When the fucking fuck am I meant to wrap the presents

[Cryingatthegym]

Toddler DSs wake up at the arse crack of dawn (and sometimes through the night).

Tween DD still rattling around til nearly 11pm every night regardless of how early I send her up.

They're with me all day long. Single parent. Small house. Work full time. Am I meant to just wrap through the night or something? I'm shattered!

Aarrghhhh. Just needed a rant really. Feeling inwardly very unfestive towards poor DD right now as I listen to her traipse past my room to the toilet for the 50 millionth time tonight.

If you get a lunchbreak at work why not take them there to do ? That's usually what I end up doing. I like to think of it as maximising all the time available to me in thr day :)
indeed I shall be taking my Christmas cake to work with me to finish if I don't manage to get it done tomorrow - just like I've done for thr last 2 years 😂

My colleague is in a similar situation. She brought her bags of presents into work and we helped her wrap them during our lunch break.

My children both have autism. Every year I spend ages wrapping their gifts but they get overwhelmed & find it stressful. So this year I have got some large boxes for all the smaller gifts and put them in there with some tissue paper. Just the bigger gifts for them to unwrap and they have their stocking.

I also have some drawstring gift bags I got off Amazon for awkward shaped gifts. I have a wrapping paper cutter much easier than scissors and a tape dispenser so I'm not constantly losing it. Much easier and less time consuming and I'm not spending half of Christmas day trying to encourage them to open their gifts.

If she’s young enough to still believe, she’s young enough not to still be up at 11pm! At 10 she definitely shouldn’t be up that late, my youngest is a teenager and is never still up at 11pm. You need to get firmer on bedtime, she needs more sleep.

Who bothers with gift tags for their DC? Just use the same wrapping paper so Billy has the blue snowmen wrapping paper and Anna has the red Santa paper. If I don't they end up opening each others by mistake. I get stick on labels much easier. And another thing I do is get some chic chip brioche for Christmas morning. So they eat something quick before meds.

I’m the same I book a day off every year in December to do my wrapping… always before I get my Christmas nails done as sellotape deadly for them!

I also pop on a Xmas film and have a baileys in the daytime.. this year I had love actually on

Most 10 year olds don’t believe in Santa. A man able to get around nearly a billion kids in one night, on a magical sleigh pulled by flying reindeer?! Of course most 10 year olds don’t believe.
Those that say they do are appeasing their parents.

Let her go on Roblox and wrap in your room, you won't see her for dust 🙄

Yes it’s worth a thought! I know 4 autistic pre teens (friends with my kids) and all struggle to get to sleep (or have in the past) Might be very low on the spectrum with this symptom being the main one. It’s just when you said you have always been the same that then light bulb went off.
Get some melatonin gummies or tablets for yourself to try. It really works.

I've just ordered these, if you've got Amazon prime then they might help:

www.hotukdeals.com/share-deal-from-app/4493246

Thanks to this thread, I’m going over to collect my friend’s kids tomorrow so we can go for a hot chocolate at the cafe with my kids so she can wrap her presents. It hasn’t occurred to me that she might need help, she was very grateful.

I gave up wrapping presents yonks ago.

I buy tissue paper or recycle stuff from packaging, put the presents in a bag and use the tissue paper/packaging between each one and over the top of the last one.

I then say close your eyes reach in and pull out one thing. They can then open their eyes and see what the present is. I know it's not the same but better that than loads of additional waste and stress of finding time to wrap stuff. Thing is I was a master wrapper before I had kids, I even used to wrap other peoples presents for them, lol!

Try rescue remedy sleep nighttime drops @Cryingatthegym We call it sleep potion here, works a treat even on my 10yo who would be up and down all night without it.

That's so lovely of you!

I disagree 🤷‍♀️

I keep it simple, just quickly wrap the presents in a nice design wrapping paper and add no extra frills such as bows or ribbons. We also decided to not wrap any stocking presents and they can spill out of the stocking instead of individually wrapping each item. I have one DC so not too much to do but it all takes time to wrap the under-tree presents.

I like the cloth bag ideas from other posters, I will keep this in mind next year.

Not the opposite to most.

In this house (and growing up), everyone I know received their main presents from Santa..............

I never received presents from my family (while I still believed). I have never given my kids Christmas gifts (from me).

I’ve always wrapped my presents through the night, even before having children. I’ll start at around 10pm and continue until around 4 or 5am. I’ve never been able to get it done at any other time.

For future years, I completely second fabric bags. I made a load a few years ago, using Christmas-y fabric that is also suitable for birthdays.

Different fabric for different people, so no need to even label.

It is possibly the best thing I've ever done.

If her sleep issues are chronic and affecting her concentration the next day have you considered melatonin? I bought it for my DS when he was 13 as he was crying one morning from tiredness. He just couldn't get to sleep before 11 and waking at 6.45 for school was too little sleep. His father has hugely disordered sleep patterns and I think it's genetic. The melatonin helped him massively. One pill at 8pm and he'd be asleep by 9. He no longer takes it as he's a bit older and can now go to sleep naturally about 10pm. It's better than drowsy cough medicine.

Don't wrap the presents.

I've never done it.

Life is as complicated as you let it become.

Well he did last year. DP got the complete outfit which I find rather alluring, although the beard is a bit tickly...😳

You mean like these? I've used them this year. I need to try and get folk to open them properly so we can use them again.

Ramp up the heavy hints and wedge the door closed! Good luck with it and don't forget to have little something nice for you now and again too!

I WFH most days and have been doing a bit at lunchtime. Can you WFH or take a couple of hours off work?