Early wake-ups

I am so frustrated lately with the kids and their sleep. A "normal" day for us is to wake up 545am, nap from 130-3ish, then bedtime by 7pm. But, I am so tired of the 545am wake-ups I can't handle it anymore. DH travels so much, so he isn't around to help much with these early mornings. I have tried to have them not nap anymore in the hopes that they would sleep in until 7am, but their wake-up time still stays at 545am! So, I would rather that they nap and wake up at 545am then no nap AND an early wake-up.

I have room darkening blinds, we have an excellent routine (and have for a VERY long time), and I have a special sun/moon clock that they understand (when the sun comes up they can come out of their bedrooms), and I give a sticker for each time they stay in their room until their sun comes up and after 6 stickers they get a surprise. They do really well at naptime, but I just dont know what to do about those early morning wake-ups, I end up getting up about 10times/morning putting them back in their rooms. Should I just give up on making them go back to their rooms. Normally they play together and go in each others rooms, get dressed, go potty etc in the mornings from 545am to 630am (our official wake-up time is 630am).

We just got back from a weekend trip away, and the kids shared a room (at home they have their own rooms), and it was a disaster from a sleep perspective!! They didn't go to bed until about 8pm, didn't nap, and woke up at 445am! I think they were so excited to be next to each other, that as soon as they woke up a little they woke completley and then woke each other up.

Ugh - we are off to Italy for a month long vacation in a week and I am dreading the 5am wake-ups!

Any suggestions?? I need some help on this, I am just so flippin frustrated and sleep deprived...

 

I'd put knob covers on. I have one that is in and out of the bathroom in the morning because he can, not because he needs to go. The other option is to try putting them to bed earlier. I'm hardcore about sleeptimes (always have been). I will lock the door if I have to if they won't stay in their rooms.

 

Have you tried moving bedtime later? 7:00-5:45 with a nap is a lot of sleep for a 3.5-year-old, I think. I think 10-12 hours is recommended for 3-year-olds. Yours might be kids that need 10 hours rather than 12 hours. Mine still take a 1.5 to 2 hour nap, but we put them to bed at 8:00 or 8:30 and they'll sleep until 6:30 on most days. When school/daycare starts again, we'll have a 7:30 bedtime because they have to be up at 6:00. It may take several days of a later bedtime to get them to start sleeping a little later.

 

Sorry. Not sure why I got the double post and I'm not sure how to delete it.

 

Yes. I would try 8 pm bedtime and see if that helps!

 

Mine would never ever fall asleep at 7pm if they had a nap... and yeah they'd be up very early too. I'd either get rid of the nap and stick to it (it will probably take a few days to adjust though), or put them in bed at 8pm. My kids only sleep 12 hours at night now, no nap... when they went to bed at 8pm, they woke up around 7.30-8am, now that it's 7 they are up at 6.30-7am.

 

I have just recently worked on this issue and have had some success (don't jinx me!).

My youngest DD is the poster child for early-to-bed, early-to-rise. She asks for "nite nite" at 6pm, and we keep her up until 6:45pm. She wakes up super early, 5:15am on the dot, every day, no matter the bed time or nap duration. We went on vacation where the time was an hour ahead, and she woke up at 5:15am after one day there (4:15am home time). Once we got home, she woke up at 4:15am two mornings in a row even though bed time was her normal 6:45pm, an hour later than it was on vacation, so I decided to try something big. I kept her up for two nights until 9:00pm and then 8:30pm for a while, and woke her up after 1.5 hours for her nap. She woke up at 4:15am, 4:40am, 5:15am, 5:30am (I went in this morning and rocked her and told her it was still night time and she needed to go back to sleep, which she did, until 6:30am), and she has finally settled in at 6:00am with bed time moved back down to 7:15 - 7:30pm (so, 30-45 minutes later than her usual time). You might want to try a crazy-late bed time for a while to shock her internal clock, and maybe try going in and treating it like a night-waking and telling them to go back to sleep would work.

My twins are still napping but their bed time has moved about 45 minutes later, so that might be the answer after you get their clock reset.

Life is much better in my house when it starts at 6:00am instead of 5:15am...good luck!

 

Hi -Our kids used to get up really early and it really was so hard - I felt like I had no energy all day. This took a lot of time but what we did was when they woke up, say at 5:45 we would wait 15 minutes before we would get up with them, did that for a week, then would wait 30 minutes and so on. We found that as time passed they would just sleep longer and longer. I think they figured if we weren't going to get up and play with them they might as well just go back to sleep. Now they wake up around 7:30 and I still let them talk and play for about 15 min. before I go in. We have them closed in the same room and they can't get out. If they wake early for some reason we treat it like a night wake up and don't go in at all (unless of course I can tell from the cry that something else is wrong.) They have nothing to break or hurt them in their room so I feel fine with doing this. At night when we put them to bed (around 7:45) they stay up talking and laughing until at least 8:30 already so I guess no different in the morning.