I have always based a large part of my perceived success as a parent on how well my children are sleeping. This is directly related to the fact that their sleep reflects on how much sleep/time to get things accomplished I’m getting.
It’s not so much that it’s worse with two children, but there are more variables. It’s possible that both kids are sleeping well, but more likely that one of them isn’t and the other is, OR that they’re both in a bad sleep phase. I can’t really decide which of those last two options is worse. I mean, if the baby is regularly sleeping in until 7, but I can’t enjoy it because the bigger kid is up at 4, well… that’s great for the baby, I suppose.
It’s no coincidence that I used 4:00 am in that last example, because I have seen that hour more than I care to admit lately. Sure, some of it is time-change related, but this kid is an early riser, and it’s not without consequences either. As the person who spends the most amount of time with him, I can recognize when his behavior is spiraling into an over-tired state of perpetual motion. Unfortunately, four year olds are notoriously hard to reason with, so telling him he needs to nap/sleep/rest/stay in bed until AFTER the roosters crow is wildly ineffective.
Things have been bad for months. MONTHS. He’s mostly stopped napping, so I can’t blame that. I honestly think he’s too tired to sleep well. Yes, you read that right. I believe firmly that well-rested children sleep better. Never, EVER, have my children slept longer and more soundly as a result of missing naps or super late bedtimes. Rather, when they’re going to bed at a predictable time and napping, their sleep is more consistent, their moods better.
So, we’ve replaced nap time with quiet time. We spend a lot of time burning off excess energy. We’re limiting screen time. We’re asking him to stay in his room until a certain time. We used to try for 7:00, but that’s a solid THREE HOURS later than he is waking up in the morning, so now I’m asking for six.
This is kind of working. I asked him to stay in bed, but told him he could read, and evidently no one taught this child the concept of an inside voice. Naturally, the baby wakes up and is so tired she falls asleep in the car before we can make it home for naptime.
Hello car nap. Also, hello whiny, crabby baby from about 4:00 until whenever I decide I can’t take it anymore and put her to bed.
So, what do I do? Seriously, tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.
Do I get up with him at 4:00 when he wakes up? Won’t this just train him to wake up at this hour?
Do we continue to just send him back to his room, knowing he’ll probably wake up the baby? He’s not being loud on purpose, our walls are just impossibly thin and sound carries in a quiet pre-dawn house. It’s really cute to listen to him “read” books he has memorized or make up stories based on the pictures, but it’s 4:00 am. IN THE MORNING.
Should I start playing some sort of white noise in Bubette’s room to drown out whatever other noise might wake her up?
We have tried laying down with him. We have tried letting him get into bed with us. Sometimes, but rarely, this works. Usually he’s so wired that he just sits there, eyes wide open, practically vibrating in place.
What do I doooo?
lol...we have the exact same issue with all our kids. Speaking from experience, I would say continue making him stay in his room until whatever time you decide. Use the white noise to help the little one and then just pray for the best. lol...it took my daughter a while, but she is now five and I can see her open her door in the morning and glance around, if no one is awake, she plays in her room quietly until someone comes and gets her. She's the one that I made stay in her room until whatever time. And now she's just used to it. My little ones share a room so when my three year old wakes up too early i tell him that he can stay in his bed silently or go downstairs and read books or lay on the couch. This usually works great and he'll go for around 45 min to an hr. they all go to bed between 7 and 7:30 which seems to lead to 5:30-6:30 wake up times. Earlier than 6 I am blaming on the time change. I just put black out curtains in the boys' room and this got me an extra half hour this morning. :/ Good Luck!!
ReplyDeleteHave you tried one of the visual cue night light or clock things? My daughter went through a phase of getting up at 4 am and we finally bought a good nite lite (that's the brand name, and it hurts my heart to spell it like that) that changes from a moon (blue) to a sun (yellow) at whatever time you set. The idea is that you start out with it set for whatever time they usually get up and then bump it back like 15 minutes every few days until it's set to a reasonable time. We started when she was still in a crib, so she learned that nobody would come to get her until it was on, but now she's in a bed and she just knows she's not allowed to leave the room while it's still a moon. It's not perfect, but even though she's up most days between 5 and 6, she'll almost always stay in her room until 6:45 (which ended up being as late as we could possibly make her stay in there.) Also, we run a fan in her brother's room so she doesn't wake him even if she's noisy.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, sorry for the ridiculously long comment. I feel your 4 am pain! Good luck!
That SUUUUUCKS. I would probably get a noise machine for her room, and maybe his for good measure, and keep putting him back to bed. It's got to stick eventually, right?!
ReplyDeleteWe are ALL ABOUT white noise at my house! There is a box fan in Baby's room that I turn to the middle setting whenever I put him down for nap or bedtime, AND there is another box fan right outside his bedroom door that I turn on high for nap time and medium for bedtime.
ReplyDeleteAnd I make mine stay in their rooms "quietly" until I am ready to be up.
GOOD LUCK!
I have absolutely no good advice. My 3.5 year old always is up early- not 4am early - but it's early for this mama who is not a morning person. Luckily she will climb into bed with us and most of the time gals back to sleep. Lately though she's been wanting to climb in at 1am, afraid of the dark, having to pee, etc. We're working on rewarding her with plastic coins for staying in bed all night. She hasn't gotten that many yet. But a reward system has worked previously in terms of other goals.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I just turn on Disney Jr and go back to sleep.
Here's this too...
ReplyDeletehttp://mommysfabulous.com/2011/parenting/toddler-sleep-training/
I'm not exaggerating when I say I am actually too sleepy to even contemplate our current sleep situation.
ReplyDeleteErica - I think your newborn trumps my non-sleeping four year old.
ReplyDeleteWe got the special nightlight, but my kid just cries loudly and wakes us all up. "It's still YELLOW! WAAAA! I want it to be green so I can get up! WAAAAA! MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!"
ReplyDeleteSo when he wakes up, I let him come into bed with us, and he falls asleep again until a decent hour. Is this a good solution? No. But we all get to sleep.