Early morning stocking fiasco...

[BumbleyBum]

Help I can’t take it anymore.
Every blinkin year, my two ds’s start waking about 2am on Xmas morning. They spot their stockings and start stage whispering to each other ‘he’s been! Has he been to you?! Mum... Dad... he’s been!!’ They’re then told ‘yes, but it’s too early go back to sleep’. They then toss and turn, get up for wees, call out that they can’t sleep, on and off until we get up at 6. It’s exhausting and ridiculous. They’re 13 and 10. I could put the stockings downstairs but I think they’ll still wake wanting to go downstairs to check if he’s been.
Oh and elf on the fucking shelf. They were awake at 5am banging on about going to find him. I finally said yes. 13 yeh runs like an elephant back up the stairs, bursting through my bedroom door to tell me where he’s found him. I couldn’t help myself, ‘I bloody know!! Obviously!! Now let me sleep!!’. They KNOW I move the elf. So, can’t we just stop this ridiculous game and throw I’ll throw the elf over the fence for next doors dog to ravage?!

I wouldn't let them have their stockings in their room and should they wake up I'd tell them in no uncertain terms that it is totally unacceptable and they are to go back to bed. They don't have to sleep but they do have to be silent.

It happened with my kids one year, but they were 4 & 2 and they dutifully went back to sleep after a talking to.

As for the Elf just sodding bin it. They know you move it, why prolong the agony. Problem solved.

If they know there's no Santa, just hide their stuff until 9am on Christmas morning. Which is a decent wake up time. Fruit for breakfast is horrid on the tummy - give them a selection box and the tv remote.

2am! That's ridiculous. 6am is ridiculous quite honestly. They aren't tiny toddlers tell them to go back to bed and under no circumstances be back till 7!
Mine wouldn't dream of that and at 13 would get short shrift!
We get up at 8 and don't do presents till after breakfast and more presents after dinner has been eaten and cleared away!
You'll be surprised how keen they are to help with the after dinner clear up!

Don't fill the stockings or even put them out until morning?
My parents have always had a rule that stockings are 1) downstairs by the fireplace with the tree and other presents and 2) not accessible until my dad or mum have gone to 'check' if Santa's been😂

Always worked for my brother and I as we were too scared to go downstairs on our own at night in the dark! Xx

Also we were never allowed downstairs until 7.30am😩 it was torture lmao now as a 19 & 17 year old it's around 9am as I love away from home at my flat so have to come round after getting ready.

I still shouted 'SANTAS BEEN' last year when I arrived😉

Mine (when they were young) could open sticking when they woke. It kept them quiet for hours. Sometimes they would drop back off to sleep.

Famous last words from me earlier in this thread, DS woke me up at 6.20 this morning to ask if he could open his advent calendar. It's never happened before, but this year he has Lego Star Wars. He's gonna get a clock by his bed pronto.

We hang the stockings on the outside of the kids bedroom doors. We bought two of those command hooks which work like a charm. I do a quick change over before we head to bed at midnight. However in your case I'd be temped to set the alarm for 5am and do the switch then. Surely they're more likely to go back to sleep if they see he hasn't been yet?

The Elf, don't take it off them if they enjoy it but I quite liked a previous suggestion of moving it while they're at school.

Had to read the whole thread to make sure you weren’t going to give more relevant info like SEN!

I would no way on this earth tolerate 2am wake up on Christmas morning, it’s not bloody morning for a start, it’s the middle of the night! And my DC would be unbearable by about 10am and spoil the rest of the day with overtired/overhyped tears.

Set an alarm and say that they are not allowed to make any noise before the alarm goes off. For every sound you hear, you’ll remove one present from their stocking. Surely at this age they are just taking the mickey...

Buy some cheap stockings. Put a lump of coal with "Go back to bed until (insert time) on it, or this is all you'll be getting!"
Present them with the real ones at a more reasonable time.

My mum always put stocking in the living room with everything else and we weren't allowed to go in there without her and she didn't get up before 6. Don't know quite how it worked but it did.

Mine are told NOT to wake us before 7am. They then come into us for stockings. At that age they shouldn’t be doing this op. I couldn’t cope with that.