Do other young children ever do this?

[Mandy03]

My ds recently turned 5. Even though he has always been a good sleeper, a couple of times over the last few months he has gotten up in the very early hours of the morning (while it's still dark) and watched tv or turned the computer on. I'm talking around 4.30 in the morning, while usually he wouldn't be awake until 6.30-7.00am. One night I just happened to get up to go to the toilet, and I found him sitting in the dark watching tv. I turned it off immediately and told him to go back to bed, but the other couple of times it's happened, I've only found out because he's told me or because I've noticed that the VCR has been playing for hours. What bothers me is that when he's gotten up at that time, he doesn't generally go back to bed so he spends the rest of the day being VERY tired.

Obviously I don't approve at all and I've told him that if he does it again I will not allow him access to the tv or computer, but I really don't know why he does this sometimes. On a normal night he will sleep between 10-11 hours, so I find this really strange. Does anybody else's child do this?? I can't find any reason for it except that maybe he can't sleep, but I don't like the fact that it completely stuffs up his day if he's sleep deprived. Luckily it hasn't happened that many times but I'm concerned about why it happens at all. Thanks.

great reason not to have a tv in kids bedrooms til they are a lot older. i would say remove the telly.

The tv and computer are not in his bedroom. The computer is in the study (not near his bedroom) and the tv is in our lounge room, where it is supposed to be!

I wouldn't allow a tv or computer in his room for this very reason. The problem is that he knows how to operate everything, and apparently does it very quietly.

If he does it again I will definitely be taking action to stop it. I was just wondering whether other kids of his age (or similar) have done the same thing.

My DD used to be awake at night sometimes at this age. She used to play in her room though, didn't walk around the house. I think she was tooo scared to walk around in a dark house and also I always heard her. Not sure what the night-waking is all about, but have you tried password locking the pc and tv? We have locked both our computer and tv so the children always have to ask us and we can control their viewing. Might make it less interesting for him to go downstairs?

Hi Fairymum, I think we will put a password protect on the computer if it happens again. He promised me this morning that he won't do it anymore, so we'll see what happens. I'm not sure how to stop him turning the tv on though, apart from switching it off at the wall! Any suggestions?!

I've told him that if he wakes up during the night, that he must try to go back to sleep again and not wander around the house. All I can think of is that he likes being able to do these things while no one else is around!! I will be keeping a close eye on it.

my mistake - apologies.

Leave the TV tuned to a channel with nothing on at night? Or turn off at switch (you'll need to make sure he doesn't see you do that though.

Our TV can not be operated without the remote, so if yours is similar could you just hide it.

or you could hit the AV button on the remote - leaving a blank screen.

You could remove the fuse from the plug - sounds fiddly, but there are plugs where the fuse comes out very easily.
I know it's not very good, but I can't help smiling, it sounds like he's waking up and getting all excited about being able to watch TV.
My ds is only 9 months and he keeps waking up so he can practice standing up - he just can't sleep because he really needs to stand up.

My dd's nealy 5 now but i think it was about a year and half ago she went through a phase of waking up very early about 4.30 5o'clock and creeping downstairs to watch tv, she'd normally sleep til bout half 7 and would could come down and watch tv then giving me little bit of a lie in as ds was still breast feeding and didnt sleep more than 3or4 hours at a time til he was 8months! But she gradually started comin down earlier and earlier without telling me and as i said sometimes really early so i started leaving it on a channel that wud jus be boring news when she woke up and she soon stopped. But she was younger then if she were to come down now she knows how to turn it all on, what numbers all her favourite programmes are on, how to work video, dvd everything but luckily she doesnt anymore so i dont really know what to suggest you try but thought id let you know that yeah she did do same thing and i could never think of any reason for it other than she just liked to watch tv!

Can you turn off the sockets circuit downstairs, form your fuse box? This would render all plugs out of order and is probably somewhere he can't reach it.