Clocks going forward - can I use this to fix my early risers?!

[mydailymailhell]

I have two early risers who wake up any time between 5 (usually) through to 5.45. My ideal is to get them to 6 am or any time thereafter. One is a 4 year old who has had his and downs with sleep but now is waking between 5.00 - 5.45 each day. His 1 year old brother can wake any time from 4 am to 6
am.

So tomorrow they should both wake around 6 or thereafter in the new time (6 old time) but if I want then to keep going with this do I need to put them to bed an hour later eg 8 (old time 7)for a couple of nights ti get them used to it?

Do you get up with them? I'm afraid I used to treat early rising as though they'd tried to get up at midnight and send them back to bed!

6.00-6.30 is acceptable but any time before that, it's still night!

Don't change their bedtime. Keep it as is....if they wake later all good. If not, just refuse to get up and lie down in your own bed until the right time.

They'll adjust.

Yes, put to bed an hour later to shift routine.

Shifting daytime nap times makes this easier. Then maintain this new (later) bedtime long term.

Following. Our 19 month old has always been an early riser. She's had good times where she would get up closer to 6.30 am, but for the past couple of months it's been closer to 5-5.30am. It's very hard. I'm going to see what's going to happen now with this new time. This morning she got up at 5:30 (6:30 new time). I'll report back..

do I need to put them to bed an hour later eg 8 (old time 7)for a couple of nights ti get them used to it?

If you go back to the old bedtime, you will go back to the old wake up time.

You need to view the later bedtime as a longer term thing.

Thanks @FATEdestiny I think I recall from previous threads you are the in-house infant sleep expert ! So now rather than a 6.45pm bedtime they have a 7.45pm bedtime?

One of the children has just turned one so i want to get him into a 7-7 routine which I think he can probably achieve with a little time. The 4 year old has always been an early riser despite trying earlier/later bedtimes etc. We have had phases where he has slept til 7 of 6.30 but since lockdown it has gone haywire and this morning it was 5.10 (old time)

I always list or gained the hour at lunchtime on the Sunday of clock change. Carried out everything as normal otherwise. It never affected the kids.

We've found that delaying bedtime makes our (nearly)4 yr old wake up earlier 🤦‍♀️ we've just accepted 5ams. He knows to play quietly in his room and won't disturb us until 6.30/7 and we won't go downstairs until 7. Little brother much better sleeper but gets ignored in his cot until 6.30 if he wakes earlier. He goes back to sleep or plays with soft toys in his bed

You might manage it, but bedtime and dinner time, need to be an hour later to stand a chance of it working.
So, if things used to be
Dinner 5
Bath 6
Bed 7
Wake 5.30

You need to move to
Dinner 6
Bath 7
Bed 8
Hopefully wake at 6.30.

You may need to introduce/increase an afternoon snack to make dinner later.

My just turned 5 year old has always been an early riser and no amount of playing around with making bedtime earlier or later made the slightest bit of difference - he simply woke every day between 5 and 6.15 but usually starting with a 5! He’s started to improve since starting school and I would say the 5 somethings are now the exception rather than the rule, most days is now 6-6.30. But sadly we just had to accept it!

So now rather than a 6.45pm bedtime they have a 7.45pm bedtime?

Yes, that's right.

The normal scope for a nights sleep for a baby is in the range of 10-12h.

If you're putting baby to bed at 6.45pm then you should be expecting a wake up from 4.45am - that's normal. You might on a good day get a 5.45am wake up and you would be very, very lucky to get a 6.45am wake up.

So of course a 6.45pm bedtime will give you an early wake, you shouldn't be expecting anything else.

I have 4 children. I would do baby's bedtime at 8.30pm, which allowed for a wake up somewhere around 7.30am (in the range of 6.30am-8.30am), giving enough time to get sorted for the school run but not too early.

Thanks @FATEdestiny

My baby would be an absolute mess if I waited to put him down at 8.30pm...as it stands I can barely get him to 6.30/6.45 pm. How do you achieve that?

It comes down to timing naps well.

If you're still on two nap days then I would do 9am (When home from school run) and 1pm, waking 3pm for the school run.

Two nap days use "234" as approximation for awake time between naps (2h from waking to nap 1, 3h from nap 1 to nap 2, 4h to bedtime). I did a more 225 for my youngest, to fit it around school runs but could do this because she slept well. If you don't need a school run then it would be better to have a 2pm-4pm afternoon nap.

If you're having one nap days, then to get a later bedtime, make your morning longer and busier so the lunchtime nap is later starting and later waking.

Morning! Good first night here. DD 19 months went to bed at 21:00 new time and slept till 6:18am. I thought that would be us getting up but after a quick breastfeed she just turned around and slept till 7:28 !!!
So we were an hour late for nursery :-) But it's a nice change from the 5:30 wake-ups we've been having recently.

My aim is now to make bedtime around 20:30 - halfway between the old bedtime and the new bedtime :-)

How is everyone else doing?

I came on here to ask this question and found this thread already here!

We put our daughter down at 7.30/7.45 (about 45 mins later than usual) but at the moment she's still waking at 6. I'm disappointed tbh.

The first morning after the clock change we had quite a disappointing result but we then pushed bedtime slightly later (15/20 minutes) and have been getting a more consistent 6 am wake up from the 4 year old which is better than the 5 am wake ups. The 1 year olds sleep is still all over the place

@Heepers it takes around 3 weeks of consistency to establish new habits.

A 7.30pm bedtime and 6am wake up is 10.5h sleep, which is well within the normal range of 10-12h overnight sleep.

What are you aiming for? 7.30am morning wake up? Logic dictates that wants a 9.00pm bedtime. 7 30/7.45pm just won't cut it, it's nowhere near late enough.

Early bed = Early wake

(I should add that that 9pm bedtime is a lot easier to move to on the first night of the clocks going forward, when it feels like 8pm to baby. That's the whole reason why the weekend of clocks changing in March is a unique opportunity to move bedtimes later with less disruption. Moving it now will be much harder)

I’m fine with a 6 am wake up if it’s consistent . We have always been consistent with a 7 pm bedtime but have had wildly differing wake up times ranging from 4.30 am to 7 am

The one year old dies one night time wake up but could be awake for two hours and then still wakes at 5.30 am