Recently moved 4 and 5 year old to the same room and it’s going terribly. Help!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:15 minutes is an eternity for a kid who just woke up.

Developmentally they just don't have the patience for what you're expecting.

This! The entire thread is misguided at best.

When a 4 or 5 year old wakes up, a parent needs to wake up, whether that's 4:30, 5:30, 6:30am or whatever.

If you don't want them to wake up that early, look into the causes: going to bed too early? too late? hungry? hearing brother stirring?

Can the awake brother take a book and bring it to a mattress next to your bed to read quietly? Expect this to fail at least 50% of the time...

[Anonymous]

Thank you everyone. You’ve given us a lot to think about.

We are addressing the early wake ups.

Lots of ideas for behavior. You’re right: it’s too long for them to wait, and we have to suck it up and wake up also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to let the kids watch Netflix cartoons on the iPad between when they woke up and when we woke up, but if they woke us we took the iPad away. Set time limits (we didn’t let it unlock until 6:15) if you don’t want them waking up early on purpose for screentime.

Wait, are we allowed to do this?

If you are asking whether you can lock the ipad until a set time, the answer is yes. Go to Settings -> General -> Screentime -> Downtime

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They requested to share a room because they were scared and alone at night. Switching them back to different rooms isn’t an option. Please don’t suggest it.

This is also a question about behavior, not sleep. They wake up early, yes, but I want to focus on behavior and not sleep info.

We have charts up: sit quietly, wait for the green light, then play quietly until we come in. We rehearse and talk about it. There are NO toys in the room, just books. We have a “stop sign” on our door so they stop waking us up. It’s not a crazy amount of time for them to sit and wait. 15 minutes. They love to sit and read so this isn’t absurd for them.

The PROBLEM...
One child wakes up early and wakes up the other. It varies which boy wakes up day by day. We aren’t sure, and can’t get a clear answer. This results in someone barging upstairs “Bob woke me up!” “Bob was talking! Tom was talking!” They blame each other. This escalates to SCREAMING...if they don’t come get us, they just sit in the room and scream “go back to sleep!” And eventually start physically fighting.

We’ve tried threats: “if you wake up before the light is green and make noise then you lose a toy/time out, etc”. We have visual reminders. We talk to them: please don’t wake up your brother. Sit and wait quietly. No silly talk.

We beg. We plead.

They don’t listen to each other. If Tom asks Bob to stop talking and go back to sleep, he won’t. It just escalates.

We are absolutely at our wits end.

How do you manage this?! We are so tired of the screaming, and having terrible mornings is a terrible way to start the day.

Have you thought of wearing them out more so they don't wake up early? Giving them a later bedtime?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to let the kids watch Netflix cartoons on the iPad between when they woke up and when we woke up, but if they woke us we took the iPad away. Set time limits (we didn’t let it unlock until 6:15) if you don’t want them waking up early on y purpose for screentime.

Wait, are we allowed to do this?

If you are asking whether you can lock the ipad until a set time, the answer is yes. Go to Settings -> General -> Screentime -> Downtime

No, I'm asking if checking out of parenting in this way is socially acceptable. I limit my kids to less than an hour of screentime a day, when I need to keep them occupied so I can cook dinner. I'd love to just throw them an iPad and sleep in every morning but I was under the impression that it's bad for their development.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to let the kids watch Netflix cartoons on the iPad between when they woke up and when we woke up, but if they woke us we took the iPad away. Set time limits (we didn’t let it unlock until 6:15) if you don’t want them waking up early on y purpose for screentime.

Wait, are we allowed to do this?

If you are asking whether you can lock the ipad until a set time, the answer is yes. Go to Settings -> General -> Screentime -> Downtime

No, I'm asking if checking out of parenting in this way is socially acceptable. I limit my kids to less than an hour of screentime a day, when I need to keep them occupied so I can cook dinner. I'd love to just throw them an iPad and sleep in every morning but I was under the impression that it's bad for their development.

Yes, you're allowed to do this. Jeez, didn't we all grow up watching cartoons on the morning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to let the kids watch Netflix cartoons on the iPad between when they woke up and when we woke up, but if they woke us we took the iPad away. Set time limits (we didn’t let it unlock until 6:15) if you don’t want them waking up early on y purpose for screentime.

Wait, are we allowed to do this?

If you are asking whether you can lock the ipad until a set time, the answer is yes. Go to Settings -> General -> Screentime -> Downtime

No, I'm asking if checking out of parenting in this way is socially acceptable. I limit my kids to less than an hour of screentime a day, when I need to keep them occupied so I can cook dinner. I'd love to just throw them an iPad and sleep in every morning but I was under the impression that it's bad for their development.

Socially acceptable meaning what? No one is going to report you to CPS for giving your kids too much screen time, and plenty of parents do not limit screen time to an hour a day (or at all). More screen time is not ideal, but it's probably not going to hurt your children as long as they are engaging with the world in other ways most of the time, and sometimes you just need to do whatever preserves your sanity. But yeah, some people will judge you for it because some people are judgmental AF about other people's parenting.

[Anonymous]

Put good toys in the room. They’ll play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to let the kids watch Netflix cartoons on the iPad between when they woke up and when we woke up, but if they woke us we took the iPad away. Set time limits (we didn’t let it unlock until 6:15) if you don’t want them waking up early on y purpose for screentime.

Wait, are we allowed to do this?

If you are asking whether you can lock the ipad until a set time, the answer is yes. Go to Settings -> General -> Screentime -> Downtime

No, I'm asking if checking out of parenting in this way is socially acceptable. I limit my kids to less than an hour of screentime a day, when I need to keep them occupied so I can cook dinner. I'd love to just throw them an iPad and sleep in every morning but I was under the impression that it's bad for their development.

Socially acceptable meaning what? No one is going to report you to CPS for giving your kids too much screen time, and plenty of parents do not limit screen time to an hour a day (or at all). More screen time is not ideal, but it's probably not going to hurt your children as long as they are engaging with the world in other ways most of the time, and sometimes you just need to do whatever preserves your sanity. But yeah, some people will judge you for it because some people are judgmental AF about other people's parenting.

I’m the PP with the Netflix trick. “Allowed”? People on here will definitely judge you. But if I’m going to let my kids watch an hour or 90 minutes of cartoons a day I’d rather do it in a way that lets me sleep.

[Anonymous]

Also I sometimes let them watch way more than an hour and some days there’s none.

[jsmith123]

OP we just moved our kids (3 & 6) into the same room. The 6 year old wakes up earlier than the 3 year old. We've instructed him to tiptoe out into his old room where he can quietly read or play. Most days it works. Some days they just end up both waking up at the same time and there's not much we can do about it.

[Anonymous]

Why is putting them back in separate rooms not an option? Seems simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15 minutes is an eternity for a kid who just woke up.

Developmentally they just don't have the patience for what you're expecting.

This! The entire thread is misguided at best.

When a 4 or 5 year old wakes up, a parent needs to wake up, whether that's 4:30, 5:30, 6:30am or whatever.

If you don't want them to wake up that early, look into the causes: going to bed too early? too late? hungry? hearing brother stirring?

Can the awake brother take a book and bring it to a mattress next to your bed to read quietly? Expect this to fail at least 50% of the time...

+1, this. We'd always have a parent get up. Or, if one parent was traveling, kid would come into bed with an iPad or kindle and stay with parent/sleeping and knew not to get off the bed without waking the parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to let the kids watch Netflix cartoons on the iPad between when they woke up and when we woke up, but if they woke us we took the iPad away. Set time limits (we didn’t let it unlock until 6:15) if you don’t want them waking up early on y purpose for screentime.

Wait, are we allowed to do this?

If you are asking whether you can lock the ipad until a set time, the answer is yes. Go to Settings -> General -> Screentime -> Downtime

No, I'm asking if checking out of parenting in this way is socially acceptable. I limit my kids to less than an hour of screentime a day, when I need to keep them occupied so I can cook dinner. I'd love to just throw them an iPad and sleep in every morning but I was under the impression that it's bad for their development.

Maybe it’s not the best. But this idea that parenting is matter of constantly optimizing your child’s development is literally driving women over the edge. See all the threads with the women who say they cry every day. Makes me sad.

[Anonymous]

I can’t understand what possessed you to give in to them wanting to share a room. It would be different if it were a necessity but you say it was their request. I would have done a trial run and when it failed I would have bagged the whole idea. I don’t eff around with sleep.