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Sleep

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Original poster

Do I insist my DD stops playing with her toys and goes to sleep a)now and b)at 6am

38 replies

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 16/11/2009 20:20

DD does not sleep enough.

Her sleep is currently 8-8:30pm to around 6am.

She has a good bedtime routine, toilet,face and hands washed, bedtime story bed, kisses goodnight.

Sometimes she goes to sleep straight away, mostly lately she either tries to come downstairs and says she is not tired, or like tonight, she pretents to be in bed, then we she thinks we are not listening/paying attention she gets up and plays with her toys. She is currently happily playing with her toys, not in the least bit sleepy. Me normally try to get her back to bed, cue tears, and a general fight, up and down the stairs until she falls asleep. At the same type of time she will if we just leave her to play.

So the first question is. Should I go upstairs and insist she gets into bed and leaves her toys and tries to sleep? Or let her play as she is calm and happy?

Next. She wakes at around 6am. She either gets up for a cuddle, or she plays with her toys. Either way, she refuses to go back to sleep. She will fight it, and cry and have a tantrum and no matter how long we try she will not sleep. She is very tired, and if we go anywhere in the car she now naps as she is so tired, and she naps at nursery.

If we do not let her nap, she will be overtired, a nightmare, and possibly go to sleep at a more respectable time, might wake in the night and will definitely sleep til only 6am.

Do we insist she goes back to bed at 6am and tries to sleep, or accept that she is up playing quietly with her toys and this is her time? DH is absolutely 100% resolute, regardless of what I say that 6am is too early, she is tired and he will not accept her being up at this time as he she needs to sleep longer

Any advice, tips, suggestions?

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Original poster

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 16/11/2009 20:22

She is 3.3 btw.

OP posts:

thisisyesterday · 16/11/2009 20:26

how old is she?

TheFoosa · 16/11/2009 20:26

I would say her bedtime is a bit late, she sounds overtired

I know from experience that if dd goes past a certain time, she will be awake for ages but will wake up at her usual time the next day

fishie · 16/11/2009 20:28

i've got a child who wakes at 6am regardless of when he goes to sleep. dh hates this but there isn't much to be done about it. now he (ds) is a little older i stick him in front of tv with a a waffle and water at weekends. i get up and go to work at 6.30am during the week.

to answer your questions... ds would never play with toys on his own, he needs someone to stay until he is asleep so leave your dd to play. you could try dropping naps and bring forward bedtime a little, it is a nasty stage this transition.

thisisyesterday · 16/11/2009 20:29

lol sory. cross posts.

i qwould just trty and get her to have a nap during the day, ds1 still had a daytime nap at that age, its fine

i can't see how you can force her to go back to sleep at 6am, regardless of what your dh thinks! if she is up and awake then that's that really isn't it?

i canremember as achild being sent up to bed and playing fo ages beause i just was not tired.
you can lead a horse to water and all that!

only other thing i can think of is, what time do you start her bedtime routine?
because maybe she is getting overtired? if ds2 doesn't have a nap he is drooping by 6 so we have him in bed by 6.30 and he sleeps through til around 6.30/7am
so perhaps think aboput trying to not let her nap in the day but bringing bedtime forward to about 7ish?

Original poster

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 16/11/2009 20:30

thefoosa we put her to bed at 7:30pm (ie we start her bedtime routine before this, with a view to her being tucked up and ready to sleep at 7:30pm) She just refuses to sleep before 8:30pm.

In fact, as we speak, I told her to hop back into bed and go to sleep, and now we can hear her shouting 'mama! I am in bed! Like you asked! I am just in bed, but I am not sleepy!!!!'

OP posts:

fishie · 16/11/2009 20:34

pavlov i start running a bath and rounding ds up at 6.30. story begins at 6.55 so that i can listen to the archers while he goes to sleep. he is 4.5.

i think you could easily start earlier but alas for your dh it won't make any difference to 6am waking, only to daytime overtiredness.

Original poster

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 16/11/2009 20:34

We don't let her nap. If we are able to not have her nap we do, and for the most part she has not napped in the day for over a year. (if we let her nap properly, she will be up til 10pm!) but sometimes, if we have to go out and about, she will fall asleep in the car, and even a 5-10 min power nap is enough to throw her entire sleep out.

DH has finally just said its not about her wanting more sleep at 6am, its about wanting her to be quiet! I am sure we can sort that out.

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rookiemater · 16/11/2009 20:36

Have you tried putting her to bed earlier ? She may be overtired by the time she gets to bed so find it difficult to settle.

You could try a wake up clock. We bought one for DS so he could know when it was ok to get up, hasn't really worked as expected as he still gets up and plays with his toys, but doesn't wake us up until it is "morning time"

It's a bit of a pain as he does get tired and often has a nap at the weekends. We will usher him back to bed if he gets up any time before 6.00am but other than that they do tend to have their own internal clocks and I don't think there is too much to do about it.

rookiemater · 16/11/2009 20:37

Sorry x posts

TheFoosa · 16/11/2009 20:37

I do sympathise, my dd is now 7 and has only in the past couple of months started to fall asleep at a reasonable time

I have started to have a lights out rule at around 8:30 which has helped

Original poster

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 16/11/2009 20:40

rookie yes we are considering one of those night/day clocks too.

DH put her to bed at 7pm one night last week, and slept through the night from 7:15pm to 6:30am, the longest for a very long time, and we thought 'aha, this is it, we need to put her to bed earlier' and we tried it the next night, she would not slepe until 8:30pm, and the next night, the same. She had been ill the preceding week so we guess she just took that as an opportunity to catch up a little.

I have tried and tried and tried to explain to DH that 6am is her time and he needs to get used to it, she is 3.3 for goodness sake, but he will not stand for it, and the mornings are actually quite stressful with DD wanting attention and DH being so grumpy.

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hayleybop · 16/11/2009 20:43

Yeah, maybe drop her nap, earlier bedtime and man your lucky, some children/babies wake up at 5am or even earlier so dont sweat, the 6am awakening sounds pretty normal.
It's sweet that she plays with her toys on her own, let her play and then go put her in bed a little later...You will find if she drops her naps she will go to sleep earlier and maybe wake up later...
TBH i switch the tv on in the morning and let my two watch there pepper pig ect whilst eating there brecky...They play about aswell. Or sometimes if DD1 wakes up early we put her in our bed and sometimes she dozes off again...

thisisyesterday · 16/11/2009 20:47

sometimes i think it's easiest to try and change your expectations and behaviour than the child's (i speak from experience here lol)

at the end of the day you can't make her fall asleep, and you can't make her go back to bed/be quiet in the mornings, like you say she's only really little still

but what you can do is figure out ways of making it easier on the pair of you
so, how about taking it in turns to get up with her when she wakes, tking her downstairs andletting hte other one have a lie-in?
or, if one of you has to be up for work, then they get to lie-in during the week and the other one gets the lie-ins over the weekend?

TheFoosa · 16/11/2009 20:51

I have tried every technique in the book and nothing worked with mine

I couldn't wait for her to start school as everybody used to say' oh, she'll DEFINATELY sleep then' but not a chance

She is tiny, my theory is that she just dosen't need as much rest as bigger kids her age as it dosen't take as much energy for her to move

TheFoosa · 16/11/2009 20:53

good advice from thisisyesterday, sometimes you just have to accept that they are annoying non-sleeping blighters

IsThatTheTime · 16/11/2009 20:54

We tried a wake-up clock with my DD1 (3.5) - she just comes in our bedroom at oh-my-god-o'clock and announces "mummy, mummy, the bunny's still asleep".

Original poster

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 16/11/2009 21:03

isthatthetime you have just made us realise DD will do exactly that if we get one of those clocks! Currently, she gets into our bed going 'mummy, its not morning yet, its still night time' so she is fully aware she needs to be asleep, but she just isn't. She also says 'i am still tired mama, i have nighttime tears' but once she is awake, she is motor mouth and will not stop talking. If she plays quietly with her toys, we can still hear her talking away.

She talks, ALL DAY, until she goes to sleep. Right down to the last second.

OP posts:

Original poster

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 16/11/2009 21:05

DH said 'is that the best they can do? They cannot give us definite ways of getting her to sleep? Tell them that if they do not come up with a concrete way of her sleeping til 7am i will have to resort to putting whisky in her milk'

methinks he is not going to accept a 6am start easily!

OP posts:

thisisyesterday · 16/11/2009 21:07

oh i can give you a definite way. a big dose of medised! lol
apparently that's frowned upon though, so i suspect you're stuck with it

how about YOU have the whisky, then you just won't care??

Original poster

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 16/11/2009 21:14

6am is a bit early for the whisky I think and DH said not to tempt him with the medised .

DD is a tiny whirlwind too foosa, she is slight, small and never stops, the energy she needs seems to be minimal (although guess she gets it all from food as she eats like a horse )

OP posts:

thisisyesterday · 16/11/2009 21:22

she sounds like my friend's little girl Pavlov.
she used to go to sleep at 10 and wake at 6ish
my friend just despaired. she is at school now though and is definitely sleeping better

Original poster

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 16/11/2009 21:30

We have found that nursery is too long for her, she had been doing 8:30pm - 5:30pm ish, mondays and tuesdays, and the evenings took so so long for her to wind down, although she was tired from all the play she would sleep badly. So now I am on maternity leave, we start her at 9 and pick her up at 4:30pm-5pm latest and she is calmer when she comes home. We are even considering reducing it formally to the short day time of 8:15-3:30pm and then giving her an additional morning when one becomes available.

She will wake at 6am whether she goes to bed and sleeps at 7:30pm or 10pm so guess she has decided 6am is her time.

DH and I have talked about it this evening, with some of the things you have all posted being discussed and we will try to start her bedtime routine a little earlier, maybe around 6pm, bring her eating time a bit earlier to 5pm (normally 5:30pm) and see if it works. It will be easier to do it now, as I am not working.

OP posts:

Original poster

PavlovtheForgetfulCat · 17/11/2009 06:07

5am

Her nappy leaked. And she was this gorgeous only just awake adorable little girl, talking non-stop! Brought her into bed with us, and she promised to go back to sleep, and of course she did not! 'mama? what do flies eat?' 'go back to sleep' 'ok. Mama? i love you' 'i love you to, go back to sleep' 'i am. Mama? is baby coming soon?' 'soon. close your eyes' 'they are closed [noisy yawn]. Mama? can we call him Tammy? Is that a girl's name?' 'shh'. And so it went! So, went upstairs with her, made her bed (least it aired for 45 mins!) and told her to snuggle. She wanted to play toys, so agreed she could play quietly but if she was tired to get into bed.

10 mins later 'mama!!!!! looooook!' and she has got herself fully dressed! All by herself, beaming ear from ear! How can i be mad at that face? Oh well, least she is at nursery today

OP posts:

sunshiney · 17/11/2009 06:45

"what do flies eat?" cute! even at 5am... I was thinking of one of those bunny clocks too. Our dd gets up at 6, never later and frequently earlier. I don't think there's anything that can be done about it. My dd is 2.3 and does not nap either, unless she had a particularly wakeful night.
I agree with others to start her bedtime routine earlier.
Also perhaps temporarily remove toys from her room, and if you hear her get up, go to her and keep putting her in back bed in the evening. Hopefully she can get into habit of settling at 7 30 pm. That might improve the over tiredness during the day without a needing a nap.
Good luck, and anyway I feel your pain of the 6 am starts!
I wonder if the ones with 7am risers know how lucky they are!

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