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

[PavlovtheForgetfulCat]

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?

Tell your DH to go to bed earlier, seriously. My DS had a 5am waking time during the summer (and it still varies between 5am-6:30am now) and I used to get really upset about it until I acknowledged there was nothing I could do about his waking time (and trust me I tried everything) but I could do something about my bedtime. My body clock now operates on Central European Summer Time (+ 2hours), I am in bed at 9:30pm every night.

Also don't forget she won't change her habits overnight so if you try and implement an earlier bedtime you need to do it consistently for at least a week before you can declare success or failure.

libra i want to shake DH to be honest. He does not get it. he does not realise things take time, he wants it to happen NOW. And he will not come to bed earlier, we have been through this for years. 'i am a night owl pavlov, you know that, i can't just change it' and goes on about how our children should not rule our life blah blah. OK, well then you come up with a solution then.

He thinks its me - I am at fault because i let her get up, i indulge her apparantly .

I have tried to tell him we need to do a routine for a while to see an improvement and he insists on that not being true.

'i am a night owl pavlov, you know that, i can't just change it'

lolol at irony.....

what's the opposite of night owl? morning lark?

I know libra! He is full of irony my DH! He is also currently still asleep! He did offer to get up and deal with her this morning, but he is so grumpy with her and she was lovely and sweet and happy i could not bear to here him tell her off and insist she gets back into bed and have her crying, and tbh i was awake anyway (hoping I was in labour due to some back pain, but alas no, just back pain!)

Well if you are that close to your due date soon 6am will be the least of his worries re:waking up....

Congratulations.

I am very pleased to read this thread because I am not alone. We have been up since 4.30am yawn

However I would like some advice to make it STOP please. I am with your DH

libra LOL, i know that, and you know that...and he will spend the next 3 years insisting they both sleep until 7am. I could cope with it if he just shut up and stopped being so grumpy in the morning! I think I would have accepted it by now, but wonder if perhaps I am doing something to encourage her/not encourage her back to sleep.

(I am due tomorrow btw, maybe he will arrive today? thanks for the congratulations!)

spice you are very welcome to come join my in finding a legal and natural alternative to medised . 4:30am makes DDs time feel much later! But she did g through a phase of 4:40-5am up to quite recently.

oh good luck with the baby (not dh)

libra I just mentioned the irony of his statement and he said 'but I am old!' and then he said 'bloody useless the lot of em'

Thanks thefoosa. I have a feeling his arrival is imminent...

No help really, but your DD sounds exactly like mine. She's 3.3 too and regardless of what time she's put to bed, she averages 10 to 10.5 hours of sleep a night. Official bedtime is 8pm which is quite late I know, but she is usually asleep fairly quickly. She'll then be up anytime from 6am onwards (though thakfully it was 6.50 this morning). We did try keeping her up until closer to 9pm but that didn't really make much difference in terms of acutal sleeping time and quite often she'll ask to go to bed earlier than 8 if she's really tired. We also had a few months of really early mornings like you but she seems to have gone past that phase (I hope). DD is a whirlwind of energy too and is on the go from the minute she gets up until it is time for bed. She's also quite adept at taking off her pyjamas and getting dressed in all manner of ill-matched items!

DD knows that if she wakes early (when still dark or if DH and I are still asleep) she is to stay in her room, put the light on and play with her toys or 'read' a book and she'll say this to me. The reality is she'll spend a couple of minutes doing this before coming in to us asking for milk/the tv/mummy get up/daddy not get up.... She gets into bed with us sometimes but will just wriggle about as opposed to cuddling nicely. Oh and she don't do naps unless we happen to be in the car in the afternoon!

Sorry to not have any solutions for you but at least you can show your DH that there's at least another one like yours!

Best of luck with the new baby .

pavlov my dh is exactly the same. he says his life is a failure if he has to go to bed before midnight. i go at 10pm!

i just let him have a nap or two at weekends.

6:30am today! And she stayed upstairs til 7:05am, after a fashion. What with having to come down the stairs to get a 'pretend daddy' from the bears on the stairs, and to show me a dirty t-shirt, and then to check if it has been 15 mins yet, she stayed up there , 8:00pm sleep too, so, an improvement.