What do you do on the weekends when the kids get up first?

In our small ranch style house the bedrooms and bathroom are at one end of the house with the living room and kitchen at the front of the house. On the weekends the twins almost always seem to wake up a little earlier than us. They used to stay in their room yelling "I am awake" and that would get our attention fast, but have started venturing into our bedroom to tap us on the arm which is ok yet it can really scare the death out of you when you are sleeping deeply. Plus I have always had nightmares since I was a kid of someone trying to get me, so it takes a lot of restraint on my part to get my brain to recognize this is my child and not a dream threat. On a side note I have actually hurt myself falling out of bed during a dream sending me to the ER and have hit DH when he tried to wake me up from a bad dream thinking he was my dream attacker.

I have asked my family and friends, but they are no help. I have heard endless stories of how they leave/left sippy cups of milk/juice in the fridge with simple breakfast foods for their kids to help themselves to while they slept in for another hour or two. Ours are still too scared to come down the hallway into the dark living room that isn't really totally dark with light streaming in the small windows on the doors and don't know how to turn on the tv to watch their morning Sesame Street or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

So I figured others here must be having similar issues. Right now we try to switch days with me trying to sleep a little longer on Saturday and DH on Sunday, but if the twins wake me up with too much of a start I am up no matter how hard I try to fall back asleep. Aside from me or DH taking an afternoon nap we aren't sure what to do with this phase. What do you do on the weekends when the kids get up first?

 

I or we or DH just get up with them. Around the age of 6 our oldest DS started sleeping in til 8:00 or 9:00, so I just try to enjoy the extra cuddle time and remind myself that in just a few short years they will (probably) be sleeping in too.

 

Same as Jori. Sometimes I tell them to go into their room and play quietly and that might buy me another 10-15 minutes.

 

We brought them into bed with us, and turned the TV on. We went back to sleep and they watched TV for a bit. I gave up sleeping in when we had kids. That was the closest thing we could get to sleeping in, and unfortunately still is.

 

One of us gets down with them. They can't get out of their room though... there is NO WAY I would ever trust them alone without us right there. Who knows what trouble they would get into... So the noise usually wakes us up.

 

Mine are now old enough that Timothy will come downstairs and play wii and Sarah will lay in bed with a book.

Before that, they would come into our room and watch tv. Our tv in there has a built in dvd player and you can just walk up and hit the "play" button for it and it will play a dvd. We left a dvd of Little Einsteins or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that I had recorded off of tv in there. Then we put a star sticker over that button. So when the kids came in, they would just push the button with the sticker over it and watch tv while dh and I dozed and got up.

Depending on your system, you could probably leave a sticker on the tv and leave the tv on the channel the kids like. Then tell them when they wake up to go push that button. And if you don't have pets, you could probably leave out sippies of water or a bowl of Cheerios or something they like to snack on.

Marissa

 

When my oldest kids were younger, one of us would have to get up with them. I usually give them a snackie type breakfast (poptart, bowl of dry cereal, cereal bar...etc), and a sippy cup of milk or juice, plop them on the couch, and go back to sleep beside them for a half hour or so!

Now, my older kids get up and watch tv, so when the twins wake up, Sean usually gets them up on the couch with him to watch tv, buys me another 30-60 mins or so. Sometimes he'll get them cereal to eat, sometimes just poptarts, and sometimes they wait until i get up to eat.

 

If they can turn the TV on with the remote, have the tv on a kid friendly channel and teach them to go there. Our kids come straight to our bedroom and wake us up if we aren't awake already. I somehow do wake up if I have a kid just standing there staring at me. It is kinda creepy and does scare me a little bit.

 

I get up! In fact, I make sure I'm up before them so I don't get thrown off by them needing this or that and me not having it ready. Might be 5 am or 7.. Kinda depends but I'm used to it now.

 

I think this is why one of us always gets up with them because they get into enough trouble right in front of us during the day, so it is a scary thought of what they could do while we were sleeping.

 

Luckily my husband gets up with the girls on weekends so I can sleep in. But during the week I try to get up when I hear that they are awake. They never come and wake me up...they simply get up and start playing. I don't like to sleep while they are up because I feel it is a safety issue. But I admit at times (like today) they get up and are playing for awhile before I even hear them and wake up myself.

 

We split up the sleep in days; DH gets to sleep in on Saturday and me on Sunday. It doesn't always work out, but we aim for that anyways. The girls usually get up before DH on Sundays and we're pretty lucky that they stay in their room and tell stories or play games. At about 3.5 we started putting a few toys out on their rug for them for the mornings hoping it would keep them from yelling at the top of their lungs for us. It took a while, but now they're totally happy to play for a bit until DH is up. Their bedroom is at the other end of the house from ours, so we can't hear them unless we have the monitor on... so the sleeping parent can usually stay asleep.