Toddler Adams has developed a new form of entertainment. It’s a new game called; wake up around 5am and scream until someone gets me out of my cot. She’s always been a vocal child when something displeases her and, wow, is she using her abilities to fine effect at the moment.
My wife and I have tried a few different tactics to persuade her to stay in bed. The obvious one was to give a hug and put her back down. This just made things worse.
Giving her toys to play with works for about 10 minutes. After that we’re back to square one. I’ve even tried giving her a bottle of milk. Rather like the toys, this worked for all of 10 minutes.
It’s actually becoming quite disruptive to the morning routine. I would normally get up some time between 5am and 6am, take care mundane stuff, get myself ready and prepare for the kids’ breakfast.
I now find I’m doing all the usual mundane tasks while looking after the toddler. Or, rather like this morning, I end up doing all the mundane tasks while looking after both kids because the toddler’s noise has disturbed her older sister.
I may be mistaken, but I think she’s bothered by the bright morning sunshine. I’ve made a rudimentary attempt to block her windows by pining coats and towels over them but light still seeps through. I think I may have to re-invest in some blackout curtains.
I say re-invest because I did something daft about six weeks ago. I sold all our old black out curtains on Ebay thinking we’d never need them again. Hindsight is such a wonderful thing.
It’s not an issue we ever had with our eldest. She was usually quite happy to stay in bed and entertain herself. I know I’m not the only person who is experiencing this. I’ve seen other parents who have exactly the same issue commenting about it on twitter.
Unfortunately I have to deal with this issue on my own. My wife has to get up and get out the house for her commute to work. I can’t expect her to deal with a noisy toddler as well.
So tell me, how would you deal with this? I can’t face a summer of disturbed mornings. That 5am-6am slot is the only bit of “me” time I get in the day. Black out curtains, later bed times, calming music, what works for you?
Photo credit: Unknown photographer, image sourced from Wikimedia Published under Creative Commons agreement.
4 thoughts on “Help me please; the toddler won’t sleep”
Here is how I deal with this. I DON’T!!! My boy is 17mths and is too little for a gro clock but that did work with my girl. We just take it in turns and it kills us. The other day my friend told me her kid gets up at 10am!!!! What’s that all about? I was so so so angry. We have black out curtains for both. Doesn’t work with the boy. We did gro clock, black out blinds and rewards for the girl. Oh and a baby gate on the bedroom so they can’t escape. I feel your pain x
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Whisky…lots of whisky…..and a drop will help you sleep too 😉
It’s the hangover the next day that puts me off that suggestion!