5 year old and 2 year old sleep is breaking me.

[Whizpopbang]

I have 2 boys who are copies of each other. Just turned 5 and just turned 2.

They are both mostly good kids. 5 year old has done well in reception despite being summer born. Needs behaviour reminders sometimes but is popular and works hard. 2 yo goes to a childminder 2.5 x per week and she has no concern.

They are extremely high energy both mentally and physically. They need miles of exercise and stimulating play a day otherwise they become massive PITAs. They never stop moving.

The issue is sleep. Both of them only sleep about 9 - 9.5 broken hours a night. We try to create a calm bedtime but they are just so full of energy it’s really hard. They go to sleep between 20:15 and 20:30. They are both awake without fail for between 5:30 and 6 when it’s straight away up and on it. 5 year old was building Lego and singing to himself at 5:45 this morning. Both wake up more in the night then they don’t. 2 year old has 1 one hour nap a day.

Husband and I are so flipping tired. I just want to know if this is ‘normal’ for some kids or if I should speak to the school or the GP?

It was normal for DS1.
Although, he wouldn't have gotten away with singing at 5.45 - before 6 (yes, that was our compromise time) he wasn't allowed to disturb us unless there was a problem. And before 5, he had to stay in bed and rest quietly.

I would cut (stop?) the 2 year olds nap, and work quite hard with the 5 year old about not disturbing others. You might get some joy with the 2 year old on this, but I wouldn't force it - let it trickle down from the expectations on the oldest.

This is going to sound counter intuitive, but DS1 asked for an alarm clock around this age. It did actually help keep him in bed in the mornings (maybe he knew if it hadn't gone off, he wasn't missing out on things?) but also removed any possibility of a lie in!

Thanks so much. Yeah the 5 year old is a devil for making noise. It’s not malicious, he just does it without realising! We do need to work on him being more quiet.

The 2 year old is so annoying with regards to the nap. My eldest just stopped napping completely at 2, both in the cot and on the move. Youngest still loves a nap on the move though and will fall asleep in the pram on the school run. Maybe we can try and cut it out over summer…

I have considered getting the gro clock back out re: alarms.

My youngest is like this. We just worked towards him being able to get up and go downstairs independently when he woke up so he could play without waking everyone up.

We used to have a starlight on a timer that came on at 7am. No one was allowed out of bed before the magic light came on. They could read or play quietly in bed.
All mine are "high energy" (2 now diagnosed with ADHD and on with AuADHD). I was very strict about staying in bed unless I'll. I have a chronic health condition that worsens with bad sleep.
If they woke us up they would be returned to bed straight away with no fuss. It worked well.

We did this as well at weekends after seven. Would leave out easy breakfast foods (fruit and cereal). And then they could play with toys, usually could eek out a lie in til about 8ish. We would then take turns to get up.