4 year old ALWAYS tired and starting to get annoying

[whethergirl]

One of my (just recently turned) 4 year old son's faveorite catchphrase has got to be "I'm tired". And I'm afraid to say, sometimes, it just does my head in.

Every day on the way back from nursery, he expects me to carry him home (it's a 5 min walk), if I refuse he just refuses to walk, I normally negotiate carrying him half the way. He did use to go in the pram a lot, which I still used up until a few months ago because I don't have a car. I decided to get rid of it because he was always wanting to sit in it! And now, anytime we go anywhere, (usually he'll insist on taking his bike), literally 2 mins up the road (when the house is still in view) he'll start whinging "I'm tired."

I think nursery tires him out, plus he's getting used to being without the pram. But I let him watch a film everyday and read to him for a half hour so he gets plenty of chilling time. He is in bed by 7.30pm (sometimes he falls asleep straight away, sometimes it takes him half hour).

And every day it's the same. "I'm tired. Carry me. I'm so tired." Honestly, it's like being with an old man sometimes!

Get him a scooter.

i would just say ok, sit down and have a rest then. and let him sit on the pavement,

just don't even offer to carry him if you don't want to.

I second the scooter idea. My 3.5 yo ds often complains about being tired when walking, but is fine on his scooter.

Sorry, I see he's got a bike - does he not ride it?

Although, actually, I still recommend the scooter.

is watching a film really chilling time?
also, do you take him a snack for straight after nursery? dd is absolutely poisonous (bless her) if she doesn't get a wee banana or apple afterwards, she needs the energy to get her home.

Is he acting tired in any other way?..if yes get to the GP

if not then I would go with the sitting on the pavement thing..no fuss ..just ok lets rest.

and stop carrying him!

He does have a scooter but can't ride it, I try to encourage him but he gets easily disheartened when he doesn't get the hang of it. He loves riding his bike though, although I can't take it to nursery for him to ride home, and he still complains about being tired on his bike, and sometimes expects me to push him!

I've tried the lets sit down for a rest approach (although not always convenient), he doesn't normally like it as I think he knows I'm trying to get out of carrying him. But maybe I should just persevere with that. Although I'm thinking it means I'm going to spend an awful lot of time resting on pavements when I'm out.

Aitch, yes I think I would class watching a film as chilling time as he doesn't have to do much, and sits or lies on the sofa watching. Considering I was originally one of the "TV is bad" crew, I now find he needs to just zone out for an hour or so. Also, he gets a bit of fruit at nursery just before home time and then we either go straight home for lunch, or go to the park (and normally I have a few snacks on me) where he seems to have enough energy to play, but then when it's time to go home he is double tired.

I do think he uses it as an excuse sometimes, like at home when he's too tired to come to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Anyone else have this problem??!

Noonki, think I will mention it to the GP next time we go.

There was a time when I did my back in and so couldn't carry him and he understood that and didn't demand it. Mind you, we weren't really going anywhere much cos I'd hurt my back. Is it acceptable to pretend to hurt my back again, just to get him out of the habit??!!

DS (4.1) used to be like this and it drove me insane, not sure if this is what helped or if it was just coincidence but we moved house!
In the city it was pretty boring for him to walk anywhere and I think he'd got it all associated with riding in his pram.

The other big thing has been his scooter - we got one with 4 wheels and he whizzes along on it, he can balance and its lightweight so MUCh easier to use than some of the heavy 2 wheelers I've seen.

I class film watching as chillout time too - in fact it what saves my sanity since he dropped his naps! He seems to find it very difficult to wind himself down and to switch off from whining about being tired. Cbeebies or a DVD distracts him from being tired/whingey long enough for me to get MY shoes and coat off and have a cuppa.

Its difficult to judge some days, I gave in today and got the pram out this afternoon, we had been out for about 2 hrs in the morning - shops, library and park so i guess he 'might' have been tired ;)

I do the sit down on pavement thing some days but I won't do it if its raining - he has to mange to get to the nearest bench/tree/cafe.

Good luck, i think once they learn a phrase which works they overuse it to death!

god yes, of course it is.

i'm not of the tv is bad crew (quite the opposite, actually) but i don't think it 's chilling either. i think it's quite stimulating, too much for teatime ime, dd would appear to zone out but her brain would be fizzing. i find she's calmer if she helps me cook, does some drawing or sets the table etc.

i'd mention it to the GP, but it's more likely to be an excuse like you say. how's that bad back?

god yes, of course it is.

i'm not of the tv is bad crew (quite the opposite, actually) but i don't think it 's chilling either. i think it's quite stimulating, too much for teatime ime, dd would appear to zone out but her brain would be fizzing. i find she's calmer if she helps me cook, does some drawing or sets the table etc.

i'd mention it to the GP, but it's more likely to be an excuse like you say. how's that bad back?

my four year old (5 in a couple of weeks) is always exhausted....

he gets ready for bed from 6.30pm fast asleep by 7pm

wakes up between 6.45-7.15am

he eats like a horse

is quite slim but is incredibly active all day long.

he is regularly in tears walking home from school from exhaustion (2min walk)

I could always try moving to the countryside...anything to stop him complaining about being tired! He's had a couple of full on tantrums as well recently which I put down to his being tired. I must say, since buying some lavender spray mist last week he has managed to get off to sleep pretty quickly every night, so that's good.

He's actually got three scooters and won't ride any of them! I think I will start taking it when I pick him up from nursery though.

I won't be taking the pram out ever again though otherwise he'll keep asking for it. As far as he's concerned, he's too old for it and that's that. I wouldn't mind carrying him a bit every now and again if I thought he was really tired but, like the pram, I think what works best with him is to stop something altogether and removing it as an option.

Glad to know I've not been the only one to have been driven mad by it!

I see what you mean Aitch, TV is supposed to be a stimulant (but I've also heard it's supposed to get you into a hypnotic state so that's a bit confusing). I try to do it straight after lunch, and always do the reading after dinner.

As for cooking, drawing and setting the table....my ds does these things (actually he never draws) but not exactly in the peaceful relaxing way I imagine your dd does! I find boys have less concentration/less foscused in general, more fidgety....and even when he lays the table it has to involve ear piercing sound effects, an arguement about what cutlery to use and the dropping of cutlery due to trying to balance a fork on his head or something.

Wider - my son also eats for England but very slim. Sometimes I put him down earlier but it does just mean he gets up earlier.

If nursery exhausts him this much, I can not begin to imagine what state he'll be in come September when he starts reception.

lol about the fork. dd tends to start playing 'cutlery families'...

I'd ignore the complaints about being tired. As a very rough guide, children are supposed to be able to walk a mile for every year of their lives. I'd say that was about right.

I would absolutely refuse to carry a child of that age. I would also ditch all wheeled transport and make it clear that walking is how you get to places (an incentive at the end of the walk, or even during it, might be an idea - a Smartie/raisin when you've got to the end of the road or wherever). If mine ever refused to walk, I used to get the newspaper out and start reading it, which soon bored them into walking on.

I'd also ditch the evening TV, and get him into bed at least half an hour earlier! Does he havea clock? Mine knew from very early on that they could only make a noise or come out of their rooms - however long they'd been awake - when the hands were at the lion and the ostrich.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone for all your comments.

If children can walk a mile for every year of their lives, then why the complaints and reluctance? Is it just laziness?

He doesn't watch TV in the evening, it's normally straight after lunch when he's 'too tired' to do anything else. I did think about setting his bedtime earlier although I'm pretty sure he'll just get up half hour earlier. As it is, I don't wake him up in the morning, he just wakes up anyway, at about 7.15am. And sometimes even when I put him to bed at 7.30pm he hasn't slept until 8pm, even 8.30pm although I suppose that could be over tiredness?

does that mean that I can walk 33 miles? I think its OK to complain and nto want to walk occasionally I have to say aged 8 I wouldn't have fancied an 8 mile walk home from school every day!

However the constant whining on walks under 30 minutes is very very wearying. We try and compromise - in the mornings DS gets a pram or bikeseat ride up to preschool, after school (3 days a week) we do a gentle walk home, he often whines on this walk but I have 'staging points' of benches to rest on and a cafe to get icecream or a snack.

On days when he isn't at preschool I insist on one decent length walk out to shops and park, but if he says he is tired after that i will occasionally take the pram.

After lunch is a definite TV time in our household, he needs to sit still! he is AWFUl if I try and jolly him out between 1 and 2pm and thinking about how tired/grouchy i can get in the post lunch slump I dont' blame him.

The mile-for-every-year thing is only a very rough guide, and is used as such for children up to about ten. I do think it's reasonably accurate - my DS will go on a seven-mile walk without any fuss. However, he would most definitely make a fuss if he had to do it every day!! DD (4) hates walking, but she's capable of walking long distances (I think about six and a half miles is the most she's walked). So long as there are lots of the kinds of staging posts that Halia mentions, the whingeing is just about bearable!

I think some children (my DD included) just don't like walking. In my DD's case, I think she thinks it's too much of an effort to walk if she could be sitting in a nice comfy car. Her particular bugbear is walking to her swimming lesson - she moans for most of the day in advance, even though it's only a couple of miles there and back. Curiously, once she's actually walking, she doesn't complain at all. She and DS invent games together while they're walking. In fact, one reason we walk everywhere is that they fight much less when they're walking than they do when they're trapped together in the car. But that is a whole different thread!

Start a game and make it exciting - say if you don't whinge or ask to be carried on the way home, there's a treat. Don't tell him what it is, as that makes it more exciting. Make it something he never gets - not big, I think I did it with a chocolate biscuit over something similar. You might have to do it for a couple of days, but then once he's proven he can do it, ditch the treat and then never ever carry him again, as by then when he whinges you can remind him that he can do it and has done it. Sorted.. well okay it's not quite that easy, but it does mostly work.

I was speaking to another mum today who has the same problem with her ds of the same age. She reckons he is going through a growth spurt which can be quite tiring.

Interesting, after nursery we walked to a friends house (with the friend), and he didn't complain at all (and it was a much longer walk). But the minute we came out from my friends house....

I did offer him an incentive (biscuit from the bakery at Sainsburys) which did help. I said it was an energy biscuit which would help him walk the rest of the way home!

Might be worth seeing GP. My son was like this, and was found to be anaemic, he needed iron for a few months.

Does "tired" in this case really mean "bored"? Five minutes really isn't a long walk for a four year old, even after a nursery session. But the same walk every day does get a bit dull.

DD1 had a 20 minute walk to and from nursery when she was just turned three. She whined and complained for about a year, but always managed it and nine times out of ten would go and run around the garden after she got home. So she wasn't really tired. She has an even longer walk to school, and sometime during Reception, she stopped moaning and started running/skipping/scootering/walking/hopping all the way to school quite happily. I'm sure it's done her physical fitness no end of good.)

Don't carry him. Make sure you've got plenty of time for the walk and let him sit down if he must. Bring along a snack if it helps. Play I spy. Make up stories to pass the time. Spot things. It's blooming exhausting (for you), making it entertaining, but do take the long view. It will do him no end of good to build up his stamina.

And if he's really tired, bring bed time forward. 7:30 is not really that early at four and he may well need an earlier night once he's at school.

Is your DS in full time nursery? I recall when my DS started school full time that he was really tired out by it. We didn't start walking to and from school until he was nearly 6.

However - another thing to consider is that sometimes children just find walking boring and then say that it makes them tired. My DS never sits still, will play football in the garden for hours and will walk (run) if we are going up a steep hill in the country side - but a walk to and from the shops always 'makes him tired'.

I also found when he was about your DS's age that the more tired he was, the less he would sit down in the evening and the longer it took him to sleep so it was key to spot these signs, get him calm and put him to bed early (easier before they can tell the time!)