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Please describe for me your process of getting your child out of bed in the morning... especially if they are very reluctant to get up.
Does the method you are currently using leave your child- or yourself- cranky and annoyed?
Any tips on making the process smoother and more pleasant?
Note- I'm talking only about getting your child awake and out of bed. Getting dressed or doing morning chores are not included.
We recently got an alarm clock for my dd who was very grumpy about being woken up in the am. The difference in the morning mood around here is amazing. Although, sometimes she sleeps right on through the music alarm and I have to sneak in her room and turn it up a bit louder to wake her up.
My dd is 5,so a bit younger than yours, but she really got excited about picking out the clock and using it.
Usually he wakes up on his own around the same time every day (8:30ish). But if we have somewhere we have to be, I wake him up by first opening the blinds and the doors and then I go away for a couple min. Then I'll come back and sing him a wake up song (I have an awful singing voice!), and rub his back a bit, and then I tell him why we are getting up ("Its time for Mr. Science class"), and he gets up!
His song:
"Hello Boo-Lee how are you? Mommy loves you yes I do. Hello Boo-Lee how are you? Mommy loves her baby!"
(Boo-Lee is one of his nick-names) I think its kinda to the tune of "skip to my lou" except as I said I cant really sing (he doesnt mind). I'll add random verses to the song if its taking him longer to get up usually based on why I'm having to get him up.
i.e. "Mr. Science is waiting for you, lots of projects for you to do. Mr. Science is waiting for you, Time to wake up and get read-y."
It works for us, he will get up and get going pretty quick.
First of all, you need to make sure she is getting enough sleep (at least 10 hours.)
Then, I turn a hall light on about a half hour before I want ds (age 8) to get up. And then about 5 minutes before I want him to get up, I start playing music with a lively beat. Then I'll tell him to get up and he'll wake up pretty well. My dd (13) has an alarm that does pretty much the same thing--turns on a light first,and then music.
No matter what I try, no matter how much sleep he gets, my son, 13 is grumpy in the morning!
That is, on school days. On the weekend he wakes up easily on his own. I have tried music (he just sleeps through it), gentle wake ups with hugs and massages (same as the music), lately I just open up the window, say”time to get up”! If he doesn’t get up I pull on his feet. LOL
If dd goes to sleep when she is sent to bed she should have 10 1/2 hours of sleep by her wake up time. Without me trying to wake her she would naturally sleep 10 hours and then just wake up on her own. To be on schedule she has to go to bed at the same time every day and get up at the same time every day.
When we tried an alarm clock for dd it went off for 45 minutes of solid loud beeping or music and she did not get up. It made her cranky and she asked to stop using it. She wanted me to wake her up instead.
Currently I go in her room and open the curtains. I say good morning & tell her it is time to get up. Sometimes I just stand there and keep taking about anything and everything until I get a response and she slithers down from her loft bed finally. I try to be pleasant and cheerful. It takes 30 minutes usually. Some days I just go away and come back every so often because I have things to do. Yesterday it took her 1 hour and 20 minutes to get out of bed after I started waking her. She was cranky and unpleasant for another hour after that. I was cranky too by the end of it.
We talked and she said she might like to do craft projects right away and that would motivate her to get up. We tried that today. It still took an hour but she was pleasant today after getting up.
I'd love it if I could spend less time on this and have her be pleasant.
I look forward to reading more of what other people do.
Some of us would really like not to have to talk to anyone for the first hour after we get up. (That's been the hardest part of parenting for me, my kids actually want to talk to me when I get up!) If you can get to a place of monosyllabic civility, you might not try to push it any further.
Here's what getting dd up looks like (she's my hard to get up child, ds gets up naturally on his own at 7 am):
7:05 - dh tells her her it's time to get up. She climbs into bed with me.
7:10 - reminder her it's time to get up.
7:15 - wake her up again when my alarm goes off. Dh asks her what she wants for breakfast and lunch (we pack her lunch).
7:20 - push her more or less gently out of my bed. Pull back the covers and get her up.
Depending on the morning, there's usually a couple of really firm reminders about getting dressed and/or full out yelling at her to get DRESSED already.
Question: Is your dd homeschooled? (From your description it sounds like it.) What would happen if you just let her get up on her own for a couple of weeks?
Personally, I think a 10 year old gets 2 reminders, and then I'm free to go do my stuff. If she doesn't get up, she gets to deal with the consequences. She needs to figure out a way to get herself out of bed. (our dd has an alarm clock, but she comes in to sleep next to our bed 9 out of 10 nights, so it's not used. She's also only 6. When she's 10, I"ll assume she'll use the alarm.) Just because it goes off for 45 minutes and she doesn't like that (does she know about the snooze button?) doesn't mean that you get to be her alarm.
Have you thought about one of those natural light alarms? I have no idea how they work or whether they work on those of us whose natural body clock is go to bed at 1 am and get up at 10 am.
This is going to sound corny, but here it goes. Dd has to get up at 6:45 to be out the door by 7:15 for school. On those mornings, I lay down next to her (she sleeps in our bed) and sing in her ear, "Wake up, wake up, you sleepy head. Wake up, wake up, get out of bed." She wakes up and gives me a hug, then we turn on I Love Lucy for her to watch for about 15 minutes while she is slowly putting her uniform on for school. (I have to remind her a couple of times, "Are you getting dressed?") She is slow to rise, doesn't like to talk, doesn't want breakfast and I don't make her get right up to get going. She's 9 and while she is a night owl, she also is not cranky in the morning, but I let her have some time to get up at her own pace and I'm gentle about getting her up. I don't like to wake up abruptly, and I assume she doesn't either.
I agree that you need to start by making sure she is getting as much sleep as she needs -- just because the average child needs X hours of sleep at Y age doesn't mean your child needs that much. So experiment a bit to see what the right number is.
We are on a pretty strict morning schedule, so at 6:15 when DH and I head downstairs we open the kids doors and window blinds so they start getting light and sound. If they haven't woken up by 6:30, I go in and wake them up with their stuffed animals. We have a bedtime routine that involves me "acting" as one or more of their animals. So in the mornings I choose an animal with a lively personality who bounces and head bumps and says "good morning" very enthusiastically. Sometimes the "animal" tickles the child. This generally results in awake, giggling, cheerful kids pretty quickly.
I've only had to wake my kids up once. Once. And that was the first school day after we changed the clocks last month. I wish I had that problem sometimes.
Me too! Normally DD is the one jumping on top of DH and myself first thing in the morning and I'm begging her to go back to sleep. Her school doesn't start until 10 so we don't have to get up very early...
I open her door and crack the drapes a little - not so much that the sun shines in her eyes, but enough to let some light in the room. I do this about 10 minutes before she needs to be up and usually she gets up on her own. If she does't wake up on her own, then I rub her back and speak quietly to her. I believe in peaceful wakeups. Alarms are horrid things.
I've got kids who LOVE to sleep. Dd would happily sleep until 11 every day, no matter what time she goes to bed.
For ds I go in about 5 minutes before he has to get up, give him a cuddle and rub his back. Most days he pretends to still be asleep to I tickle him and then start to get annoying. Tickle his ears, the tip of his nose, stuff like that.
Dd? Sigh, dd. I open her door about a half hour before she has to get moving. I go in and give her some hugs and kisses and leave. Come back every 5 minutes or so and do the same. Then I take off one blanket and tell her it's time to get up. Then I send in the dog! She's usually pretty good at getting her out of bed in a good mood, but sometimes I go back to check and the darn dog has burrowed under the covers! Eventually I go in there and drag her out of bed, usually whining and crying. I can't wait for school it the fall, it should be fun :(
Question: Is your dd homeschooled? (From your description it sounds like it.) What would happen if you just let her get up on her own for a couple of weeks?
Personally, I think a 10 year old gets 2 reminders, and then I'm free to go do my stuff. If she doesn't get up, she gets to deal with the consequences. She needs to figure out a way to get herself out of bed. (our dd has an alarm clock, but she comes in to sleep next to our bed 9 out of 10 nights, so it's not used. She's also only 6. When she's 10, I"ll assume she'll use the alarm.) Just because it goes off for 45 minutes and she doesn't like that (does she know about the snooze button?) doesn't mean that you get to be her alarm.
Have you thought about one of those natural light alarms? I have no idea how they work or whether they work on those of us whose natural body clock is go to bed at 1 am and get up at 10 am.
Thank you for your suggestions. We have not tried a natural light alarm clock.
To give more info on our particular situation-
My dd is homeschooled.
If left to her own devices dd will revert to a schedule of being awake all night. It has always been this way. By all night I mean she will be going to bed at 6 AM or 9AM not just staying up a little late and sleeping in. I know that she will sleep 10 hours naturally. We've allowed her to follow her natural sleep pattern before for an extended period of time and I've kept a sleep journal. There are problems with her natural pattern even though we homeschool. If dd is awake all night I will be too. We will not spend much time with dh because he leaves home at 7 or 8 AM and comes home at 7 PM. We would be unable to attend events or get together with friends unless we are willing to only get 3 or 4 hours of sleep. We get less done. We eat at odd times. Her consequences impact our whole family. Sticking to the schedule strictly is a pain but important right now.
I always preferred to wake up to an alarm clock vs. someone waking me. I wish dd was that way too. When we tried an alarm clock she used the snooze button when it was near her bed and did not get up. When it was farther away she ignored it. She was sleeping through it just fine even though it was loud. I did not appreciate listening to it.
It's interesting how different things work for different people.
Today dd got up in 30 minutes so she would get to do her craft project. I opened her curtains and told her it was time to get up. I came back about 20 minutes later and told her it was time to get up if she still wanted to do the craft. She got up, worked on her project and then ate breakfast.
Ah, so that's why your name is "onlyzombiecat"! Yep, being up all night and sleeping all day won't work.I'd love to try the natural light alarm clock, but they're so darned expensive!
Is the problem the time she goes to bed or just waking up? I wonder if melatonin at night would help keep her body clock regulated. It sounds like you've hit on a reasonable motivator for her getting up though -- if she's got something specific to get up for, she can do it.
DD goes to bed at 8:30 pm and wakes up at 8 am. If she's really tired, I let her sleep in til 8:20. The bus picks her up in our driveway at 8:40, which is great. She is six.
I usually go in her room around 8 and hop in her bed for a snuggle. Sometimes I bring my tea. She is usually rude to me, as she is really not a morning person. Then I get out and lay out her clothes. Then I give her "5 more minutes" and then I come back and I help her get her pj's off and clothes on. She CAN dress herself, but she prefers that her handmaiden (me) to take charge of that. Once she's dressed, she goes to the bathroom and brushes her teeth. We wait for the bus by the front door and I usually give her a little cup with fruit, crackers and cheese, or some cereal or yogurt in it while we wait. Breakfast is the biggest struggle as she mostly doesn't want it. For us, it feels like the less time she has in the morning the better it goes. We do lunch and backpack the night before so they are by the door.
