How to stuff stockings when kids awake?! PLEASE GO TO SLEEP

[Porthia]

DC1 has been trying to get to sleep for 2 hours. Still awake. Still tossing and turning. Ears pricked for any sound. No way I could get the rustle of presents downstairs!

I am shattered. Had very little sleep last night and I know the kids will all be up early in the morning.

What should I do? Risk going to sleep and set my alarm for 3am and then all of them waking up then if I make a noise? Or just wait until whenever DC1 finally falls asleep - even if it’s hours yet, and then deal with the 5am wake up tomorrow.

Either way it feels like I need to refill the coffee machine.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with this dilemma, DC1 is wide awake and there's no way I can move presents from upstairs without him noticing. I'm so tired!

No help for this year. But two identical stockings. Swap the empty one for the pre filled one.

Make sure they close over the door go to the door "are you still awake I'd stay tucked up in bed quick before santa sees you". If you have two stockings you make the switch then. If you have only one you repeat the procedure twice (first time you take the stocking away second time you put it back).

I used to have noisy jingly wreath on the kitchen door to warn me if children were roaming

Can you get them to listen to an audible book or play sleepy music with headphones?

I do feel your pain I remember the Christmas Eve nights putting Lego and bikes together.

Or two identical santa sacks if you are a living room santa person

Give them Antihistamines 😆

Oh I know!! Still awake.. and we’re at that awkward I know Santa isn’t real but still playing along stage so I just can’t risk breaking the magic! I’m sooo tired now! Smaller one so Lex hours ago xx

Am with you. Sitting downstairs in my pjs waiting for the last one to nod off, am so tired and want my bed! 😞

I used to have to set my alarm for 3am so I could sleep before and after putting the stockings out...

Im so tired!

Have 2 stockings but need to swap them,only hanging outside her door but DD is too alert and asking what every noise is

Everyone else in bed asleep. I can hear the snoring downstairs. Fortunately DD is not an early riser do i should be able to rest until at least 7.30am.

If DH wakes me up early like he did today he is dead.

I bought them personalised stockings years ago which aren’t available any more but otherwise the identical sacks / stockings is genius!

It’s been really hard this year as DC1 is now old enough to know better but I don’t want to spoil the magic.

I am in the same boat. Ds2 wide awake,but pretending to be asleep. Every time I peek into his room, he tells me that he is sleeping! I am hoping that now that I’ve come to bed, he will settle. I just need to make sure I don’t drop off without filling the stockings, which is why I’m on Mn!

Feeling the pain at the moment SDC feel asleep at about 8:30 tried to keep them up until they were fully tired in the hope they'd sleep through.
Just been upstairs & they are blooming awake! Trying to claim "santa doesn't take this long to come to mummies" had to explain its not even midnight & they needed to go back to sleep!

Worried now they've had a power nap & will take forever to go to sleep.
Plus side is they go back to their mums at 12 & our Christmas plans are cancelled due to relative testing positive so I can nap in the afternoon 😂

Likewise, eldest DC1 is 13 but his siblings are smaller and don’t want to ruin the magic for the little ones if he blabs. I’ve managed to get the stockings out of the bedrooms and have the contents hidden downstairs put in, just need him to nod off so I can take them back into bedrooms. Just so tired and want my bed

One Christmas Eve when I was very young, I couldn’t get to sleep and cried because I thought this would stop Father Christmas from coming.

My mum reassured me, took my stocking downstairs and hung it by the mantelpiece. Problem solved!

Christmas Eve is the longest evening of the year! My 3 are still wide awake, youngest is 11 but he knows so we've just filed their stockings (very quietly 🤪) and gone to bed 🙈

Wouldn’t trust myself to wake up at 3am, I’d probably just hit the alarm off

I may move stockings down to living rooms next year

@mogschristmascalamity

Im so tired!

Have 2 stockings but need to swap them,only hanging outside her door but DD is too alert and asking what every noise is

Everyone else in bed asleep. I can hear the snoring downstairs. Fortunately DD is not an early riser do i should be able to rest until at least 7.30am.

If DH wakes me up early like he did today he is dead.

O

Couldn't you use a duplicate stocking so all you have to do is swap the empty one for the full one?

(I realise I am late to the party with that suggestion)

I’m currently waiting too. Need to sneak most of the presents out of my wardrobe and downstairs with dc1 is still awake.

Last year it was 2.30!! We decided early this year to get them in our bed and stay until they were asleep, then do santa after - but fast asleep already this year so don't have to worry!

Haha it doesn’t get any easier! Mine are 16 and 18 obv don’t believe in Santa and are wide awake but still want the stockings to magically appear in their doors in the morning ! One child has just gone downstairs in search of food!

I’m off to bed - dh has been given the contents of stockings and instructed to make the magic happen!

@Cattenberg I have a photo of 6 year old me crying in my bedroom doorway for this very reason

Stockings on the mantlepiece seem like the way forward! I don’t know how my mother managed to sneak it onto my bed all those years!

I'm the same. So annoyed. I have a headache, I'm tired and very grumpy. My mum is going to sleep and the stocking contents are in that room as the kids don't go in there. Can't get them out as kids room next to it and they sleep with the door open...

Stockings are on the fireplace in our house.