and he has two older, school-age siblings, who I really can't have woken at 5.30 or, if we're really lucky, 6.
I have no miracle cure for you. Nothing works. I tried bunny clocks for ds1 (who, as a slightly encouraging aside was exactly the same but is now 7 and generally sleeps til 7) but they broke, three of them. I have tried bribery and rewards, I have given him a tape recorder to listen to (but he turns it up too high)- even when he just plays happily he is so noisy. In the summer I cut out his afternoon nap for a fortnight but it made no difference. What I have recently come to accept is that that is the time he wakes, no matter what, and he can't survive the day, so he has to have his nap. He is also a much nicer child if I put him to bed earlier (ie he gets a longer night's sleep) so I now start his bath at 5.30/5.45 and he is down by 6/6.15. He still wakes at the same time. But better slept.
I actually get up quite early myself (alarm goes at 6.10) so the compromise I have found is that I go to his room and take him downstairs with me at this time. This stops me from going berserk with him for waking his siblings ie allows them to sleep.

I would say that 4.30 is not waking for the day. It is night time waking. You need to catch him before he comes round and I would think you would find that if you snuggle him back down he'll go straight out again.

Sorry. Not much help, but lots of support, from one nackered mum to another...

PennyLess · 06/02/2006 14:21

I think bottle of milk and telly is a bad idea as it is simply giving him a reason to get up...

wishfulthinking · 06/02/2006 15:08

Can someone find out about the red, amber, green clock-thing please? My dd wakes anytime from 5.30 am and would dearly love to sort it out. This has gone on from being a newborn; I've but it down to her just being an early riser....but there's early and early! I await further threads on this subject with eager anticipation of a 100% dead cert guarentee on our dear children sleeping through until 7am...at least!!!!

PennyLess · 06/02/2006 15:45

is this it?

sunnydelight · 06/02/2006 16:26

If the bunny clock doesn't work, why not put a stairgate accross his door and tell him if he gets up he has to play quietly in his room until you get up. This worked for a friend of mine - her DS was very unimpressed to start with, but soon realised that there wasn't much point in waking early any more as playing in his room by himself in a quiet house wasn't much fun.

ruthydd · 06/02/2006 17:32

Sickandtired - make sure you're son can't reach the bunny once he's set, or as others point out he'll soon learn to wake him. Let him put the bunny to sleep then put him on a high shelf or it almost definitely won't work. If the clock breaks, send it back. It costs enough after all. I have returned one already. Such a shame the company has a patent on the idea, because it has to be said the clock itself is cr@p! Let us know how you get on.

Littlemissbusy · 06/02/2006 20:02

Forget the stupid bunny clock (especially at £20!!) As young children can?t tell the time, they need a way to know when it?s morning, so they can either get up from bed, or call out from their cot. My tip is a night light (the type that plugs into a socket), and a digital timer ? when the light comes on in the morning, that?s when they?re allowed up. I?ve used this with both my children (now 4 ½ and 3) from when they were 12 months old, and it?s worked a treat. It?s very rare for us to be disturbed before ?teddy bear light? comes on. The best thing is that with a 7 day per week digital timer I can make ?morning? come slightly later at the weekends!

Littlemissbusy · 06/02/2006 20:04

Sorry - also forgot to say that we actually progressed to two digital timers and two lights. The first one says "you can get out of bed and play now", then second says "you are allowed into our room now".

PennyLess · 06/02/2006 21:25

Little Miss, the bunny clock doesn't work on the basis that the children tell the time, but that it "wakes up" at the time that you set it to do so. One drawback is that it does make quite a clunk when the eyes open/ears pop up so if your child happens to have slept on (which is after all what one is after) it will wake them.
The other thing is that it is, as Ruthy pointed out, utter cr@p. When I was truly desperate, I phoned one mail-order company to buy one and they said "we don't do them any more - the quality is so poor and we've had so many complaints that we have discontinued them". I didn't care, wanted one anyway, so phoned mail order co #2 and they sold me one. Which they then replaced. And they replaced the replacement. Then they gave me a refund as I was well pi$$ed off. Amazingly, they are still being sold.

fairyglo · 06/02/2006 21:38

How does the bunny clock and red/amber clock work in Winter? Isn't it too dark for children to see the clock face?

Feel for you sadandtired. We have this problem too. Night lights don't work for us since ds would fiddle with them (and pretty sure he would see stairgate/bunny clock as a challenge to reach and dismember). He's super perky in the morning so not tired like your ds and no longer sleeps in the day either (he's 2.7yrs). I think I've just come to accept that ds is an early riser. I was too and got up at 5am each morning until I was about 8 so my parents are having a very satisfied laugh at our sleep deprivation now. I reckon you just have to stick it out until they are old enough to entertain themselves in the morning without coming into wake you but don't know how this is going to work with a new baby arriving in a few months. Still in 10 years we'll have the opposite problem

mousie · 07/02/2006 10:26

fairy glo - i am with you - i was an early riser (still was until i had kids - funny how that changed it all) and clearly my son has inherited my former genes. I have tried everything - good to know bunny clocks aren't that great since that saves me quite a bit of potential money. I think in the end i can cope if i get to bed before 10 every night - which i do most nights, though it does mean i have no social life and have to wait for everything to come out on dvd. the greatest irony of desperate housewives is that if you are truly in that category you can't stay up to watch it....

Seona1973 · 07/02/2006 12:58

we use fairy lights on a timer to let dd (27 months) know when she can come out her room. If she does come through early she gats taken back through immediately and told she can come back to see us when her 'fairies' wake up (they are lilac fluffy love hearts and they are draped over the top of her curtain rail where the old pelmet used to be)

Have any of you tried 'wake to sleep' to help with early waking? I used it when dd started waking at 5.30am. You disturb them an hour before their usual wake up (in my case 4.30am) and then let them go back to sleep. It means you disrupt their usual sleep cycle and this helps to break the early waking habit. Its recommended to try it for 3 nights in a row.

juliab · 07/02/2006 13:05

Another warning about the blinking bunny clock: when I got it for DS1, I found him lying on the landing at 2.30am 'waiting for bunny to wake up'!!! It was a very very very long night...

Original poster

sickandtired · 07/02/2006 13:41

well bugger me - everyone tells me its crap when I've already ordered it

Have got flu -

DS1 woke about 4.30 today, and snuck in our bed at the bottom - I just couldn't be arsed to get up and start the argument, I feel like I'm dying.

Will wait for the bunny to arrive, and let you know how I get on.

Each night he promises me he will stay in bed until he heas daddy gets up - but he just doesn't seem to be able to resist.

Stairgate won't work, he's broken two already

OP posts:

Clary · 07/02/2006 13:50

sickandtired, how long since you stopped his nap? If it is only a short while he may need to get used to not having the nap and thus sleep later.
Or you could try making his bedtime later - he may not need that much sleep and 8pm to 6.30am is probably better than 7pm to 5.30am, no?

Bozza · 07/02/2006 13:59

Well I am with cod on this one I am afraid. 3 is old enough to understand and reason. My DS has had a light on a timer since he was 2 and a bit and knows that unless he has an issue (nightmare, go to the loo etc) he is not to get up. When the clock comes and you feel better you need to deal with it and mean it.

Original poster

sickandtired · 10/02/2006 11:15

bunny clock arrived, 2nd monring, I heard him wake up about 5ish to go and look at his clock, but he stayed in his room until his bunny woke up at 6!

we have a result! early days yet though, but fingers crossed

OP posts:

cod · 21/02/2006 10:12

Message withdrawn

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