Anyone else with an early waker? What do you do all morning?!?

[Summerdays2014]

Hi,

17 month old wakes early. Anytime after 4.30. Average is 5.30. It makes the day soooo long. It's 8am now and I'm counting down the minutes until his activity starts at 9.30. It's worse on the weekend when there is nothing happening until 10. We are very often the first ones in the park at 8am and the supermarket at 7. anyone else in the same boat?

Thanks

Oh god I feel your pain, why does cbeebies start at 6 when clearly this is a common issue?

Mine won't watch telly. 😔

Dd1 (3yo) wakes at 5.30, and recently 4:45 onwards. No chance of getting her back to sleep (believe me, we've tried) and not a lot of chance of getting her to play quietly in her room unless one of us if with her. If we bring her in our bedroom she wriggles around and wakes the baby, and even in her room accompanied "quiet playing" she often wakes the baby too.
I think there's kids who have an early waking phase and kids who are hard wired to wake early and can't be changed. We've tried later bedtimes, earlier bedtimes, putting her back to bed, putting her in our bed, lying with her, ignoring her, the works. Imagine your child at their most awake and trying to get them to sleep. It's not possible!
What do we do? Keep her upstairs as long as she is quiet enough, take her down when she gets a bit more loud. Fill the time until breakfast and then get dressed/ready. Normally in town before the shops open, despite it feeling like lunchtime. I'm so used to our long days that it's the norm!

When mine had early waking phases, I set my alarm for about 45 mins before they were due to wake, and then would (or send DH in- he was far less appealing to them!) to gently rouse by folding back bed sheets, rubbing backs of heads, tummies or whatever and it would send them back into a longer sleep cycle. Obviously there were occasions where it had the opposite affect- on holiday for example, for some reason- maybe the unfamiliarity of not being at home. But, other than that, it nearly always worked at home and we'd do it a few times until we didn't need to anymore.

Don't knock it til you've tried it- and when you're desperate for that extra hour in bed, it's worth getting up and giving it a go!

I have 2 early wakers (14m and 3y). I do try to keep them upstairs with iPad/TV for the older one and boob/snoozing for baby. The 3yo is very vocal when he wants to go downstairs though and if baby is still asleep will wake her (and the neighbours).

I tend to then go downstairs with a cup of tea and a drink/toast for kids and chuck the TV on and let them watch it/play while I doze on the sofa. Then we have breakfast at about 7.30 and go about our day like normal people. I certainly am not in the supermarket at 7am! 😱

I do treat anything pre-5.30am as night waking which is far easier when it's not blazing sunlight at 4am. 5.30 is when DH gets up for work so he will take them downstairs on weekdays until he goes to work and we take turns at the weekend.

Thanks everyone. Some useful tips and it's good to know we're not the only ones!

Out of interest, if your child gets up at 5.30 do they make it to lunch time for their nap? It's a real effort keeping him awake and he usually falls asleep in the car at about 11 on the way home from an activity. (The 3 days he's in nursery he makes it tnough to 12)

Yes Summerdays that's my issue with 21 month old Ds, who is up between 5 and 5.30 every Morning. He is shattered by 9 and falls asleep if we go out, then he's cranky come 3/4 but it's too close to bedtime to nap him again

I'm also in the 'school of tried everything' - naps, food before bed, blackout blinds, going in and telling him it's sleep time etc but nothing has ever worked. He has now reprogrammed all our body clocks and I wake around 4.30, dd (3) wakes around 5.30.

It's the one thing that frustrates the hell out of me because I feel like I've done a full days work before 9am every morning, and I have to be in bed way before 10 if I want to feel anywhere near human the next day which leaves no time for me and dp.

My 14mo naps from 11ish until 1-1.30ish and has lunch after. 3yo was the same until about 2.5y when he pushed it until after lunch and no just naps randomly if we are in the car late in the day or very occasionally he might crash out on the sofa. He does go to bed early on days he doesn't nap though.

From the age of 12 months any wake ups before 6am were addressed in the sane way as though he'd woke up during the night. I works go into his room, tell him it's still night-nights time, lie him back down and leave. Sometimes he'd go back to sleep, other times he would still keep calling out until it actually was time to get up but I just persevered. Within a few weeks of this he would then reliably sleep through until 6am which was fine as that's when I had to get up for work anyway.

His reliable sleep continued until he was about 2.5 years old and then he started waking up really early again (about 5am) and coming into mine and DH's room and taking him back to his bedroom achieved nothing. When he turned 3 years old we decided to introduce a Gro-clock and a reward chart which we've used for the last three months and he knew now that he's not to disturb us until the "sun comes out" on his Gro-clock. So now, even if he wakes up early he stays and plays in his room until his Gro-clock face changes and then he comes up to us. We change the times we want the sun to come out depending on what time me and DH plan on getting up

Oh yeah the falling asleep mid morning drives me nuts. I quite often have to take dd out of the buggy and carry her home to stop her falling asleep, she won't have a good nap in the buggy but will sleep 2-3 hours at home so I want her to have that nap at home!