Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on how willing you are to allow a screen or similar to babysit your kid. Plus personality.

Um no. My kid starting doing what OP is suggesting at just over 3. No screens at all. She goes down and draws with her crayons or reads her me readers waiting for the rest of the house to get up.

OP it is just a matter of building their confidence in their own independence.

My son was the same around 3.5. I imagine it would be more difficult with a kid who wakes hungry, but mine would just play with his car quietly or look at his books for an hour or so before I got up.

Anonymous wrote:I have never used an OK to wake clock but if you can’t reprogram can you just get 2 and switch them out on Friday night?

They are easy to program. I used to always add 45 minutes on weekends. Now that it's summer my kids are up later and sleeping later so we just turned it off entirely (also an option for weekends).

At 4 she can play for an hour on her own but if she isn't independent just set out some coloring things etc the night before.

Anonymous wrote:Depends on how willing you are to allow a screen or similar to babysit your kid. Plus personality.

Um no. My kid starting doing what OP is suggesting at just over 3. No screens at all. She goes down and draws with her crayons or reads her me readers waiting for the rest of the house to get up.

OP it is just a matter of building their confidence in their own independence.

I give my 4.5 year old headphones and an ipad and she climbs into bed with me when she gets up, gives me another hour to sleep.

Depends on the kid.

My 4 year old is up at 6:00 a.m. and has so much energy, that leaving him alone is not an option. We can push it off about 30 minutes with an OK to Wake Clock that turns green at 6:30, but by then he has so many things to say and wants desperately to play downstairs, etc., that one of us has to get up.

I'm jealous of the rest of you!

Anonymous wrote:Starting at 3 years here. We’ve taught them pretty well so don’t have things like baby proofing but especially if you have that then you should be totally fine. We don’t helicopter the rest of the time either though.

3 is too young. That’s not responsible.

My now 6 year old has always been an early riser and starting around 5 we instituted a "no coming out of your room" before 7am during the week and 7:30am on weekends. She is allowed to play in her room quietly until those times and although she doesn't always follow rules, she has always followed this one for some reason. I think she liked that we stopped fighting her on sleeping later.

We recently started leaving breakfast or a snack on the bottom shelf of the fridge for her on weekend mornings and she is allowed to come out at 7:30 to eat and watch a show, which she happily does.

I definitely think you can try this with your 4 year old and while it may not work perfectly yet she will get used to it and it should with a little time.

The real answer is just whenever the kid will do it... My 4.5 and 2.5 year olds go down to the kitchen to grab a snack from the snack drawer and then up to the playroom from 7-8 on most weekend mornings to watch cartoons and play. I would say 3 out of 4 times we get to sleep until 8 and 1 out of 4 times they come wake us up/need something; never had any disasters though.

This really depends on the kid. DS1 was not an early riser. DS2 is. So, from around 3/4 he's been getting up on the weekends by himself. He used to just play with Legos or hop in bed with his brother or DH and I. Now, at 7, he gets up, plays with Legos or the Kindle or watches Netflix or plays Xbox Kinect games. He may even fix breakfast for himself and his brother. He's normally a pretty destructive kid, but during the early morning hours when he's alone he isn't destructive.

Mine was 4-she wasn't the type to do anything dangerous and our house was small so I would have noticed any unusual noise.

Anonymous wrote:I have never used an OK to wake clock but if you can’t reprogram can you just get 2 and switch them out on Friday night?

I was wondering the same thing.

My four year old "reads" in bed on the weekends until I get him or he gets hungry (usually by 8:45).

For the first time ever today my 5.5 year old asked if he could go downstairs and play while we kept sleeping. It was really nice. Of course we have a younger child so it didn't last long, but still nice.

My kids like a hot breakfast (oatmeal or eggs) and we have to feed the cats, so I have no plans to sleep until 11 while they get their own breakfast, but it was nice to have an extra half hour until 8 while he played. Of course he was so loud we didn't really sleep, plus the 2 year old was cackling to herself in the crib, but it's the thought that counts.

At 3 and 5 my kids started getting up together, eating a yogurt, and watching cartoons for an hour on weekend mornings. Life changing!

Starting at 3 years here. We’ve taught them pretty well so don’t have things like baby proofing but especially if you have that then you should be totally fine. We don’t helicopter the rest of the time either though.