What do kids do who get up at 5.30am?

[gerispringer]

Hi there grandparent here- am on childcare duty for week 1 of summer hols. 2 youngest GC 4 and 6 who get up anytime from5 am. I just wondered what do parents of early risers do with kids these days? I remember my DC reading books or one who did lots of drawings. These 2 seem to expect to watch TV first thing. I feel a bit guilty letting them watch too much TV but it means I can have an early morning cuppa in relative peace.

If they’re getting up that early I’d keep them up later at night. That’s what the summer is for surely? No body needs to be getting up at that godforsaken time!

I mean there are plenty of dangers a 4 year old can get into during literally several hours as some people are suggesting.

Such as?

I mean it’s literally the reason things like after school child care exists because it’s not remotely normal or advised to have a 4 year old left alone and totally unsupervised for several hours at a time.

Yes, until it became apparent it wasn’t going to make a difference. I would find during DS’s 5am stint that if I got him to stay up really late sometimes he’d sleep a bit later but it would only be a bit later - so on holiday once I remember he stayed up until nearly 10 o clock but then he woke at 6 rather than 5, but it wasn’t worth it for that!

Some children just do wake up very early. He’s four now and generally wakes at half six which I’m fine with but if he wakes early now (before 6) I just ask him to go back to bed and listen to his Toniebox for a bit. I’ve no issue with people using Tonieboxes or Yoto players or things like Gro clocks to try to get children to stay in their rooms a bit longer. But very young children downstairs alone for hours at a time while parents are in bed is a bit uncomfortably close to neglect.

But yet you still can't give a single example. If my child was one who would climb or be destructive then yeah I probably wouldn't. But at 4yo, kids are more than capable of having a little bit of responsibility to go and make them self some cereal and pop the TV on and do some colouring or playing with their toys. Nice quiet start to their day. Parents are upstairs and they can come and get us if they are worried. I honestly worry about the kids whose parents never let them out of their sight

Most young children don’t work like this in my experience/parenting circles - you keep them up later, they’re still up at the same time, just more tired. We’ll maybe get an extra 15 mins in the morning but that’s about it, regardless of how late we keep her up. If she goes to sleep at 7.15 she sleeps a solid 11 hours and is far more pleasant!