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

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I think your options are to either accept the early wake-ups and have one parent get up and deal with it, or give up your new office and put them back in separate rooms.

[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.

Follow through. Also tell them either they follow the rules or you will spilt them up - and do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What time are they waking up?

One can wake up as early as 5:15. We are working on adjusting this. I would rather focus on behavior and help with the room sharing issues.

Get up with your kids then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are expecting them to wake up and be quiet and have taken away all their toys to make sure they stay in their room quietly? Hello?!

Put some toys in there and say if you wake up early play quietly and try to not wake your brother up.

So we took out the toys because of the screaming. They would fight over the toys. Removing the toys takes away THAT screaming issue. They are super chill boys who happily sit and look at books for long periods of time, so expecting them to wake up and look at books together isn’t unrealistic.

Apparently, it is unrealistic. Buy two of the same toys so they don't fight.

They are 4 and 5 and yes it is unrealistic after they have been sleeping all night. Let go of the prison living and lazy teenage I want to sleep in behavior and get up with your kids.

[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.

No it's fine. Every kid I knew that woke up early just turned on cartoons until their parents got up-and guess what they are all fine. You are seriously setting yourself up for failure if you need permission from others in order to determine the rules of your house.

[Anonymous]

iPad. Set up parent controls. Mine stay in bed with iPad until I call them down. Even have headphones. If they want to wake up at 5am I don’t care as long as they don’t wake me or eachother, esp the baby. They can come down if they see the door to the 10mos olds room is open or I call them. Of course they call if they have a nightmare or something.

[Anonymous]

In the other room ( office?) can you make a quiet corner there with some silent toys, a favorite book, a blanket, and some snacks, so whoever wakes up, quietly goes to that room and wait for others to join. You might end up giving them screen time with some game or show that they like, but that could be a peaceful solution.

[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.

NP. Yes, welcome to adulthood. Different parents are allowed to do different things. It's not "checking out of parenting" - it's called doing what works for your family, just the way you do it while cooking dinner. There are parents that involve kids in cooking rather than "just throw them an iPad", but its perfectly ok if you aren't one of those. I am inclined to imagine that you are a PITA kinda arrogant person, but then again "I was under the impression that it's bad" to judge others based on just one thing.

[Anonymous]

You’re going to have to get your butts out of bed. If a 4 or 5 year old is up, a parent needs to be up also. You’re frustrated be you are expecting them to do things they aren’t developmentally capable of doing.

What time do you put them to bed? I’m guessing it’s super early. When you are a parent of young kids, you don’t get both evenings and mornings off.

[Anonymous]

Any update Op?

Lots of tips here. Surely some sort of a combo of them is working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any update Op?

Lots of tips here. Surely some sort of a combo of them is working.

Thanks for asking.

A few things:

1. Removing the toys helped a LOT. My older son has anxiety and he was "so worried" about his younger brother touching his stuff. Younger brother knows how to push his buttons. So, removing the toys eliminated a LOT of stress.

2. More outdoor time after school. They go to school and are outside a LOT, but we are topping them off with more time to ensure they're tired.

3. Later bedtime.

So far, they've been sleeping in and doing better overall!