Early mornings with kids…
It’s dark outside while I’m writing this (well it is 6.30am) and I am here with my cup of tea. Our kids are early risers, the eldest and youngest in particular…it doesn’t matter what time they go to bed they are pretty much up between 5.30-6.30am. Its just one of those things we have to live with and something we can’t change. Despite advice and good intentions they are just wired that way. The only time they sleep in is when they are poorly. We have had one or two other occasions and it seems mad to be delighted about not being disturbed until 7am.
So we do at times have long days starting early and as the children get older increasingly longer evenings. The oldest, a bit like his Grandad, can have trouble switching off. We have to be quite careful about what he watches as well, because he churns it over in his mind. It’s not that a film scares him, it’s that he thinks it through in bed working out all the plots and sub-plots and can’t let it go.
Anyway I don’t think we were up the earliest on Christmas Day, it was after 6 when everyone brought stockings into our room. I heard of some who were up at 4am!
But the excitement and joy of opening stockings with us (we had them too), and checking if Santa had eaten his mince pie and drunk his drink just made it a really magical start and we can forgive the time.
Dear Santa….
I am naturally an early bird (although about an hour later would be perfect for me), but hubby is more of a night owl.
That worked really well with babies, but now we do need to make an effort to have those important conversations and make sure we spend some time together. The holidays can make that a little easier as there are no kids activities and they were all upstairs by 7.30 not necessarily asleep but in their rooms doing something, so we had a festive glass and watched ‘Nativity!’
Here’s to the rest of the holidays and I hope you enjoy yours too.
Anyone else have early risers? How do you deal with it? Let us know.
This is our regular Tips for Parenting guest post by Beckie Whitehouse from Be Confident Coaching.
Photos courtesy of Microsoft Clipart.
Beckie Whitehouse
Beckie is a mum to three kids, and works in the Cambridge area as a coach. Feel free to get in contact for a no obligation discussion.
Coombemill
Saturday 29th of December 2012
I have the opposite, can't get them to bed or get them up in the morning, I think that is a normal transition though as they grow up. When I had younger children early risers prevailed. Learning how to operate TV was always a winning tip!