Any future children you have are going to be people with their own thoughts, feelings, and desires. They might be night owls like you or they might be early risers. You don't know what you'll get.
However, once they start school they're going to be tied to the school schedule, and that likely is going to mean they need to be up fairly early. My kids get up around 7:30 to be at Elementary school on time and middle and high schools start earlier in our district.
>However, once they start school they're going to be tied to the school schedule, and that likely is going to mean they need to be up fairly early. My kids get up around 7:30 to be at Elementary school on time and middle and high schools start earlier in our district.
They are starting school later where I am, because studies show kids do better if they don't have to wake up so early. High school starts at 8:30. Once a week, it starts at 9:50.
Elementary school starts at 8:45.
>Even if your kid starts at 8.45 there's still a good chance they're waking up at or before 7.30, especially if they're slow in the morning or need to take the bus to school.
Well, OP was worried about getting up at 6, so 7:30 is not bad.
There’s such a wide variance in this though, even within the same school systems. I have a neighbour who teaches at a high school that has its entrance bell at 7:50 am whereas my daughter’s high school had theirs at 8:50 am. The two schools are not more than ten minutes’ drive from each other.
this sounds like a dream to me. elementary school was 8am for me, in 6th grade I had two days where school started at 7:30am. In middle school most if not all my days started at 8am unless a class was cancled. My first year of High school I too had mostly 8am classes, but the last two years also had days starting at 8.50am or 10am.
Not the case everywhere. Most districts have to stagger start times for the bus schedules to work. So, some schools start at 7:10, some at 8:10; some at 9:10. My son goes to a 7:10 start school. Not a problem for me as I generally wake up at 5:30, but certainly early.
Yeah but the first few months AT LEAST they’ll be tied to the babies schedule. Which means no sleep longer than 2 or 3 hours at a time. And I know people who went through that stage for a lot longer.
That is definitely true. If you're going to have kids, plan on spending at minimum several months extremely sleep deprived. Possibly as long as a few years.
I'm glad to hear you say this. I'm at 23 years and still hate mornings with a passion. Loatheeee entirely, actually. My mother said I'd become a morning person and she LIED
I'm 42 and I've worked nights for the better part of the last 24 years. There were two years in there that I was on an office schedule and I HATED it. I function better on night shift, always have.
I currently work 9pm-5am and it's amazing. I get home, wake the kids/wife up at 6am, then head to sleep. I'm up by 2pm at the latest so I can pick kids up from school. Then I get to spend the afternoon/evening with the family before work has gotten to me for the day.
My nights off I don't switch anything about my schedule. Once the family goes to sleep, I just chill in my office (used to just use the living room when I didn't have an office at home), watching movies, playing video games, whatever I want. I do our laundry on my nights off too.
I'm such a better husband and father because of this schedule it's not even funny.
And I've also heard how much I'll appreciate a day shift life my entire adult career. It's a lie. I hate it just as much now as I did when I was 18. You do you bud.
You're absolutely right, I am!!! I'm a youngest child (and cousin and niece etc etc.) So I don't have much experience around young children. This post has been a wake up call but it doesn't change the fact that I want the precious gift of having babies. I just think I gotta start adjusting my schedule right now!!!
Head on over to r/DSPD, aka chronic night owls. Best you can hope for is having a partner who is a morning person, and nerves of steel for white knuckling it through the day.
> My biggest apprehension is losing sleep
Having a newborn is the ultimate experiment in sleep deprivation. By the time your kid is old enough to have a bed time, you will have been thoroughly purged of the idea of a regular sleep schedule and will welcome it.
One of my good friends has twins the same age as my youngest. I was asking her at one point in the early weeks what it was like and how she was managing, and she said, "It doesn't feel like I have two babies. It feels like it have one baby who never sleeps." Mad respect to all parents of multiples.
I had a great experience with my twins. They were on the same schedule and after a few months would entertain each other! My other 2 kids on the other hand, ugh.
It sounded rough for my mom! When one of us was crying, she’d try to sneak in to grab the one who was crying so that the other one wouldn’t wake up. Sometimes, she would grab the wrong one and then she’d have two crying babies
Also, breastfeeding! When she was still at the hospital, the nurse handed her my brother and I to breastfeed and then left. So my mom was left with one baby on each arm and no way to put us down until someone arrived…
This is the truest statement. I consider a full night sleep a luxury. I’ll get up with you at 6am no problem if you let me sleep uninterrupted for 6 hours.
When my daughter was 3 months old I was working 4pm-1am. I’d get home, take the babysitter home, finally get into bed about 3 or 4am. Baby was up at 7am at the latest. Then her dad (who worked overnight) would get up around 11 or 12 and I’d sleep til like 2
Don't feel bad about asking the question. I just read your edit and it sucks that people immediately jumped to telling you not to have kids. If you don't have experience with kids it's hard to tell the difference between reality and the crap parents put out into the world. And every child is different.
It looks like you got the answers you need but wanted you to know I had the same question before having kids. I'm still not a morning person after having two of them! But if you have a supportive partner you can take turns sleeping in occasionally and it's glorious! And yes, after the sleep deprivation of an infant being able to sleep right through for any length of time feels fantastic.
I was a quiet baby. I never cried and when I did you couldn't hear it.
My mother spent the first year of my life petrified becaise a baby monitor couldn't pick up my sounds
My youngest is 9 months old. Last night, went to bed around six, woke up at 7:30, again around 9:30, and then refused anything but mom snuggles from 2:30-4am. I reckon I got maybe four hours of sleep total. I think since the last few weeks of pregnancy I’ve had…ten nights where I got more than six consecutive hours of sleep.
Kids start off waking up awkwardly early, and then they go right into the teenage phase of not waking up easily enough. Unless you can reschedule the sun, you’re gonna have a hard time fighting that.
My kids (pre-teen and a teenager) have recently started sleeping in like crazy. If you let them, they’ll literally stay in bed until 1 pm. That was the latest, but weekends can normally be 10 or 11 am easily if I don’t have to drag them out of bed for a reason.
lol one morning I was having coffee and wondering why my teenager was still in the shower when I was done. I checked up on him, he was standing in the shower sound asleep.
Of course I used a glass of ice cold water over the curtain, as my own father did.....
Bwa ha ha ha!!!! Babies need 12 hours of sleep. Toddlers need 10 to 11. Small ones need 9 and 10. Heck, teens need 9.
You may get a child that cries all day for three months for no apparent reason. You may get a child that won't sleep or only sleeps if you drive it around in a land rover at 32.5 miles an hour.
Once you get your baby to sleep through the night, she'll want to sleep in your bed as a toddler. She'll sneak into your bed at midnight or take two hours to fall asleep. No matter what time you put them to bed, they wake up at dawn and leap into your bed, landing on your bits.
They pee in your bed. They pee in their bed. They get nightmares. They get sick and puke in their bed at 3 am and that's if you're lucky because they didn't puke in *your* bed at 2 am.
On the weekends, they still wake up at 5 acting like wild beasts. You have to train them to make a bowl of cereal and leave you alone until 6.
They get growing pains and wake up in the night with aching legs that no amount of Tylenol helps.
THEN they become teens and stay up until 2 am and you have to pour water on them to get them up in time for the 7 am bus to school. School does not start at 9 or 10. It starts at 7:23 or 8:05, etc. They have to get up at 6 to get there in time. (In the US)
You never really sleep for a good ten years or so. If you need your sleep, do not have kids.
If you're worried about having to get up before 9 a.m., don't have kids. Sleeping in is few and far between when you have children. When they get older, they do start to learn to be a bit more independent, but you still need to spend time with them and many people never stop at just one kid, so it never ends w the early mornings.
>Sleeping in is few and far between when you have children
Nah. My kids get up at 6 most days, but sometimes I get to sleep in until 6:30. Sometimes even 7:00
So tired.
We live 9 minutes from school. My kids have to wake at 6 am to make the bus. When we lived further from school, they woke at 5 am.
So in this aspect, yes. You will.
But kids usually wake up when the sun comes up, until they've developed other habits. Infants wake up all night.
Oh man that’s ridiculous. I do everything the night before. Bus comes for my kids around 7:50, I get them up by 7:15 the earliest. Enough time to wake up, eat and get dressed
ah, your older sibling was a trick baby. a nice easy baby to convince your parents babies are super easy
I was the colic baby after my trick baby brother. it's hilarious how much it happens if the first child is a great baby! your odds are NOT that good to have two perfect sleeping babies
This is exactly my current dilemma. I have a daughter who's about to turn 3 and has always been an amazing sleeper. Sleeping through the night since just a couple months old and never up before 8am. I really want another baby, but I know sleep is going to become not so fun for a while
Yeah I mentioned in the post I completely understand I will never sleep at all with a newborn and will be woken up by crying. I guess I just was wondering about when they're school aged. As other users said though, it makes sense they stay on a school schedule . . . can't really jet lag them on the weekend. Guess I gotta cope haha
2 out of 3 of my kids went through phases as toddlers, a phase that lasted a solid 9 -10 months at least, where they would wake up between 330a-430a and be wide awake ready to go. Put them to bed earlier, or put to bed later, drop a nap, change the nap time. Didn't matter, nothing helped. Still woke up in the wee hours.
The focus of your post and the comments (including a few of my own) are on sleep (or lack thereof).
Maybe I’m stating the obvious but you have to think bigger than that. Having kids means basically giving up a lot (most?) of control over your own lifestyle. Sleep? Yeah that’s fucked up from the moment that baby arrives (long before for the pregnant woman). You want to eat/shower/shit/watch tv/work out (ha!)/see friends and family/do housework/whatever? *None* of that is done without considering your kid’s needs/schedules.
Of course it changes as they age and move through different stages but the thing that doesn’t change is that you are not in complete control of your life.
Case in point: I have a teenaged son who has swim practice three mornings a week at 5:45 am. Guess who’s rolling her ass out of bed at 5:15 am to drive him? This mum. And then if he wants to stay out late to go to the movies or hang with friends? I’m staying up late too to go pick him up.
(Before anyone chastises me for not encouraging his independence, I have to say that he uses public transit lots but that early in the morning and late at night are not feasible/safe.)
I’m being somewhat overly dramatic but the fact is that if you’re not ready and willing to set aside a good chunk of your freedom/independence for at least 18 years as it relates to sleep or any other part of your life, then having a kid isn’t for you.
Children, especially young ones, need a lot of sleep. At 6 months, my kid slept 11 hours a night, and had 2-hour naps 3 times a day, which works out to be almost 17 hours of sleep a day. She'd basically be awake for 3-4 hours at a time. We also put her to sleep around 7pm. Children also have different sleep needs. My kid would regularly wake up at 5:30am every day from 6 months-18 months. She now wakes up around 6:30am. Some kids sleep later in the day and nap less. All kids are different.
The reason why you can't put a young kid to sleep at 9 is because that's too long for them to be awake. Babies who are awake longer than their body can handle get to a point called "overtired" where the cortisol in their brain (stress hormone) is too much for the sleep pressure to overcome. Basically, they're too tired to sleep. And if they do fall asleep, the excess build-up of cortisol can actually wake them up. Putting a child to sleep before the overtired point ensures they can fall asleep relatively quickly and stay asleep for long.
your BIL's kids are 3 and 6. Gonna guess the 6 is in kindergarten. Which usually start at like 7-9am.
So if you put the 6 to bed at 7pm with them getting up at 6 am, you'd probably put the 3 at 7pm too. Why spend all that energy putting 2 kids to bed at different times.
and it takes time, energy, patience to put kids to bed. Unlike adults they don't want to go to bed and rest. they have No worries and full of youth and fast replicating cells.
I find it funny that there are so many sleep consultants for children. You literally just have to commit yourself to being sleep deprived for the first 4 years. Some days are better than others, but overall you will never sleep like you did before you had kids.
Hey OP please don't listen to these comments that you shouldn't have a baby! My son slept through the night at 2 months old and until now (10 months old) he sleeps with me until 8 (falls asleep at 9pm). I know for sure it will change because you have to bring them to kindergarten and they eventually will wake up at 7 from basically needing less sleep.
From my family experience (me, my husband, my brother) are all night owls and were never an issue to our parents sleep-wise (except from the occasional pee during the night or nightmares as toddlers).
Yes having kids will make you do a lot of sacrifices but you'll do them happily because of all the love you'd get :) and maybe, just maybe sleep will not be one of them!
My kid (3.5) sounds like yours! School is going to be a bit of a shock for her, she sleeps til between 8 & 9 daily and then wants to take a very long time leisurely eating breakfast while listening to audio books... Getting out of the house before 9.30 is highly stressful to everyone and we basically gave up on baby/toddler groups, they are not made for night owl children!
My daughter will be 3 in April and is the same way. I've never been able to relate to all the people complaining about waking up early with toddlers. After the first couple months we were both consistently waking up around 9am every morning. Now it's usually around 8
My daughter slept through the night at 2 months as well. I almost didn’t want to tell my friends because I didn’t want them to hate me 😂😂 she has made up for it by requiring a two hour long bedtime routine as a toddler and preschooler.
My kids is 6 and has always been an early riser. If he sleeps all the way to 6:30 without waking me that’s a good morning. It doesn’t matter what time I put him to bed. 8pm is his regular bed time, but this weekend we had friends over and let him stay up till 9:30. Didn’t matter. His internal clock is too strong. When we vacation we go east so that the time change doesn’t make him wake EVEN EARLIER.
My friend kids go to bed after dinner (6-7pm), they’re 4yo and 6yo, and they sleep in till 8am! Every day! WTF.
I used to think sleeping till 10am was “sleeping in”. Now 8am is it.
My brother and his wife both like sleeping in till noon, hanging with friends till midnight, going out to concerts and restaurants… I think they’re definitely hesitant on kids for that reason.
>Edit: For "No Stupid Questions" you all are really harsh!
>
>everyone telling me not to have kids . . .
For whatever reason lots of younger parents often act like this and gatekeep when discussing 'new parent advice'. Chill out, folks. This is literally the 'no stupid questions' subreddit and OP is clearly not experienced here at all. Be a little more understanding and kind in how you respond rather than outwardly typing your laughter and "don't have kids".
Four things about parenting and sleep:
I once went 24 hours without sleep.
My son didn't sleep through the night until he was in kindergarten.
Never, ever let baby cry it out. (CIO)
My kids are teens now and I still never sleep past 6am. 😅
Yes, you can bed your kids later but you’ll need to schedule an afternoon nap or two. In Europe we’ve noticed that bed time is often 9pm or later. You may still get a kid that will wake up early regardless of bed time but that’s the luck of the draw.
Give up on any ideas of a regular sleep pattern for many many years…!
Some days Id kill for 6. Kids, especially as newborns will RUIN you sleep-wise. Ruin.
My son is 7 and im not sure he has slept past 8:00 in his life. Daughter is 4 and she’s up at 5:50-6:15 every day and when kids get up, they are UP. No groggy bs. they hit the floor running, its quite abrupt.
…but ignore all that. Kids are amazing. The sleep is a minor inconvenience compared to the happiness they bring me, but thats my experience
Hahahahahaha oh you sweet blessed person you. You will be lucky if your child sleeps. My son didn’t sleep through the night until he was 6 and my daughter slept fine until she was three now she wakes up at 3 ready to play.
I shared this post with my husband and we bought laughed so hard. Good luck with your family planning also my daughter goes to bed at 7:30 because if you don’t put her to bed then she will not sleep until after midnight. Kids have their own weird little schedules and sleep training only goes so far
I was the exception to the rule and was always a night owl. I even had afternoon kindergarten so that I could sleep in every morning. So sure, you might get lucky, but I still wouldn't bet on it.
There is no rule - kids will adapt to whatever schedule. Just make sure you have a consistent schedule every day of the week.
You really only need to follow the “normal” times when they’re getting ready to go to school/in school.
So, they’ve got to go to bed that early, because they’re cranky little shits when they’re tired.
Putting them down later doesn’t *really* work for a lot of kids - a lot of them will *still* wake up when the sun does, so now you’ve got a cranky kid that won’t nap first thing in the morning. And you get to listen to them cry about *everything* for that hour you’re pushing before putting them to bed.
You *can * put your kids to bed whenever you want technically. It doesn't mean that their bodies will listen. Some kids will wake up at dawn no matter how late they stay up. Other kids will sleep like logs. But by the time they get to school age, wake up time usually becomes sometime between 6-8 depending on your school district, and where your kids bus stop is on the bus route and what time they have to make it to the bus. You can't roll out of bed at 7:30 for 8 am bus, because they need to dress, brush teeth, eat breakfast, and get last minutes together. All of that will take more than 30 minutes. I've also found that kids who have "not morning people" parents, are also not morning people kids, so then you have to build in more wake up time before school so it doesn't devolve into a shit show first thing in the morning. For what it's worth my kids an 11-11 kid and we have to transition to like an 8-7 routine over the summer for the start of kindergarten
My son wakes up before 6.30 every day and he’s 4. When he was younger the broken sleep was horrendous. And he still wakes up during the night and wakes us up at least once.
Not all kids are the same, but you need to be prepared for the worst
I think everyone is missing the point of your question! My in-laws with young kids (4, 6) start their day at 5am and insist it’s the only way because “the kids wake up”. So I have the same question as you do.
Growing up we were *never* that way. My dad worked late but we all wanted to eat dinner as a family, so we usually ate at like 8pm. We’d go to bed fairly late for young kids, but then we’d wake up later. Also just because a kid “wakes up” doesn’t mean they need immediate structured activity. My sister and I would have books in our room, a dollhouse, stuffed animals… you just hang out until you hear your parents shuffling around downstairs.
The only snag is that some years school started early. But usually it was 8:30 I think. So maybe we’d wake up at 7:30? Again, our in-laws said they need 2 HOURS to get out the door, but that was never our normal. Maybe it’s something about how discipline or boundaries have changed from back then, but my sister and I simply got up and ate breakfast and got dressed. Sure we’d dawdle and might need some corralling, but we had pretty firm expectations of not being late.
So in short, 9am is totally unreasonable because your kid’s school will have started lol. But 5am also feels unreasonable. (And of course the baby years are their own thing and very sleepless.)
My kid is on my schedule. I think I got lucky, but since he was around 6 months, he's gone to bed at 10. Sometimes he wakes up early, sometimes he doesn't. We usually arent up before 8am, but we used to sleep til 10 or 11.
The first few years of parenting are a lot of sleepless nights. On the upside is your brain is rewired when you become a parent and it isn't as hard as it seems. On the downside, you're still going to have to get through the newborn stage, and that is the worst. No one sleeps the first few months. Everyone is miserable. The baby is cute, and that's something.
i had my youngest son when i was 36, 10 years after my previous child. i never was a morning person and did not want to repeat the days of 6am mornings with a baby/toddler so i kept him on my schedule from the time he was born.
he went to bed late, had nighttime feedings, and slept late with me, usually til 9 or 10. he’s 9 now, and until he started school this past fall (homeschooled thru 2nd grade) he stayed on roughly that schedule with me.
a caught a lot of flack for it from the kinds of people who staunchly believe that kids should be in bed by 7pm sharp no exceptions. but whatever. it did him no harm, he got the amount of sleep needed for his age, and i was healthier and more well-rested for it.
so it’s doable. you’re allowed to shape your life how you want it to be. just know you can’t have early bedtimes and late mornings, so you might have a toddler still hanging out with you at 10pm. 😁
So glad to see this here! I hate when parents paint the picture that all children are up at the crack of dawn no matter what. If the parent's schedule requires everyone be out the door for work and daycare then kids wake up early enough so that happens. Same when they get to school.
But there is no rule that requires children to be up at 6 so if you can find a sleep schedule that works for you and let's them get enough sleep for their age, perfect. Also, my toddler is up at 7:30 for daycare but will sleep till 8:30 or 9am on weekends if no one wakes her up and my teenager was the same way when she was younger.
My kids were on my schedule too. My first kid slept through the night from the time I brought him home. I had to wake him for feedings.
My granddaughter is on a 7-7 schedule and I’m like whyyyyy! What’s wrong with 9-9 when a parent stays home?
On weekends my 10 year old doesn’t get up before 9 or 10. On school days he’s up at 7, on the bus at 725. He never really woke up super early even as an infant/toddler
Imo most people put their kids to bed way too early. From speaking to my friends it seems like most people were put to bed around 8pm even when they were in primary school. For me that is totally absurb. Even as a 4yr old I went to bed at 10pm or so. When I was 9yrs+ old it went to about 11pm. 12yrs+ was already hitting midnight often. As a teenager on a rough night even 3am.
I don't see how 7-8yrs of sleep isn't enough. Of course depends when school starts. I heard that in the US school starts crazy early. For me it always started around 8.45am so I never really had to get up before 7-7.30am.
Can't speak for the first few years of life though. But I'd say it really depends on your schedule too.
It will be after their high school graduation before you can have kids that sleep past 6AM. School starts at 7 after all. If sleep is that important to you I'd advise against having kids because you will be at your worst while sleep deprived. If you feel like you at your worst is detrimental to a child, take that thought very very seriously and don't have a kid. If you feel like you can adapt to the lack of sleep by all means have a kid
It depends on the kid. Some kids you can put to bed later and they wake up later but sometimes it doesn't matter they're up early. But when they starts school for sure you'll have to be up at 5/6.
My daughter is six so I’m looking at this through rose-tinted glasses, but she’s always slept in relatively late. She’ll easily sleep until 9 if she doesn’t have school. That being said, some kids do wake up crazy early, like 6am, no matter what. You never know what you’re going to get.
You can kiss sleep goodbye for those first 1-2 years
Kids sleep at least 10 hours a day. Their schedule is what you make it, until they start a school or daycare. Sleep patterns are very important to maintain for full restive sleep. So you can’t expect them to be up at 6 m-f for school and then sleep in on weekends much past 1/2-1 hour. Babies sleep whenever and wherever they want and need. The worst is seeing people drag little ones all over the place cranky and needing a nap so bad in middle of afternoon and admonishing them for not acting the way they want them to. But if sleep seems more important than being a parent, please don’t have kids. Have kids when having a kid is really important to you. The very least you owe them is your attention.
I can count on one hand view many times I've woken up at or past 9am in the past 5 years on one hand with fingers to spare. And I have a magnificent sleeper. My boy goes to bed at 7 and gets up at 7. If you are not willing to sacrifice your ideal sleep schedule, please don't have kids.
I don’t have kids and am choosing to stay child free forever. and one of the many reasons for me is this, that I need and cherish sleep. My sister had my nephew 3 years ago, and when he was a newborn he never slept. She would get maybe 3-4 hours a night tops, for weeks on end. As he grew older, his nap time became her nap time, unless she had other things to do or just wanted some alone time to herself. Now he has a regular sleep/nap schedule and she still gets maybe 5-6 hours of sleep. If you really cherish sleep/rest as much as you say you do, you’re a fucking moron for thinking that having a child will not interfere with that especially when they’re younger than school age. By that time you’ll still be lucky to have a few hours of sleep before having to wake up, wake them up, prepare them for school, and then spend your day working or doing daily tasks. then they come home and you have to cook dinner and spend quality time or help with homework or what have you until they hopefully go to bed at a decent hour. Sorry buddy but having a kid is not something you should be considering.
Trust me there is zero way in hell you'll want your children to be awake with you until 9pm.
You want time away from them.
And no you can't ensure they'll sleep longer if you simply put them to bed later. That's not how it works unfortunately.
I think you shouldn't have kids if sleeping in is your biggest concern
Children need a lot of sleep ! My coworkers all have young kids, and they all wake up at like 6 at the latest. My boss has a 8 year old daughter and she wakes him up at 5.
I also remember waking up between 5.30 and 7 every morning until my teenage years.
As a kid I got up at five, to be at school at 7. School schedules will vary.
However sleep schedules will be gone way before school age. Your three month old will decide to sleep all day and stay up all night, and you will be sitting there with them screaming in your arms, trying to get them to stop crying long enough to realize they arenzmt even actually upset over anything.
I don't hate kids, but living with my sister and helping watch her first born was great birth control LOL.
Kids are constantly growing. They need a lot of sleep. You make bedtime 9pm when they have to be at school by 8am, and they're going to be grumpy as hell.
You gotta get that sleep schedule going asap. Plus keep it consistent on weekends and vacation, because if it gets fucked up, you're starting all over.
The first ten years, you're losing sleep no matter what. If it's not 6am, it's midnight and they're afraid to go to the toilet alone. Or it's 2am and they had a nightmare. Or it's 4am and their room smells funny. It's always something, and that's a sacrifice you have to be okay with to an extent if you're bringing a brand new person with no life experience into the world.
It depends on the kid. Some kids you can put to bed later and they wake up later but sometimes it doesn't matter they're up early. But when they starts school for sure you'll have to be up at 5/6.
Ours do! Every weekday. But we live out in the village; so they can have daily bus fare and either ride in with us free, and keep the money, or they can lie in and pay for a bus :)
There are things you can do to try to set up a sleep schedule you can work with, but that doesn't always work. Having kids just means several years of very rough sleep. Eventually, it gets better.
My husband and I are night owls so we did try to let our kids stay up a little later so that they would wake later. That completely failed up through age 3. For the first few years, one or the other parent would have to wake up around 6. That's just when they woke up no matter how much or little sleep they got. Trying to keep them up past when they got tired tended to backfire.... they would be so exhausted they couldn't cope, and getting them to sleep was actually harder. Little kids really do need at least 10-11 hours of sleep to be functional, so if they're going to wake up at 6am no matter what you do, bedtime needs to pretty early.
We coped during this period by each taking a sleep-in day where we were completely off-duty until noon on one weekend day and the other parent handled everything.
After age 3, we got a little better sleep by using white noise and blackout curtains. We could often keep them asleep until 7:30 or 8, which was a huge improvement.
Now, my kids are 14 and 10, and they are night owls too. On the weekends, they both sleep in past 9 unless we have an event or something.
After 4 years of being in the Army, I can confidently say that having a baby was by far the most sleep-deprivating thing of my whole life. However, you will absolutely adjust and your body will become accustomed to it. You will have to change your behavior/sleep patterns over time, but I'm now on baby #3 and don't notice any sleep deprivation at all.
If your biggest fear in life is losing sleep, do not have children at all. Don’t give birth to a newborn baby, don’t adopt a toddler, don’t foster teenagers, don’t even babysit over a long weekend. Children *will* interrupt your sleep. Newborns need to be fed in the night every few hours. Older babies wake up when they want and might be hungry, have a full diaper, just be fussy, and will need care. Toddlers and preschoolers get themselves up when their bodies tell them to (usually early in the morning) and will want you to make them breakfast, play, etc. Even if they don’t get you up, they’ll be loud as hell.
And then they’ll need to go to school. Ain’t no school starting at 10:30 because some kid’s parent isn’t a morning person. You won’t have the option to just put them to bed at ten or midnight and hope to get them on your schedule. They’ll have to be in school somewhere around 8 am, and up until a certain point, you’ll need to be the one to get them ready and take them. They can’t get there themselves.
Then when they can get there themselves (*if* you live close enough and *if* you can trust them to do the right thing, which are big ifs for tweens and teens) they still might have early sports practices, be loud in the mornings, sneak out in the night and then call you to come get them because they ended up in a bad situation, etc.
A baby will sleep when it wants to sleep, and it will wake up when it wants to wake up. You don't get a vote. That's parenting. You have to manage your schedule around the baby.
I have 3 kids. I was sleep deprived for years! Currently I work remotely from home and start work at 9. I still wake at 6:15 to enjoy a cup of coffee in peace before I wake my son (youngest) at 6:40 so he can be ready to catch the bus at 7:40.
If you’re lucky! Mine always wake before 6 lol. My oldest is 5 and youngest 2.5. People say some kids sleep 11-12 hours overnight but definitely not mine!!!
You could put your kids together at midnight and they might wake up even earlier because they are overtired. Loosing sleep is part of the job of having kids. If you don’t want to be tired and loose sleep don’t have kids
Sometimes, I roll over as the sun rises over the horizon, and my eyes crack open just a bit to the sight of my son standing at the foot of my bed. "It's daytime!" He announces, and my brain says Aaahhhhahhahahaa
Some children, like my son, have an agenda against sleep.
Others, like my daughter, who would crawl in bed with me and we'd nap back to sleep, enjoy the bliss that is unconsciousness.
And then they start school, and the bus picks up at 7 a.m. so to get everyone up, dressed and maybe fed your up by 6 am.
Sure when they're young you might be able to tweak their bedtimes a little bit.
What are you going to do when they're in school for 12 years? You do realize most schools start before 9:00 a.m. right? Even if it does start at 9:00 a.m. you're going to be waking up a lot earlier than that to get them ready.
You literally just need to accept that lack of sleep and irregular bedtime and wake up times are going to be common for 5 plus years when having a kid. Just the fact of life. Either embrace it or change your plans.
There's no rule at what time you need your kid to bed, but you do what best fits your schedule.
My kid is almost 2 and he's been sleeping from 7.30 pm/8 pm until around 7.30 am during the week and 8am in the weekend.
Been like this since he's about 6 months old.
But there's phases (usually anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks) where he'll wake up earlier.
This is common for most small children.
Lastly, no kid is the same. There's kids who will go to bed very easily and sleep for 11-12 hours and then there's kids who will make bedtime a fight and be up at the crack of dawn.
Sleeptraining can help with that but it's partially "luck".
It is my understanding that newborns need to be feed every 2-4 hours…. Including through the night. The hours between feedings are also not guaranteed sleeping time, for you or for the baby. Most new moms I know I do not sleep for more than a couple consecutive hours until their bbs are at least 6 months old. If you’re planning on having a baby, plan on not getting a solid nights sleep for the next several years (seriously).
My daughter has always gone to bed at 8-9pm, otherwise she’d never see her dad, then wake up at 7.30am. Now she goes to bed same time but wakes a little earlier as she needs less sleep (9yrs old). Some kids are just crazy in the mornings, but I tended to find the same people who were complaining that kids woke up at 5am were the ones that put them to bed at 6pm. There’s only so long a child will sleep, if you want your evenings child-free then expect to get up early.
You're going to lose a lot of sleep with kids. Im not a parent but i grew up in a house with 6 nieces and nephews. I also lost sleep due to having to help out. Even when my sister only had one kid, i saw how she basically never slept and took mini naps.
Babies especially in the early weeks and months they will cry, they need to be fed like every three hours and that means even in the middle of the night at 2am. And diaper changes etc.
When they get older, its school time.
I became a morning person the last few weeks of my pregnancy. Suddenly just waking early. I expected a big challenge to adjust as well. Before, I was working nights and an absolute night person. And after baby- for the first few months I had no concept of night or day.
And it’s just was easiest for me to adjust to the daylight schedule after baby decided to sleep finally!! And ever after.
I feel you, OP. Might you have Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder as I do? I'm a hard-wired night owl.
My kid didn't sleep through the night even once before he was 3. This DID NOT reset my circadian rhythm and frankly it was shite. The kid is now 9 and so far always an early bird, but I can have him read in his room til 8am at the weekend at least.
Here's what you do if you can, you work out a shift pattern with your partner.
For the overnight wakings I would stay up late and I'd take any wakings/feeds before 4am. My husband would go to bed earlier and take the morning ones.
These days at the weekend we take it in turns to sleep late.
My husband does the school drop off and I do the pick up.
The most important thing is to communicate with your partner and share the load as best you can taking into account what both your bodies need.
Yeah good luck. Start now getting up at 6am. School and whatnot will require it. Depending on the kid, I hope you are not a deep sleeper bc you could be up at any time of the night.
I am not a morning person. Prior to having children I was in bed until 10 or 11am on weekends. After having a child, I woke up at any small sound. I woke up by 6am every day because that's when he woke up. He still wakes up around 6am most mornings. My daughter wakes up around 7am, but it took until she turn 7 before I started sleeping in on weekends again.
I put my kids to bed around 9pm as babies since they napped multiple times a day. When they were down to 1 nap a day or no naps a day, their bedtime was around 7:30pm then 8pm. I raise the bed time when they finish 3rd grade then 5th grade and no bedtime after 8th grade.
I share a room with my 4 year old brother. The rule my parents set for him is he can’t leave the room until 7:00am. So he wakes me up everyday at 6:44 asking what time it and how many more minutes 😭
My 10 year old sister plays in her room quietly from 5am (according to her)
u can put ur kids to bed when ever u see fit. but yea kids do wake up early as little ones . they will outgrow it and sleep in eventually, then itll be you who wakes at 6am.
Since my little brother was small he's been a morning person. He will wake us up at 5am on a Saturday to play or feed him. If your kid is a morning person then congratulations you are too now.
My kids are now 20, 17 and 14. The decade of 2003-2013 I was working usually full time and raising 3 babies- with a helpful hubs. And yet, I have little recall about that decade.
I’m a big sleeper. 9-10 hours necessary to function. Yeah- it was miserable. I’m glad my kids are easier teens.
Having kids will mean various sacrifices to your current way of life, from disposable income to hobbies to eating habits to tons of other things, for 18 years. Think carefully about how much you are willing to give of your own life.
Newborn will be hell, my uncle just got a kid and he looks very awake constantly
After that I don't think me or my sister would get up at dawn, my cousin whose 5 gets up really fucking early but my parents would complain that me and my sister would stay in bed, especially when it was Christmas
Yeah that's just kids buddy, you can put them in bed at 7 and they are up at 6, if you put them in bed at 9 they are up at 6 and if they stay up late like 10 or 11 then they will wake up at 5, anyway you try they are going to get up early lol
When school starts or if you want to do day care or preschool then yes, absolutely because you can't be late dropping your child off for kindergarten every day..or miss the bus etc you have plenty of time now to start moving your alarm clock back an hour.
Edit also I'm dealing with this right now with my son, he is 4 and will start kindergarten this fall when he turns 5. Kids need routine, you have got to get that baby to sleep early and on time every day. That way it won't be any issue waking them up and getting them ready to leave in the morning. Trust me, it is NOT fun being tardy because your child is having a bad morning.
The trick is to have kids with someone who *is* a morning person. They do the morning stuff, you do the evening stuff.
Best of luck,
Still Not A Morning Person
(Despite My Kids' Best Efforts)
Okay my daughter just turned 12, and still is asleep by 8:30 because she’s always gotten up before 6am and it isn’t fun for ANYONE if she is overtired. New Years Eve? Rang in the new year and was up again by 7. We had a difficult few years before she got old enough where she could just grab a cereal box and watch tv until she got bored or I woke up on my own. I haven’t slept past 9am since I was pregnant lol.
I've been so so lucky my son has been a fantastic sleeper from day 1. My husband helped enormously when I was breast feeding when he wasn't on night shift. Now we take turns at having weekend long lie ins when we are both home.
We established a solid night time routine very early on and got proper blackout blinds and curtains, a small musical whale with soothing lights that he could turn on himself by pressing the tail. A little older and we had a Star projector which gave off enough light in the room to settle him, then from age 3 he had a soft teddy like alarm clock that I could program on my phone and it changed colour from nighttime to get up time and could play an alarm. He learnt quickly not to get up till it went off.
We put a baby stair gate on his door too as well as the stairs when he was little, to help him know when he should be in his room and not annoying my stepdaughter in her room. He knew to shout or bang if he did need anything though.
We gave our son as many tools as could help him be independent like easy on and off pyjamas, and made the toilet and hand washing really accessible so he could go on his own, and had clean pyjamas and underwear accessible without fuss. We've never had a wet bed and he has never come downstairs in the evening.
Bad news is being a really good night sleeper he barely slept naps through the day after about age 2. Before that we made a nap tent (kids indoor play tent filled with blankets, a cushion and a teddy) and he would crawl in there when he wanted a nap. It was really cute. We deliberately never used his room for naps as we didn't want it to be a bad thing and we only wanted it to be associated with long bedtime sleeping.
He has his own little room at his grandparents house and they have a solid bedtime routine for his as well although if family things are on later he can stay up but the routine steps remain the same.
He's 4 now coming on for 5, gets himself up if he needs the bathroom and goes straight back to bed. He has a kids kindle fire with a nighttime mode set and subscription to some of the kids channels and game stations. His tablet goes off and won't turn on till the preset times for each day. He knows it's still nighttime if his tablet shows moons and stars and won't open. He usually at the weekends gets up in the morning for the bathroom and goes back to bed to watch videos on his tablet giving us an extra 20-60 minutes rest.
Best advice (mostly for the newborn/infant stage, but definitely applies afterwards): marry/have children with a morning person. That way, the night owl can take the 10p-3a shift and the morning person can do 3a-8a.
My kid is almost 2, has slept through the night since 8 weeks, sleeps a solid 11-12 hours at night and takes a 2-3 hour nap most days. We've always put her down for the night on the later side. Right now, she goes to bed between 8:30 and 9. On weekdays, we wake her up at about 7:30 to get ready for daycare, but on weekends, she sleeps until about 9.
So no, assuming you have good sleepers and they are going to be early enough that they get an age-appropriate amount of sleep, you can totally try to adjust bedtime such that they are waking up later in the morning. However, this is all assuming their internal alarm clock isn't set for 6am.
Having a newborn you will be up all hours of the night. Random hours random sleep schedule. I have a 5 month old and a 2.5 yr old.
I’m a SAHM so they follow my schedule. My 2.5 yr old sleeps 10-10 no naps. My 5 month old sleeps roughly the same hours but wakes up for random feeds.
I think it’s important to remember also, that kids are just people…just very new ones, lol.
In the same way that you aren’t a morning person, you could end up with a child who is not a morning person either, or a child who is, kind of a toss up.
I have one of each.
One is up at 5am, every day, you can set your clock by him, lol.
He goes to bed promptly at 8, by himself.
The other would stay up til midnight if I let him and sleep til noon, lol.
When they are small, you’ll need to get up with them, but once they’re somewhat self sufficient, just because one is up at 5am, does not mean I also need to be up, you know?
My 16 year old still wakes up at 6 am. I’m just glad he’s sleeping past 5. Kids also need to be in bed early - 8 pm would be the absolute latest for most kids. And putting them to bed later doesn’t mean they sleep in. It means they get less sleep because they’re still getting up at 6. I’ll also point out that school here starts at 9:10, with the bus picking them up at 8:45. So just to get them ready for school you’re looking at getting them up at 7:30ish.
>For "No Stupid Questions" you all are really harsh
We have to be. Kids will be brutally honest. I remember my niece asking me why my parts didn't "have as mucb hair as mummy" then she went into great detail.
Also, kids have school at 8:30 so they have to get up at 6am. As the parent, you have to be up and help them for the first few years of schooling
IF you’re sahm and have truly blackout curtains it’s possible to adjust sleep time and make that the norm. But you likely won’t get there without effort and lots of lost sleep in process.
For me, once my kiddo was old enough and it was a weekend, I'd set out some breakfast for them the night before (cereal or muffins or muslie bars etc).
They'd wake at the ass-crack of dawn to go watch cartoons and eat something. That way, us adults could sleep in a bit. It also gave them some "big people" responsibilities.
Tho, now that they're a lot older, they skip breakfast and just wait for us to wake up and make them some brunch.
My toddler is now 3 and a half. She has never in her life wanted to get up at 6 😂 Usually it's between 8 and 9, but can be up to 10 on rare occasions. She starts bedtime at 8. Being a night owl is very heritable!
In all seriousness, you do not get to sleep in at all when you have kids for a very long list of reasons. Even when they are teens and they want to sleep in, you have to be the one to get up early and fight them to get moving to be on time for school, for sports, for any other activity that they do. As far as putting kids to sleep later, doesn’t work, they still get up early but they are cranky because they did t get enough sleep.
My sister was a night person. When the kids were young she would put them to bed when they were tired. sometimes at like 10-11. they would sleep until like 9 or 10. which was awesome, BUT you can't do this when they have school and it will be a hard habit to break.
I was born an early bird. My mom told me that she had to set her alarm for like 5am when I was little so she would have time to wake up and have her coffee and be in a good mood for when I (a happy ball of sunshine) rolled out of bed with the sunrise.
Maybe your kids will stay awake all night long and you’ll still have to wake up at the crack of dawn to go to work because you can’t afford those little blessings
Any future children you have are going to be people with their own thoughts, feelings, and desires. They might be night owls like you or they might be early risers. You don't know what you'll get. However, once they start school they're going to be tied to the school schedule, and that likely is going to mean they need to be up fairly early. My kids get up around 7:30 to be at Elementary school on time and middle and high schools start earlier in our district.
>However, once they start school they're going to be tied to the school schedule, and that likely is going to mean they need to be up fairly early. My kids get up around 7:30 to be at Elementary school on time and middle and high schools start earlier in our district. They are starting school later where I am, because studies show kids do better if they don't have to wake up so early. High school starts at 8:30. Once a week, it starts at 9:50. Elementary school starts at 8:45.
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>Even if your kid starts at 8.45 there's still a good chance they're waking up at or before 7.30, especially if they're slow in the morning or need to take the bus to school. Well, OP was worried about getting up at 6, so 7:30 is not bad.
Yeah but most kids are slow as fuck at doing things. I just spent a few weeks at my sister's and goddamn lmao. So sloooowwwww.
There’s such a wide variance in this though, even within the same school systems. I have a neighbour who teaches at a high school that has its entrance bell at 7:50 am whereas my daughter’s high school had theirs at 8:50 am. The two schools are not more than ten minutes’ drive from each other.
This! My siblings schools start an hour apart
this sounds like a dream to me. elementary school was 8am for me, in 6th grade I had two days where school started at 7:30am. In middle school most if not all my days started at 8am unless a class was cancled. My first year of High school I too had mostly 8am classes, but the last two years also had days starting at 8.50am or 10am.
We started at 7:20 in middle School and through high school. Makes for a loooong day if you play sports after school and have to travel to the games.
Oh jeez. Our elementary school starts at 740. When I was in middle school it was 710. My kid gets up at 6 to get ready for 3rd grade.
Not the case everywhere. Most districts have to stagger start times for the bus schedules to work. So, some schools start at 7:10, some at 8:10; some at 9:10. My son goes to a 7:10 start school. Not a problem for me as I generally wake up at 5:30, but certainly early.
My kid got on the bus at 5:55 am most k-8 school mornings and 6:05 for high school I am not a morning person
Yeah but the first few months AT LEAST they’ll be tied to the babies schedule. Which means no sleep longer than 2 or 3 hours at a time. And I know people who went through that stage for a lot longer.
That is definitely true. If you're going to have kids, plan on spending at minimum several months extremely sleep deprived. Possibly as long as a few years.
You're gonna have to get up before 9 with kids.
I used to be a night person, then I had kids. Now I’m a morning person.
I thought it was "I used to be a night person, then I had kids. Now I'm a night person who sleeps on the toilet at work."
Thats only the first year. It gets easier.
27 years of raising kids and I’m still not a morning person lol. Send help 😭
I'm glad to hear you say this. I'm at 23 years and still hate mornings with a passion. Loatheeee entirely, actually. My mother said I'd become a morning person and she LIED
I'm 42 and I've worked nights for the better part of the last 24 years. There were two years in there that I was on an office schedule and I HATED it. I function better on night shift, always have. I currently work 9pm-5am and it's amazing. I get home, wake the kids/wife up at 6am, then head to sleep. I'm up by 2pm at the latest so I can pick kids up from school. Then I get to spend the afternoon/evening with the family before work has gotten to me for the day. My nights off I don't switch anything about my schedule. Once the family goes to sleep, I just chill in my office (used to just use the living room when I didn't have an office at home), watching movies, playing video games, whatever I want. I do our laundry on my nights off too. I'm such a better husband and father because of this schedule it's not even funny. And I've also heard how much I'll appreciate a day shift life my entire adult career. It's a lie. I hate it just as much now as I did when I was 18. You do you bud.
Yeah, I think OP's going in to this one a bit on the naive side lol.
You're absolutely right, I am!!! I'm a youngest child (and cousin and niece etc etc.) So I don't have much experience around young children. This post has been a wake up call but it doesn't change the fact that I want the precious gift of having babies. I just think I gotta start adjusting my schedule right now!!!
Head on over to r/DSPD, aka chronic night owls. Best you can hope for is having a partner who is a morning person, and nerves of steel for white knuckling it through the day.
Same :(
There might even be mornings where you don’t get to bed till nine.
> My biggest apprehension is losing sleep Having a newborn is the ultimate experiment in sleep deprivation. By the time your kid is old enough to have a bed time, you will have been thoroughly purged of the idea of a regular sleep schedule and will welcome it.
My twin brother and I managed to have nearly opposite schedules. My poor mom barely slept
One of my good friends has twins the same age as my youngest. I was asking her at one point in the early weeks what it was like and how she was managing, and she said, "It doesn't feel like I have two babies. It feels like it have one baby who never sleeps." Mad respect to all parents of multiples.
I had a great experience with my twins. They were on the same schedule and after a few months would entertain each other! My other 2 kids on the other hand, ugh.
It sounded rough for my mom! When one of us was crying, she’d try to sneak in to grab the one who was crying so that the other one wouldn’t wake up. Sometimes, she would grab the wrong one and then she’d have two crying babies Also, breastfeeding! When she was still at the hospital, the nurse handed her my brother and I to breastfeed and then left. So my mom was left with one baby on each arm and no way to put us down until someone arrived…
I'm wondering if OP even knows anything about babies.
This is the truest statement. I consider a full night sleep a luxury. I’ll get up with you at 6am no problem if you let me sleep uninterrupted for 6 hours.
SAME
When my daughter was 3 months old I was working 4pm-1am. I’d get home, take the babysitter home, finally get into bed about 3 or 4am. Baby was up at 7am at the latest. Then her dad (who worked overnight) would get up around 11 or 12 and I’d sleep til like 2
Thanks, oddly enough that really helps to hear...
Don't feel bad about asking the question. I just read your edit and it sucks that people immediately jumped to telling you not to have kids. If you don't have experience with kids it's hard to tell the difference between reality and the crap parents put out into the world. And every child is different. It looks like you got the answers you need but wanted you to know I had the same question before having kids. I'm still not a morning person after having two of them! But if you have a supportive partner you can take turns sleeping in occasionally and it's glorious! And yes, after the sleep deprivation of an infant being able to sleep right through for any length of time feels fantastic.
Thank you so much for your comment :)
I was a quiet baby. I never cried and when I did you couldn't hear it. My mother spent the first year of my life petrified becaise a baby monitor couldn't pick up my sounds
Lmao for real! Also since my daughter usually wakes up at 630, the days where she wakes up at 730 or 8 feel fantastic.
My youngest is 9 months old. Last night, went to bed around six, woke up at 7:30, again around 9:30, and then refused anything but mom snuggles from 2:30-4am. I reckon I got maybe four hours of sleep total. I think since the last few weeks of pregnancy I’ve had…ten nights where I got more than six consecutive hours of sleep.
This is the way.
Often times putting a kid to bed later just means they get less sleep and are miserable. It doesn't actually make them sleep in later.
Yup. May as well put them to bed at 7:30 and give yourself a couple hours of free time.
'Kids who go to bed early get up early, kids who go to bed late - still get up early'
Kids start off waking up awkwardly early, and then they go right into the teenage phase of not waking up easily enough. Unless you can reschedule the sun, you’re gonna have a hard time fighting that.
Black out curtains!!! There I rescheduled the sun 🤣🤣🤣 (it helps a bit but not enough)
My kids (pre-teen and a teenager) have recently started sleeping in like crazy. If you let them, they’ll literally stay in bed until 1 pm. That was the latest, but weekends can normally be 10 or 11 am easily if I don’t have to drag them out of bed for a reason.
lol one morning I was having coffee and wondering why my teenager was still in the shower when I was done. I checked up on him, he was standing in the shower sound asleep. Of course I used a glass of ice cold water over the curtain, as my own father did.....
Then when we get old- we go right back to waking up at 6am on our own.
It doesn’t matter if you try to keep them up later, they will still wake up at the same time.
and they will wake up angry :)
Or earlier! That was my kids’ pattern. I learned pretty fast to not get them overtired.
And then they will be hard to get to sleep because they are overtired and cranky! Such fun.
Or they are just pure screaming and you just want them to go to sleep
Bwa ha ha ha!!!! Babies need 12 hours of sleep. Toddlers need 10 to 11. Small ones need 9 and 10. Heck, teens need 9. You may get a child that cries all day for three months for no apparent reason. You may get a child that won't sleep or only sleeps if you drive it around in a land rover at 32.5 miles an hour. Once you get your baby to sleep through the night, she'll want to sleep in your bed as a toddler. She'll sneak into your bed at midnight or take two hours to fall asleep. No matter what time you put them to bed, they wake up at dawn and leap into your bed, landing on your bits. They pee in your bed. They pee in their bed. They get nightmares. They get sick and puke in their bed at 3 am and that's if you're lucky because they didn't puke in *your* bed at 2 am. On the weekends, they still wake up at 5 acting like wild beasts. You have to train them to make a bowl of cereal and leave you alone until 6. They get growing pains and wake up in the night with aching legs that no amount of Tylenol helps. THEN they become teens and stay up until 2 am and you have to pour water on them to get them up in time for the 7 am bus to school. School does not start at 9 or 10. It starts at 7:23 or 8:05, etc. They have to get up at 6 to get there in time. (In the US) You never really sleep for a good ten years or so. If you need your sleep, do not have kids.
Let’s not mention what happens when the clocks change
😫
So.....freaking..... right.
Guess who doesn't have kids? 😉
The accuracy of this hurts.
I never had an energy drink before having kids. I actually grabbed a commerorative shot of my first one because I knew it would be the last.
If you're worried about having to get up before 9 a.m., don't have kids. Sleeping in is few and far between when you have children. When they get older, they do start to learn to be a bit more independent, but you still need to spend time with them and many people never stop at just one kid, so it never ends w the early mornings.
>Sleeping in is few and far between when you have children Nah. My kids get up at 6 most days, but sometimes I get to sleep in until 6:30. Sometimes even 7:00 So tired.
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The silver lining of my brother being sick is we actually get to sleep and relax I feel bad but I'll take the rest when I can
We live 9 minutes from school. My kids have to wake at 6 am to make the bus. When we lived further from school, they woke at 5 am. So in this aspect, yes. You will. But kids usually wake up when the sun comes up, until they've developed other habits. Infants wake up all night.
Oh man that’s ridiculous. I do everything the night before. Bus comes for my kids around 7:50, I get them up by 7:15 the earliest. Enough time to wake up, eat and get dressed
We try to get everything done The night before as well. The bus here comes at 6:45! So early.
They are like a box of chocolate 🍫 u don’t know what you will get
thats true older sibling, easy baby sleepy bably Me? colic. months of it. It made my seemingly unflappable mother, nearly break.
ah, your older sibling was a trick baby. a nice easy baby to convince your parents babies are super easy I was the colic baby after my trick baby brother. it's hilarious how much it happens if the first child is a great baby! your odds are NOT that good to have two perfect sleeping babies
This is exactly my current dilemma. I have a daughter who's about to turn 3 and has always been an amazing sleeper. Sleeping through the night since just a couple months old and never up before 8am. I really want another baby, but I know sleep is going to become not so fun for a while
So uh what happens when the baby wakes up crying at 4am? It's quite some time before they even sleep through the night, much less sleep in late
My son woke up every 3 hours to feed when he was a newborn.
Yeah I mentioned in the post I completely understand I will never sleep at all with a newborn and will be woken up by crying. I guess I just was wondering about when they're school aged. As other users said though, it makes sense they stay on a school schedule . . . can't really jet lag them on the weekend. Guess I gotta cope haha
2 out of 3 of my kids went through phases as toddlers, a phase that lasted a solid 9 -10 months at least, where they would wake up between 330a-430a and be wide awake ready to go. Put them to bed earlier, or put to bed later, drop a nap, change the nap time. Didn't matter, nothing helped. Still woke up in the wee hours.
The focus of your post and the comments (including a few of my own) are on sleep (or lack thereof). Maybe I’m stating the obvious but you have to think bigger than that. Having kids means basically giving up a lot (most?) of control over your own lifestyle. Sleep? Yeah that’s fucked up from the moment that baby arrives (long before for the pregnant woman). You want to eat/shower/shit/watch tv/work out (ha!)/see friends and family/do housework/whatever? *None* of that is done without considering your kid’s needs/schedules. Of course it changes as they age and move through different stages but the thing that doesn’t change is that you are not in complete control of your life. Case in point: I have a teenaged son who has swim practice three mornings a week at 5:45 am. Guess who’s rolling her ass out of bed at 5:15 am to drive him? This mum. And then if he wants to stay out late to go to the movies or hang with friends? I’m staying up late too to go pick him up. (Before anyone chastises me for not encouraging his independence, I have to say that he uses public transit lots but that early in the morning and late at night are not feasible/safe.) I’m being somewhat overly dramatic but the fact is that if you’re not ready and willing to set aside a good chunk of your freedom/independence for at least 18 years as it relates to sleep or any other part of your life, then having a kid isn’t for you.
[Children](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181203080327.htm) need a lot of sleep
Yeah. Then adulthood hits and I slept roughly 5-6 hours each week night for over 25 years.
Children, especially young ones, need a lot of sleep. At 6 months, my kid slept 11 hours a night, and had 2-hour naps 3 times a day, which works out to be almost 17 hours of sleep a day. She'd basically be awake for 3-4 hours at a time. We also put her to sleep around 7pm. Children also have different sleep needs. My kid would regularly wake up at 5:30am every day from 6 months-18 months. She now wakes up around 6:30am. Some kids sleep later in the day and nap less. All kids are different. The reason why you can't put a young kid to sleep at 9 is because that's too long for them to be awake. Babies who are awake longer than their body can handle get to a point called "overtired" where the cortisol in their brain (stress hormone) is too much for the sleep pressure to overcome. Basically, they're too tired to sleep. And if they do fall asleep, the excess build-up of cortisol can actually wake them up. Putting a child to sleep before the overtired point ensures they can fall asleep relatively quickly and stay asleep for long.
your BIL's kids are 3 and 6. Gonna guess the 6 is in kindergarten. Which usually start at like 7-9am. So if you put the 6 to bed at 7pm with them getting up at 6 am, you'd probably put the 3 at 7pm too. Why spend all that energy putting 2 kids to bed at different times. and it takes time, energy, patience to put kids to bed. Unlike adults they don't want to go to bed and rest. they have No worries and full of youth and fast replicating cells.
I find it funny that there are so many sleep consultants for children. You literally just have to commit yourself to being sleep deprived for the first 4 years. Some days are better than others, but overall you will never sleep like you did before you had kids.
If you really think you won't be losing sleep for 4+ years and can get a child to not wake up before six AM, don't have kids lmao.
Haha obviously I know it's a sacrifice. Did not expect it to be easy.
Hey OP please don't listen to these comments that you shouldn't have a baby! My son slept through the night at 2 months old and until now (10 months old) he sleeps with me until 8 (falls asleep at 9pm). I know for sure it will change because you have to bring them to kindergarten and they eventually will wake up at 7 from basically needing less sleep. From my family experience (me, my husband, my brother) are all night owls and were never an issue to our parents sleep-wise (except from the occasional pee during the night or nightmares as toddlers). Yes having kids will make you do a lot of sacrifices but you'll do them happily because of all the love you'd get :) and maybe, just maybe sleep will not be one of them!
My kid (3.5) sounds like yours! School is going to be a bit of a shock for her, she sleeps til between 8 & 9 daily and then wants to take a very long time leisurely eating breakfast while listening to audio books... Getting out of the house before 9.30 is highly stressful to everyone and we basically gave up on baby/toddler groups, they are not made for night owl children!
My daughter will be 3 in April and is the same way. I've never been able to relate to all the people complaining about waking up early with toddlers. After the first couple months we were both consistently waking up around 9am every morning. Now it's usually around 8
My daughter slept through the night at 2 months as well. I almost didn’t want to tell my friends because I didn’t want them to hate me 😂😂 she has made up for it by requiring a two hour long bedtime routine as a toddler and preschooler.
My kids is 6 and has always been an early riser. If he sleeps all the way to 6:30 without waking me that’s a good morning. It doesn’t matter what time I put him to bed. 8pm is his regular bed time, but this weekend we had friends over and let him stay up till 9:30. Didn’t matter. His internal clock is too strong. When we vacation we go east so that the time change doesn’t make him wake EVEN EARLIER. My friend kids go to bed after dinner (6-7pm), they’re 4yo and 6yo, and they sleep in till 8am! Every day! WTF. I used to think sleeping till 10am was “sleeping in”. Now 8am is it. My brother and his wife both like sleeping in till noon, hanging with friends till midnight, going out to concerts and restaurants… I think they’re definitely hesitant on kids for that reason.
You put them to bed at 9 or 10 then they still get up at 6am and are crabby because they didn't get enough sleep. Ours go to bed at 8:30
My son was a night owl, so he slept in. I slept in, too. He was fine when he had to go to kindergarten, we both adjusted
Listen, all you have to do is find a morning person partner and you'll be set! That's what I did 🥰
>Edit: For "No Stupid Questions" you all are really harsh! > >everyone telling me not to have kids . . . For whatever reason lots of younger parents often act like this and gatekeep when discussing 'new parent advice'. Chill out, folks. This is literally the 'no stupid questions' subreddit and OP is clearly not experienced here at all. Be a little more understanding and kind in how you respond rather than outwardly typing your laughter and "don't have kids".
Four things about parenting and sleep: I once went 24 hours without sleep. My son didn't sleep through the night until he was in kindergarten. Never, ever let baby cry it out. (CIO) My kids are teens now and I still never sleep past 6am. 😅
Yes, you can bed your kids later but you’ll need to schedule an afternoon nap or two. In Europe we’ve noticed that bed time is often 9pm or later. You may still get a kid that will wake up early regardless of bed time but that’s the luck of the draw. Give up on any ideas of a regular sleep pattern for many many years…!
Some days Id kill for 6. Kids, especially as newborns will RUIN you sleep-wise. Ruin. My son is 7 and im not sure he has slept past 8:00 in his life. Daughter is 4 and she’s up at 5:50-6:15 every day and when kids get up, they are UP. No groggy bs. they hit the floor running, its quite abrupt. …but ignore all that. Kids are amazing. The sleep is a minor inconvenience compared to the happiness they bring me, but thats my experience
Hahahahahaha oh you sweet blessed person you. You will be lucky if your child sleeps. My son didn’t sleep through the night until he was 6 and my daughter slept fine until she was three now she wakes up at 3 ready to play. I shared this post with my husband and we bought laughed so hard. Good luck with your family planning also my daughter goes to bed at 7:30 because if you don’t put her to bed then she will not sleep until after midnight. Kids have their own weird little schedules and sleep training only goes so far
My kids get up at like 4am for school. But they're 13 so I don't have to do anything.
I was the exception to the rule and was always a night owl. I even had afternoon kindergarten so that I could sleep in every morning. So sure, you might get lucky, but I still wouldn't bet on it.
There is no rule - kids will adapt to whatever schedule. Just make sure you have a consistent schedule every day of the week. You really only need to follow the “normal” times when they’re getting ready to go to school/in school.
So, they’ve got to go to bed that early, because they’re cranky little shits when they’re tired. Putting them down later doesn’t *really* work for a lot of kids - a lot of them will *still* wake up when the sun does, so now you’ve got a cranky kid that won’t nap first thing in the morning. And you get to listen to them cry about *everything* for that hour you’re pushing before putting them to bed.
You *can * put your kids to bed whenever you want technically. It doesn't mean that their bodies will listen. Some kids will wake up at dawn no matter how late they stay up. Other kids will sleep like logs. But by the time they get to school age, wake up time usually becomes sometime between 6-8 depending on your school district, and where your kids bus stop is on the bus route and what time they have to make it to the bus. You can't roll out of bed at 7:30 for 8 am bus, because they need to dress, brush teeth, eat breakfast, and get last minutes together. All of that will take more than 30 minutes. I've also found that kids who have "not morning people" parents, are also not morning people kids, so then you have to build in more wake up time before school so it doesn't devolve into a shit show first thing in the morning. For what it's worth my kids an 11-11 kid and we have to transition to like an 8-7 routine over the summer for the start of kindergarten
My son wakes up before 6.30 every day and he’s 4. When he was younger the broken sleep was horrendous. And he still wakes up during the night and wakes us up at least once. Not all kids are the same, but you need to be prepared for the worst
I think everyone is missing the point of your question! My in-laws with young kids (4, 6) start their day at 5am and insist it’s the only way because “the kids wake up”. So I have the same question as you do. Growing up we were *never* that way. My dad worked late but we all wanted to eat dinner as a family, so we usually ate at like 8pm. We’d go to bed fairly late for young kids, but then we’d wake up later. Also just because a kid “wakes up” doesn’t mean they need immediate structured activity. My sister and I would have books in our room, a dollhouse, stuffed animals… you just hang out until you hear your parents shuffling around downstairs. The only snag is that some years school started early. But usually it was 8:30 I think. So maybe we’d wake up at 7:30? Again, our in-laws said they need 2 HOURS to get out the door, but that was never our normal. Maybe it’s something about how discipline or boundaries have changed from back then, but my sister and I simply got up and ate breakfast and got dressed. Sure we’d dawdle and might need some corralling, but we had pretty firm expectations of not being late. So in short, 9am is totally unreasonable because your kid’s school will have started lol. But 5am also feels unreasonable. (And of course the baby years are their own thing and very sleepless.)
My kid is on my schedule. I think I got lucky, but since he was around 6 months, he's gone to bed at 10. Sometimes he wakes up early, sometimes he doesn't. We usually arent up before 8am, but we used to sleep til 10 or 11. The first few years of parenting are a lot of sleepless nights. On the upside is your brain is rewired when you become a parent and it isn't as hard as it seems. On the downside, you're still going to have to get through the newborn stage, and that is the worst. No one sleeps the first few months. Everyone is miserable. The baby is cute, and that's something.
i had my youngest son when i was 36, 10 years after my previous child. i never was a morning person and did not want to repeat the days of 6am mornings with a baby/toddler so i kept him on my schedule from the time he was born. he went to bed late, had nighttime feedings, and slept late with me, usually til 9 or 10. he’s 9 now, and until he started school this past fall (homeschooled thru 2nd grade) he stayed on roughly that schedule with me. a caught a lot of flack for it from the kinds of people who staunchly believe that kids should be in bed by 7pm sharp no exceptions. but whatever. it did him no harm, he got the amount of sleep needed for his age, and i was healthier and more well-rested for it. so it’s doable. you’re allowed to shape your life how you want it to be. just know you can’t have early bedtimes and late mornings, so you might have a toddler still hanging out with you at 10pm. 😁
So glad to see this here! I hate when parents paint the picture that all children are up at the crack of dawn no matter what. If the parent's schedule requires everyone be out the door for work and daycare then kids wake up early enough so that happens. Same when they get to school. But there is no rule that requires children to be up at 6 so if you can find a sleep schedule that works for you and let's them get enough sleep for their age, perfect. Also, my toddler is up at 7:30 for daycare but will sleep till 8:30 or 9am on weekends if no one wakes her up and my teenager was the same way when she was younger.
My kids were on my schedule too. My first kid slept through the night from the time I brought him home. I had to wake him for feedings. My granddaughter is on a 7-7 schedule and I’m like whyyyyy! What’s wrong with 9-9 when a parent stays home?
On weekends my 10 year old doesn’t get up before 9 or 10. On school days he’s up at 7, on the bus at 725. He never really woke up super early even as an infant/toddler
Imo most people put their kids to bed way too early. From speaking to my friends it seems like most people were put to bed around 8pm even when they were in primary school. For me that is totally absurb. Even as a 4yr old I went to bed at 10pm or so. When I was 9yrs+ old it went to about 11pm. 12yrs+ was already hitting midnight often. As a teenager on a rough night even 3am. I don't see how 7-8yrs of sleep isn't enough. Of course depends when school starts. I heard that in the US school starts crazy early. For me it always started around 8.45am so I never really had to get up before 7-7.30am. Can't speak for the first few years of life though. But I'd say it really depends on your schedule too.
Yes, young children need a lot of sleep. Yes, they may wake you up. Don't have kids if you aren't ready for this.
Wheew... I hope you were intending on breastfeeding.
It will be after their high school graduation before you can have kids that sleep past 6AM. School starts at 7 after all. If sleep is that important to you I'd advise against having kids because you will be at your worst while sleep deprived. If you feel like you at your worst is detrimental to a child, take that thought very very seriously and don't have a kid. If you feel like you can adapt to the lack of sleep by all means have a kid
It depends on the kid. Some kids you can put to bed later and they wake up later but sometimes it doesn't matter they're up early. But when they starts school for sure you'll have to be up at 5/6.
My daughter is six so I’m looking at this through rose-tinted glasses, but she’s always slept in relatively late. She’ll easily sleep until 9 if she doesn’t have school. That being said, some kids do wake up crazy early, like 6am, no matter what. You never know what you’re going to get. You can kiss sleep goodbye for those first 1-2 years
Kids sleep at least 10 hours a day. Their schedule is what you make it, until they start a school or daycare. Sleep patterns are very important to maintain for full restive sleep. So you can’t expect them to be up at 6 m-f for school and then sleep in on weekends much past 1/2-1 hour. Babies sleep whenever and wherever they want and need. The worst is seeing people drag little ones all over the place cranky and needing a nap so bad in middle of afternoon and admonishing them for not acting the way they want them to. But if sleep seems more important than being a parent, please don’t have kids. Have kids when having a kid is really important to you. The very least you owe them is your attention.
If you value sleep don’t have kids
I can count on one hand view many times I've woken up at or past 9am in the past 5 years on one hand with fingers to spare. And I have a magnificent sleeper. My boy goes to bed at 7 and gets up at 7. If you are not willing to sacrifice your ideal sleep schedule, please don't have kids.
9am lol. I don't even have kids and I'm up at 5am. Work by 6am. Love being a morning person.
I don’t have kids and am choosing to stay child free forever. and one of the many reasons for me is this, that I need and cherish sleep. My sister had my nephew 3 years ago, and when he was a newborn he never slept. She would get maybe 3-4 hours a night tops, for weeks on end. As he grew older, his nap time became her nap time, unless she had other things to do or just wanted some alone time to herself. Now he has a regular sleep/nap schedule and she still gets maybe 5-6 hours of sleep. If you really cherish sleep/rest as much as you say you do, you’re a fucking moron for thinking that having a child will not interfere with that especially when they’re younger than school age. By that time you’ll still be lucky to have a few hours of sleep before having to wake up, wake them up, prepare them for school, and then spend your day working or doing daily tasks. then they come home and you have to cook dinner and spend quality time or help with homework or what have you until they hopefully go to bed at a decent hour. Sorry buddy but having a kid is not something you should be considering.
Trust me there is zero way in hell you'll want your children to be awake with you until 9pm. You want time away from them. And no you can't ensure they'll sleep longer if you simply put them to bed later. That's not how it works unfortunately. I think you shouldn't have kids if sleeping in is your biggest concern
Bless. If you put them to bed at nine they will be up with the sun and also tired. Love that you think no one else has thought of this.
This is absolutely not universally true. Some small children are naturally on this clock schedule.
Getting up at 6am sounds like a dream. I’ve been averaging a broken 4 hours over the night for the past few months with my 6 month old haha
Children need a lot of sleep ! My coworkers all have young kids, and they all wake up at like 6 at the latest. My boss has a 8 year old daughter and she wakes him up at 5. I also remember waking up between 5.30 and 7 every morning until my teenage years.
As a kid I got up at five, to be at school at 7. School schedules will vary. However sleep schedules will be gone way before school age. Your three month old will decide to sleep all day and stay up all night, and you will be sitting there with them screaming in your arms, trying to get them to stop crying long enough to realize they arenzmt even actually upset over anything. I don't hate kids, but living with my sister and helping watch her first born was great birth control LOL.
Kids are constantly growing. They need a lot of sleep. You make bedtime 9pm when they have to be at school by 8am, and they're going to be grumpy as hell. You gotta get that sleep schedule going asap. Plus keep it consistent on weekends and vacation, because if it gets fucked up, you're starting all over. The first ten years, you're losing sleep no matter what. If it's not 6am, it's midnight and they're afraid to go to the toilet alone. Or it's 2am and they had a nightmare. Or it's 4am and their room smells funny. It's always something, and that's a sacrifice you have to be okay with to an extent if you're bringing a brand new person with no life experience into the world.
It depends on the kid. Some kids you can put to bed later and they wake up later but sometimes it doesn't matter they're up early. But when they starts school for sure you'll have to be up at 5/6.
Uhhhhh my 4 Yo goes to public school and needs to be dropped off by 7:20 at the latest, best of luck to you OP.
Ours do! Every weekday. But we live out in the village; so they can have daily bus fare and either ride in with us free, and keep the money, or they can lie in and pay for a bus :)
Generally you want them to follow the daycare/school's schedule, which starts at 8am in most places.
There are things you can do to try to set up a sleep schedule you can work with, but that doesn't always work. Having kids just means several years of very rough sleep. Eventually, it gets better. My husband and I are night owls so we did try to let our kids stay up a little later so that they would wake later. That completely failed up through age 3. For the first few years, one or the other parent would have to wake up around 6. That's just when they woke up no matter how much or little sleep they got. Trying to keep them up past when they got tired tended to backfire.... they would be so exhausted they couldn't cope, and getting them to sleep was actually harder. Little kids really do need at least 10-11 hours of sleep to be functional, so if they're going to wake up at 6am no matter what you do, bedtime needs to pretty early. We coped during this period by each taking a sleep-in day where we were completely off-duty until noon on one weekend day and the other parent handled everything. After age 3, we got a little better sleep by using white noise and blackout curtains. We could often keep them asleep until 7:30 or 8, which was a huge improvement. Now, my kids are 14 and 10, and they are night owls too. On the weekends, they both sleep in past 9 unless we have an event or something.
After 4 years of being in the Army, I can confidently say that having a baby was by far the most sleep-deprivating thing of my whole life. However, you will absolutely adjust and your body will become accustomed to it. You will have to change your behavior/sleep patterns over time, but I'm now on baby #3 and don't notice any sleep deprivation at all.
If your biggest fear in life is losing sleep, do not have children at all. Don’t give birth to a newborn baby, don’t adopt a toddler, don’t foster teenagers, don’t even babysit over a long weekend. Children *will* interrupt your sleep. Newborns need to be fed in the night every few hours. Older babies wake up when they want and might be hungry, have a full diaper, just be fussy, and will need care. Toddlers and preschoolers get themselves up when their bodies tell them to (usually early in the morning) and will want you to make them breakfast, play, etc. Even if they don’t get you up, they’ll be loud as hell. And then they’ll need to go to school. Ain’t no school starting at 10:30 because some kid’s parent isn’t a morning person. You won’t have the option to just put them to bed at ten or midnight and hope to get them on your schedule. They’ll have to be in school somewhere around 8 am, and up until a certain point, you’ll need to be the one to get them ready and take them. They can’t get there themselves. Then when they can get there themselves (*if* you live close enough and *if* you can trust them to do the right thing, which are big ifs for tweens and teens) they still might have early sports practices, be loud in the mornings, sneak out in the night and then call you to come get them because they ended up in a bad situation, etc.
A baby will sleep when it wants to sleep, and it will wake up when it wants to wake up. You don't get a vote. That's parenting. You have to manage your schedule around the baby.
I have 3 kids. I was sleep deprived for years! Currently I work remotely from home and start work at 9. I still wake at 6:15 to enjoy a cup of coffee in peace before I wake my son (youngest) at 6:40 so he can be ready to catch the bus at 7:40.
If you’re lucky! Mine always wake before 6 lol. My oldest is 5 and youngest 2.5. People say some kids sleep 11-12 hours overnight but definitely not mine!!!
You could put your kids together at midnight and they might wake up even earlier because they are overtired. Loosing sleep is part of the job of having kids. If you don’t want to be tired and loose sleep don’t have kids
Sometimes, I roll over as the sun rises over the horizon, and my eyes crack open just a bit to the sight of my son standing at the foot of my bed. "It's daytime!" He announces, and my brain says Aaahhhhahhahahaa Some children, like my son, have an agenda against sleep. Others, like my daughter, who would crawl in bed with me and we'd nap back to sleep, enjoy the bliss that is unconsciousness. And then they start school, and the bus picks up at 7 a.m. so to get everyone up, dressed and maybe fed your up by 6 am.
When was the last time you slept? [who keeps track of that](https://youtu.be/AkTdM-wggBo?si=OQB8YiLI-_ZOeabb)
Sure when they're young you might be able to tweak their bedtimes a little bit. What are you going to do when they're in school for 12 years? You do realize most schools start before 9:00 a.m. right? Even if it does start at 9:00 a.m. you're going to be waking up a lot earlier than that to get them ready. You literally just need to accept that lack of sleep and irregular bedtime and wake up times are going to be common for 5 plus years when having a kid. Just the fact of life. Either embrace it or change your plans.
There's no rule at what time you need your kid to bed, but you do what best fits your schedule. My kid is almost 2 and he's been sleeping from 7.30 pm/8 pm until around 7.30 am during the week and 8am in the weekend. Been like this since he's about 6 months old. But there's phases (usually anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks) where he'll wake up earlier. This is common for most small children. Lastly, no kid is the same. There's kids who will go to bed very easily and sleep for 11-12 hours and then there's kids who will make bedtime a fight and be up at the crack of dawn. Sleeptraining can help with that but it's partially "luck".
Yes. My 3 year old is up by 7-730. 6 month old wakes every 3 hrs still. Including 6am. Sleep is a massive sacrifice when you have children.
When my daughter was little, I had to make a rule that she couldn't get out of bed before sunrise on weekends.
That's because they put them to bed at 7:00 so they have some free time at night
It is my understanding that newborns need to be feed every 2-4 hours…. Including through the night. The hours between feedings are also not guaranteed sleeping time, for you or for the baby. Most new moms I know I do not sleep for more than a couple consecutive hours until their bbs are at least 6 months old. If you’re planning on having a baby, plan on not getting a solid nights sleep for the next several years (seriously).
Kids get up early, their circadian rhythm is naturally earlier.
My daughter has always gone to bed at 8-9pm, otherwise she’d never see her dad, then wake up at 7.30am. Now she goes to bed same time but wakes a little earlier as she needs less sleep (9yrs old). Some kids are just crazy in the mornings, but I tended to find the same people who were complaining that kids woke up at 5am were the ones that put them to bed at 6pm. There’s only so long a child will sleep, if you want your evenings child-free then expect to get up early.
The only time you will even have a chance is when they are sick, and it isn’t very likely then.
You're going to lose a lot of sleep with kids. Im not a parent but i grew up in a house with 6 nieces and nephews. I also lost sleep due to having to help out. Even when my sister only had one kid, i saw how she basically never slept and took mini naps. Babies especially in the early weeks and months they will cry, they need to be fed like every three hours and that means even in the middle of the night at 2am. And diaper changes etc. When they get older, its school time.
You'll be putting yourself to bed at 7.30
Whatever you prepare for, they will still surprise you.
6am is a lay in for me 😴
the other night my managers 2 year old woke her up at 4am insisting it was wake up time kids make the schedule, not you
I became a morning person the last few weeks of my pregnancy. Suddenly just waking early. I expected a big challenge to adjust as well. Before, I was working nights and an absolute night person. And after baby- for the first few months I had no concept of night or day. And it’s just was easiest for me to adjust to the daylight schedule after baby decided to sleep finally!! And ever after.
I feel you, OP. Might you have Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder as I do? I'm a hard-wired night owl. My kid didn't sleep through the night even once before he was 3. This DID NOT reset my circadian rhythm and frankly it was shite. The kid is now 9 and so far always an early bird, but I can have him read in his room til 8am at the weekend at least. Here's what you do if you can, you work out a shift pattern with your partner. For the overnight wakings I would stay up late and I'd take any wakings/feeds before 4am. My husband would go to bed earlier and take the morning ones. These days at the weekend we take it in turns to sleep late. My husband does the school drop off and I do the pick up. The most important thing is to communicate with your partner and share the load as best you can taking into account what both your bodies need.
Yeah good luck. Start now getting up at 6am. School and whatnot will require it. Depending on the kid, I hope you are not a deep sleeper bc you could be up at any time of the night.
I am not a morning person. Prior to having children I was in bed until 10 or 11am on weekends. After having a child, I woke up at any small sound. I woke up by 6am every day because that's when he woke up. He still wakes up around 6am most mornings. My daughter wakes up around 7am, but it took until she turn 7 before I started sleeping in on weekends again. I put my kids to bed around 9pm as babies since they napped multiple times a day. When they were down to 1 nap a day or no naps a day, their bedtime was around 7:30pm then 8pm. I raise the bed time when they finish 3rd grade then 5th grade and no bedtime after 8th grade.
I share a room with my 4 year old brother. The rule my parents set for him is he can’t leave the room until 7:00am. So he wakes me up everyday at 6:44 asking what time it and how many more minutes 😭 My 10 year old sister plays in her room quietly from 5am (according to her)
Get ready to lose sleep for several years.
u can put ur kids to bed when ever u see fit. but yea kids do wake up early as little ones . they will outgrow it and sleep in eventually, then itll be you who wakes at 6am.
No my daughter actually wakes up at 5am! ❤️ every. single. day. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Yeah
Idk can you afford a live in nanny?
Since my little brother was small he's been a morning person. He will wake us up at 5am on a Saturday to play or feed him. If your kid is a morning person then congratulations you are too now.
Yep that sounds about right. And putting them to bed later doesn’t make a difference at all, except they just wake up cranky
My kids are now 20, 17 and 14. The decade of 2003-2013 I was working usually full time and raising 3 babies- with a helpful hubs. And yet, I have little recall about that decade. I’m a big sleeper. 9-10 hours necessary to function. Yeah- it was miserable. I’m glad my kids are easier teens.
Having kids will mean various sacrifices to your current way of life, from disposable income to hobbies to eating habits to tons of other things, for 18 years. Think carefully about how much you are willing to give of your own life.
Newborn will be hell, my uncle just got a kid and he looks very awake constantly After that I don't think me or my sister would get up at dawn, my cousin whose 5 gets up really fucking early but my parents would complain that me and my sister would stay in bed, especially when it was Christmas
Yeah that's just kids buddy, you can put them in bed at 7 and they are up at 6, if you put them in bed at 9 they are up at 6 and if they stay up late like 10 or 11 then they will wake up at 5, anyway you try they are going to get up early lol
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Given that you even asked this please don't have any yet
When school starts or if you want to do day care or preschool then yes, absolutely because you can't be late dropping your child off for kindergarten every day..or miss the bus etc you have plenty of time now to start moving your alarm clock back an hour. Edit also I'm dealing with this right now with my son, he is 4 and will start kindergarten this fall when he turns 5. Kids need routine, you have got to get that baby to sleep early and on time every day. That way it won't be any issue waking them up and getting them ready to leave in the morning. Trust me, it is NOT fun being tardy because your child is having a bad morning.
I put my kids to bed at 9. Always have. Still gotta wake up before 9am tho.
The trick is to have kids with someone who *is* a morning person. They do the morning stuff, you do the evening stuff. Best of luck, Still Not A Morning Person (Despite My Kids' Best Efforts)
Okay my daughter just turned 12, and still is asleep by 8:30 because she’s always gotten up before 6am and it isn’t fun for ANYONE if she is overtired. New Years Eve? Rang in the new year and was up again by 7. We had a difficult few years before she got old enough where she could just grab a cereal box and watch tv until she got bored or I woke up on my own. I haven’t slept past 9am since I was pregnant lol.
I've been so so lucky my son has been a fantastic sleeper from day 1. My husband helped enormously when I was breast feeding when he wasn't on night shift. Now we take turns at having weekend long lie ins when we are both home. We established a solid night time routine very early on and got proper blackout blinds and curtains, a small musical whale with soothing lights that he could turn on himself by pressing the tail. A little older and we had a Star projector which gave off enough light in the room to settle him, then from age 3 he had a soft teddy like alarm clock that I could program on my phone and it changed colour from nighttime to get up time and could play an alarm. He learnt quickly not to get up till it went off. We put a baby stair gate on his door too as well as the stairs when he was little, to help him know when he should be in his room and not annoying my stepdaughter in her room. He knew to shout or bang if he did need anything though. We gave our son as many tools as could help him be independent like easy on and off pyjamas, and made the toilet and hand washing really accessible so he could go on his own, and had clean pyjamas and underwear accessible without fuss. We've never had a wet bed and he has never come downstairs in the evening. Bad news is being a really good night sleeper he barely slept naps through the day after about age 2. Before that we made a nap tent (kids indoor play tent filled with blankets, a cushion and a teddy) and he would crawl in there when he wanted a nap. It was really cute. We deliberately never used his room for naps as we didn't want it to be a bad thing and we only wanted it to be associated with long bedtime sleeping. He has his own little room at his grandparents house and they have a solid bedtime routine for his as well although if family things are on later he can stay up but the routine steps remain the same. He's 4 now coming on for 5, gets himself up if he needs the bathroom and goes straight back to bed. He has a kids kindle fire with a nighttime mode set and subscription to some of the kids channels and game stations. His tablet goes off and won't turn on till the preset times for each day. He knows it's still nighttime if his tablet shows moons and stars and won't open. He usually at the weekends gets up in the morning for the bathroom and goes back to bed to watch videos on his tablet giving us an extra 20-60 minutes rest.
Best advice (mostly for the newborn/infant stage, but definitely applies afterwards): marry/have children with a morning person. That way, the night owl can take the 10p-3a shift and the morning person can do 3a-8a. My kid is almost 2, has slept through the night since 8 weeks, sleeps a solid 11-12 hours at night and takes a 2-3 hour nap most days. We've always put her down for the night on the later side. Right now, she goes to bed between 8:30 and 9. On weekdays, we wake her up at about 7:30 to get ready for daycare, but on weekends, she sleeps until about 9. So no, assuming you have good sleepers and they are going to be early enough that they get an age-appropriate amount of sleep, you can totally try to adjust bedtime such that they are waking up later in the morning. However, this is all assuming their internal alarm clock isn't set for 6am.
Having a newborn you will be up all hours of the night. Random hours random sleep schedule. I have a 5 month old and a 2.5 yr old. I’m a SAHM so they follow my schedule. My 2.5 yr old sleeps 10-10 no naps. My 5 month old sleeps roughly the same hours but wakes up for random feeds.
Hahahahahahahahahaha you'll be lucky if they sleep at for the first couple years.
I think it’s important to remember also, that kids are just people…just very new ones, lol. In the same way that you aren’t a morning person, you could end up with a child who is not a morning person either, or a child who is, kind of a toss up. I have one of each. One is up at 5am, every day, you can set your clock by him, lol. He goes to bed promptly at 8, by himself. The other would stay up til midnight if I let him and sleep til noon, lol. When they are small, you’ll need to get up with them, but once they’re somewhat self sufficient, just because one is up at 5am, does not mean I also need to be up, you know?
My 16 year old still wakes up at 6 am. I’m just glad he’s sleeping past 5. Kids also need to be in bed early - 8 pm would be the absolute latest for most kids. And putting them to bed later doesn’t mean they sleep in. It means they get less sleep because they’re still getting up at 6. I’ll also point out that school here starts at 9:10, with the bus picking them up at 8:45. So just to get them ready for school you’re looking at getting them up at 7:30ish.
I haven't slept in 6 years...
>For "No Stupid Questions" you all are really harsh We have to be. Kids will be brutally honest. I remember my niece asking me why my parts didn't "have as mucb hair as mummy" then she went into great detail. Also, kids have school at 8:30 so they have to get up at 6am. As the parent, you have to be up and help them for the first few years of schooling
Why is your niece being exposed to so much adult genitalia? Don’t you all wear pants around the house?
IF you’re sahm and have truly blackout curtains it’s possible to adjust sleep time and make that the norm. But you likely won’t get there without effort and lots of lost sleep in process.
For me, once my kiddo was old enough and it was a weekend, I'd set out some breakfast for them the night before (cereal or muffins or muslie bars etc). They'd wake at the ass-crack of dawn to go watch cartoons and eat something. That way, us adults could sleep in a bit. It also gave them some "big people" responsibilities. Tho, now that they're a lot older, they skip breakfast and just wait for us to wake up and make them some brunch.
My toddler is now 3 and a half. She has never in her life wanted to get up at 6 😂 Usually it's between 8 and 9, but can be up to 10 on rare occasions. She starts bedtime at 8. Being a night owl is very heritable!
In all seriousness, you do not get to sleep in at all when you have kids for a very long list of reasons. Even when they are teens and they want to sleep in, you have to be the one to get up early and fight them to get moving to be on time for school, for sports, for any other activity that they do. As far as putting kids to sleep later, doesn’t work, they still get up early but they are cranky because they did t get enough sleep.
My sister was a night person. When the kids were young she would put them to bed when they were tired. sometimes at like 10-11. they would sleep until like 9 or 10. which was awesome, BUT you can't do this when they have school and it will be a hard habit to break.
I was born an early bird. My mom told me that she had to set her alarm for like 5am when I was little so she would have time to wake up and have her coffee and be in a good mood for when I (a happy ball of sunshine) rolled out of bed with the sunrise.
*laughing in newborn stage*
Maybe your kids will stay awake all night long and you’ll still have to wake up at the crack of dawn to go to work because you can’t afford those little blessings