Stocking panic

[MaverickSnoopy]

DD age 5 is currently wide awake and has been since 2am. She says she's excited and is going to stay awake until morning. I wouldn't put it past her.

I'm twitchy that she won't sleep tomorrow night so that i can fill stocking on end of bed. We have very loud floorboards and a baby who wakes twice a night making considerable noise.

Last year we filled stockings at midnight but DD got up for the day at 330am! DH wants to do stocking filling at 4am+ but I think she'll be wide awake and we won't get in. To complicate matters, her stocking has a bell!

We're going to take her to the park tomorrow and have her playing in the garden to try and tire her out. However i need ideas as to what to say/do if she stays awake/spots me! When is the optimum stocking filling time?

Crickey she's just been in to tell us its 3am!

We always put stockings on the end of the beds. Stockings serve two purposes in our house

1. let the kids know santa has been
2. let them quietly open their presents in their room to quell the excitement when they wake up. No one is allowed downstairs until 6am at the earliest. We've always maintained these rules so the kids know what is expected of them. I'd fill at midnight. Bet you are regretting that bell??

I'm really jealous of the duplicates idea. Our stockings are handmade by my dsis.
I can only imagine her reaction if I asked her to make another 7......

We have stocking on the end of the bed.

My DC are now teenagers, so they have been awake when FC delivered them for some years. They have admitted that they were awake from quite a young age, although probably not as young as 5.

Your best bet would be to deliver them after she has been in bed for a couple of hours.

4am probably won't work. Mine used to have a look at what they had in the early hours, then put it back, to be taken out again, in front of us. Also, how could you be sure you would be awake at 4, without an alarm also waking her?

Well we have the baby who wakes us at either 1 & 5 or 11 & 3 so after getting her back to sleep we'd then do stockings. I feel like we should do stockings earlier (ie midnight) and hope she doesn't wake up, rather than risking her being wide awake at 4am when we want to do it. Dh thinks the opposite and that she'd end up being up at 3am and overly frantic and exhausted all day. I take his point because she's wound like a spring at the moment!

I just need some tactics!

I'm worried this year too. DD has major sleep issues and she's 9 and only clinging onto santa believing by a thread!

All presents and stocking are left downstairs in our house, and no one is allowed to be up until 6am. We tell the dc that if it's anytime before 6 santa might not have been yet!

I have a similar issue - DD has health problems so I check her couple of times a night. Sometimes she wakes and goes for a wee. If she sees the stocking she will wake up properly! I'm planning to hide it on the floor at the end of the bed so she has to hunt for it - not best idea but as she's 11 it's not so bad

See how it goes and then if she isn't going to sleep, tell her you've had a text from Santa saying "due to having more children to deliver to this year, please could everyone put their stockings next to the fireplace to save time?"

We have an downstairs this year (moved from flat to house( so we're going to put stockings down by the fire place. I'm a bit torn about her not feeling the presents when she wakes up but logistically downstairs is much easier.,

We originally gave her a sticking with a. Well but that's been replaced with a non-bell one now and is just used for decoration.
Good luck!

Gah! 'stocking with a bell'. Bloody phone!

Stuff the bell with playdough?

Update. It was all ok. We filled yesterday with many many exhausting activities and gave her a slightly later night. The baby woke just before 4am so we did it then. She was snoring and out for the count. We held the bell and thankfully it was fine. I also wrapped a giant red blanket with arms around me to look a bit FC like. She slept until 7am! Amazingly.

However I got loads of strategies and ideas from this thread "just in case" so thanks all and merry Christmas!

Hooray!

Maverick.. I make personalised (Bell-free!) stockings so feel free to Message me if you're interested for next year