Early risers

So today I had 4 out of 4 daycare parents tell me their kids woke up extremely early today....like 4:30-5:30 am!!! And the fifth, I suspect also woke up early and his dad forget to tell me because he was grumpy and yawning all morning too! This is a regular thing for some of the kids and results in me having to deal with their grumpy moods all morning until naptime. I know it is part of the job and I feel for the parents who are tired too, but any advice for the parents?? My kids always sleep until 7 or 7:30 and if they get up too early, they are sent back to bed. The dck's in question are between 17 months and 3 years...

I don't have any advice for the parents other than to make the kids stay in bed and be QUIET until they come to get them up. For providers I advise to put the child immediately back to bed so they can finish their nights sleep.

My daughter sometimes wakes up at that hour too- if she wakes up at 4:30-6- I put her back to bed!

That was my day yesterday, even my own son who is 7 got up early! They were all so cranky that naptime was bumped up by almost 2 hours (put them to bed at 11:30, normally 1) and they all slept until after 2. (I got to spend a few hours with just the new little guy as he doesn't like sleep much, but its always in a great mood)

For the parents its hard to advise as everyone is different. Are they going in to the kid as soon as they wake up? Are they giving them snacks/drinks when they wake up early? Are they allowing them to start the day early just because they made noise or did they legit need something from the parent. Children are smart and it only takes one or two times for them to realize if they pitch a fit at 4am mommy/daddy come running and they get to get up.

Oh jeez, do I remember those days with my own boys! Ugh!!! I truly thought it would never end. Sometimes kids just go through phases where they wake up. And typically, they just don't get that it's an ungodly hour. For them, they're awake, time to get up and get the party started!!! Mine did it for the first 3 years. I was thrilled if I got to sleep till 6:30am, which wasn't often. They would wake up anywhere between 4am and 6am - usually on the earlier end of the spectrum. It truly sucked beyond the telling of it.

Yup, parents need to just put them back to bed and NOT let them get up.

OMG. my kids have been getting up early ALL. WEEK. I am absolutely exhausted! I think it's because the sun is getting up earlier and earlier and it's messing things up. Hopefully it gets better with the time change this weekend. We put them back to bed but they never go back to sleep :( not gonna lie kinda glad to hear I'm not the only one.

All my kids are here by 7 am so up by 6 is normal. Parents get up before that to get ready first and forget that the shower backs onto child's room and stuff like that so they hear the parents. Also at least a couple of them take the little ones into their bed if they wake up thinking then everyone can get some sleep and wonder why it seems to be happening earlier and earlier each night. My two youngest dc still have a morning nap of at least two hours which is ridiculous at 17 months old. One sleeps from just before 8 - she will be sitting at the bottom of the stairs sobbing to go up to bed about half an hour after she gets here but I make her wait till 8 am the meany that I am. She then sleeps still 10:30 when I go wake her. The other one sleeps from 9-10:30 but he is such a bear when I wake him that at the first sign of tired he goes to bed so he can get the sleep he needs and still be up for 10:30. Makes for an easy morning though and the parents wonder why they are so behind in stuff - ummm they haven't had programming in months. They are then rubbing eyes and exhausted by 1 and go back for two more hours. I am not going to put up with cranky kids that is the parent's job. I keep telling the parents this is not normal and they need to adjust sleeping schedules at home but they want to have quality time with their child in the evening well fine I get paid while your child sleeps all day no problem.

Brianne (my own teen with special needs) often wakes in the night and we end up on the couch downstairs watching tv and she will dose off and sleep part of the morning which is fine. Me I can sleep anywhere anytime which is good and function on a lot less sleep than I need which works at least most of the time.

I'm absolutely thrilled that my children are now teens and an adult. I can't drag them out of bed before noon most of the time. That being said, they've totally destroyed my ability to sleep past 6:30am, so I take immense pleasure in vacuuming outside their bedrooms on a Saturday morning or knocking on the door to get my chihuahua barking. Vengeance is mine ;)

Glad to hear I am not alone! The problem is, I am set up to have no more than two morning nappers as the rest all sleep in our main playroom...so I cannot have them all nap in the morning. One of them usually has a short morning nap, but the others do not. I bumped up naptime today too! I have one who cries out and moans through naptime and sometimes sits up screaming once or twice...nearly every day...he goes back to sleep when I tell him to, but it sometimes wakes the others. To top it all off, the doorbell just rang...thank you Jehova's witnesses...that poor lady got a pretty nasty face I am afraid ;) That woke my daughter who had finally gotten to sleep about 20 minutes before...she's been going through naptime resistance, but clearly still needs a nap! TGIF tomorrow!

I think it's because it is getting brigther out there too. My kids have been waking up earlier as well lately but I still ask them to stay in bed ''It's not yet time to get out of bed'' They go back down or read a book until I come back to get them. I was part of a sleep conference a few years ago and the specialist said that we are ment to go down with the sun and rise with the sun so it's natural I think for them to start waking up earlier now that the sun is there. Maybe you can make the rooms darker in the AM and get more outdoors time before diner. It works for me. Whatever the parents do they should not cave in. They will go back to a regular routine.

When my daughter was a baby I would put her to bed late, around 10 or 11 because I was trying to get a last feeding in then get a decent sleep through the night. She was always up early! Then I read somewhere that the more sleep kids get the more they take, so I risked it. I put her to bed at 7:30. She fell right asleep. She would wake up around 10 or 11 to feed, but then right back down and slept right through until after 7.

I think some parents put their children down late because they think they'll sleep later in the morning. Nope, rarely does this theory work. I think they get over tired and don't get a good sleep.

So, the first question I always ask a parent that is having trouble with early wake ups is " what time did they go to bed "

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Originally Posted by cfred

I'm absolutely thrilled that my children are now teens and an adult. I can't drag them out of bed before noon most of the time. That being said, they've totally destroyed my ability to sleep past 6:30am, so I take immense pleasure in vacuuming outside their bedrooms on a Saturday morning or knocking on the door to get my chihuahua barking. Vengeance is mine ;)

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Hahahahaha... that's just funny!!!

I would definitely be making up the difference here with a morning nap when needed. Earlier or longer if they are already taking one. Why should you suffer???