Early risers

[Lucy87nor]

Hi,
I have 3 children of 6,5&3. And am struggling as they are all getting up before 6 every day inc weekends. My 2 eldest are at school & come home shattered. I've tried putting them to bed later to see if they sleep in with no luck. I've brought black out blinds to try & keep their rooms dark which hasn't helped. I've also tried putting them back to bed when they wake up. Or putting their TVs on & asking them to watch a film for a little while but they still constantly insist on getting up out of bed & playing extremely loudly. My partner works long hours during the week & I work late evenings on the weekend & getting up at 4,5 or 6 is becoming a huge struggle. Any advice is greatly received. Thanks in advance.

The strategies you use for your 5 and 6 year old will be completely different to your 3 year old.

Firstly - make mornings really, really boring. Both before you get out of bed and once you are up, keep everything boring and dull until, say, 7am.

If you allow them to do stuff, they will be happy to get up and do the stuff. So no TV to entertain themselves, no tablets, no games or toys. I would provide 3 or 4 picture or factual books that they can sit up in bed and look through. Guinness Book Of Records is good for this - loads of pages to look through and pictures to look at.

Then... can the older two both count to 60?

If they can - buy digital clocks and give them a wake up time of 6.55am. A 50-something number is much better than an o-clock time, because younger children can count up to the 50-number. For example waking at 6.05, they can watch the time click over until 6.55 and have an appreciation of how many more minutes they have to wait.

Then offer an instant reward in the morning. I find a custard cream works best . Take three biscuits up to bed with you and if they stay in bed until the prescribed time, instant biscuit.