Christmas morning with different sleepers...

[Bippityboppitybooo]

Ds6 is an early riser, up at 6am or earlier on an average day. That may go as low as 4-5am for Christmas. Dd is almost 3, and wakes at 7ish most days, sometimes as late as 8.30 on weekends. Often has to be woken.

What do you all do with Christmas morning in terms of bed opening stockings at young ages with such radically different wakeup times? Dd understands about Christmas this year but I can't imagine she'll wake anywhere near as early as her brother - but I know he'd love to open stockings with her, they're very close.

What works for you?

Wake her up when ds wakes up! She'll
be super excited

Mine slept in the same room on Christmas Eve and came and woke us up when they were both awake. I’m fairly sure ds had a bit of a job waking dd, but that was 15 minutes extra sleep for me.

It's not just the young, you know.

I'm old and can wake at any time between 7:00am and 11:00 am, depending on my bladder.

My adult child has told me that if I'm not up by 8:30 on Xmas day, they'll be dragging me out of my pit. Fair enough, I think.

Same goes for your younger child. Just whisper "Santa's been!! Presents"

it'll wake them up, it certainly wakes me up 😃😃.

Send oldest back to bed, tell him it’s too early and you’re not allowed to go down stairs before 7am.

Our youngest is the early riser, sometimes we lie and say it’s still the middle of the night. If it’s not too early we will bring her into bed and cuddle till the older ones start waking or we think she’s waited long enough.

Just have a time you’re prepared to do presents that’s somewhere in the middle of the 2. Presume you wouldn’t all be getting up at 5 anyway?

Ours has always been 6:30am. The early riser has to hang on a bit & the late sleeper gets woken a bit early (but doesn’t mind when they see their pressies!)

We were always allowed to open stockings (placed on end of bed) whenever we woke up but were expected to stay in bed until parents called us. If you're keen for them to open stocking together maybe leave a wrapped book in the bed so 6 year old can entertain themselves until youngest wakes up?

I'd probably compromise on 6:30am. Any earlier and your youngest will be a wreck by the evening.

Mine generally slept beyond 7 but we had a rule that they couldn’t open their stockings until 7am. Then we would make a coffee for us and let them open them on our bed.

Give DS the option of waiting or opening his stocking just with you. I'd never wake up a child who is ready for it if there isn't school that needs to be got to.

I’d ask her what she’d prefer and probably suggest they have a sleepover (in the same room) so maybe her brother can wake her up. No way would I tell ds to go back to bed and wait! That seems really unfair and unkind.

Definitely this!!

When the children were young it was me who was so excited I was awake at dawn. As soon as one of them stirred I was abuzz with excitement asking if they wanted to see if Father Christmas had been. More recently but still awhile ago I used to tell the grandchildren to ring me when they were awake and going to open presents. They did and I got into the car and drove ten minutes to their home where mum and dad were only half awake and still in bed. I had a video camera in those days so filmed the excitement which I took home to show their grandad. So loved it.

Eldest of 4 and once one of us woke up (of course the second middle one) parents woke us all up.

We were all super pumped. Loved it. And the majority of the time wiped out by 8pm so parents got the evening to themselves.

Wonderful memories of that (altho i remember from about 15 not being so keen haha)

It's going to be hard to get the eldest back to bed with the excitement. I say wake the youngest up too. At 3 they will soon be excited

When my daughter was that age, it didn't matter what time she woke up because she had a stocking at the bottom of her bed with lots of small things to open and play with, and strict instructions that she wasn't to come in to us until at least 8.

DS wakes at 6, DD has an illness and doesn't wake till nearly lunchtime. At Christmas we do stockings around 9. DS is 10, he waits and plays on his computer till his sister is able to wake up. He understands, because she's ill, but I think finding a compromise in the middle of the times is ok. Mind you we always had a not before 7am rule even before DD was ill. I think letting kids get up for the day at 5am is madness.

We used to have 7am earliest rule when I was young. We’d (3 of us) often wake earlier all end up in the same room, having a quick feel of the stockings to see what was inside, waking up with the heaviness at the bottom of the bed with crinkling of paper and expectation of the day is one of my best memories. I digress, I’d tell the 6 year old a time that is the absolute earliest and at that point maybe allow him to wake his sister, at 3 she’ll probably be excited and may wake up earlier anyway.

All 3 of my kids had to be woken on Christmas Day! 😂 No matter how excited they were, once they'd finally fallen sleep, that was it for the night! I'd set my alarm for 6 and woke them 7/7:30. Meant I had plenty of time for a couple of coffees and a shower.

Just go with it. Let them get up when they want to.

Why would you wake them up? I wouldn't ever wake mine unless there's a set time we need to be out of the house. They'd just start the day grumpy and who needs that?

I don't really get what OP's dilemma is. If DS wants to open his stocking with DD he needs to wait a bit. If he isn't that bothered he can open it on his own. Waking up a happily sleeping child is just odd.

They do share a room by choice anyway, although ds has been taught not to wake her. He's just always been like this, only needs about 9-10 hours a night, it's painful 😬

Great, compromise it is! I wasn't sure if that was being unfair on dd, but she still usually naps anyway for an hour or so.

Ds has free roam in the mornings anyway, I have lights that come on at 5am for him in the living room and a big pot of fresh dry cereal for him on the sofa. I'm sure he'll be happy to investigate and then come tell me and dh all about it - we won't object to a 5am wake on Christmas day. I like a couple of non wrapped poking out of the top stocking gifts too so he'll be thrilled to find those! It's going to be magic for them this year now dd understands!

@DappledThings dd isn't grumpy if woken, she's just happy to see people. She's never grumpy being woken for nursery/work days. I thought they didn't start to get grumpy about being woken until they're teens?!

Mine always have been! 6 and 8 now. I never wake them unless it's a school day and one of them's sleeping past breakfast time. Not worth the hassle. I always hated being woken up, I assumed everyone did at any age.

My mum used to try and wake us up on Christmas morning by walking up and down the landing loudly. DB and I were never bothered enough to want to wake up early and didn't take kindly to it.

That's why stockings include a toy, to keep you entertained until everyone's up to open presents.

@DappledThings Yes I'm not keen on being woken either. I didn't wake dd last year for obvious reasons like age and grumpiness.

I was this child when I was little! So excited about Christmas I'd be up at 5am.

Father Christmas very cleverly started putting lego in my stocking every year, which - along with opening my stocking presents - delayed me waking up my sister and parents for a while at least.

I think it's probably better for the younger one to get more sleep rather than see her sibling open his presents. It'll all be so exciting anyway, she'll be grand!

And, what better than the distraction of opening presents to delay your eldest waking everyone? Can you put whatever his equivilant of lego is (perhaps it's actually lego!) - something that you know will keep him occupied for a bit?

After I'd made the lego, I used to bring my presents to my sister to show her, and watch her opening hers, then we'd both go and wake my parents up.