How to get my kid to get up early for school without turning him into a wild thing?

[arivecchi]

DS1 is having a really tough time getting up early for school. School starts at 8 am and he normally gets up at 7:30 when he does not have school. He was going to afternoon pre-school before our move and has not liked the time change at all. How early do you get your kids up for school? Any tips to get them way to wake them up in a good mood? I feel so bad dragging the poor guy out of bed and this morning was especially awful.

[egoldber]

I think for anyone it is easier to wake up early if you get up at a consistent time every day. I get up at 5 during the week. To do this, I can't really sleep in on weekends or else it totally disrupts my schedule.

So I would start waking him at 7 (or whatever time you need him to get up) every day. Even on the weekends. Maybe plan a fun outing to make it more palatable on those days? They say it takes about 3 weeks to fully adjust to a schedule change.

[sarahsthreads]

DD1 is a little older, but we recently bought her an alarm clock. It seems to help. Some days it gets her completely up and out of bed, but even on days it doesn't, she's at least mostly conscious before I go in to her room. We're pretty consistent about getting her up, even on weekends, but she's clearly inherited my night owl tendencies. (DD2, on the other hand, is a morning person. Between the two of them, I don't get nearly enough sleep!)

This morning, however, was really terrible, because of the time change. To be honest, it was really terrible for me, too, so I really can't blame the littles for having a hard time with it!

Sarah :)

[crl]

I let ds go to bed in his clean clothes for the next day (I have posted this before and several posters on here think this is gross.)

I used to always take him a sippy cup of chocolate milk to drink in bed before I made him get up.

Catherine

[geochick]

I had to start putting my 4yo to bed earlier, and setting an alarm. 30 minutes isn't enough time for me to wake up, eat, get dressed, realize I'm awake, brush my teeth, and get in the car for school. Wake him up earlier with an alarm. My older son has a cool alarm with a cd player in it. We created him a disc of music to wake up to. The first songs are chill out/classical. The next songs are more wild and awake songs.

Put him to bed earlier.
Set an alarm earlier.

Good luck.

[arivecchi]

Thanks all. I had not thought of getting an alarm clock for him. Maybe we will try that. We try to get him to bed as early as possible but the kid is a night owl so it is hard to put him to bed when he is still totally wired.

[artvandalay]

My 6 year old had a hard time getting up for school, we started putting him to bed 30 minutes earlier, and got an alarm clock. We set it for 10 minutes before he has to get up. One of us goes in there when the alarm goes off, opens up the blinds and hits the snooze. 10 minutes later when it goes off he knows it's time to get up. Most mornings are fine... but of course we still have mornings where we have to drag him out of bed. I wonder what he'll be like as a teenager.

For my 4 year old, I have been thinking of getting him this clock

http://www.amazon.com/American-Innovative-Teach-Talking-Nightlight/dp/B003D7KV0Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300119643&sr=8-1

he can't tell time yet, and so this clock turns a specific color when it's time to wake up letting him know he can get out of bed

[o_mom]

Thanks all. I had not thought of getting an alarm clock for him. Maybe we will try that. We try to get him to bed as early as possible but the kid is a night owl so it is hard to put him to bed when he is still totally wired.

If he's totally wired at bedtime, you may have missed his 'sleepy window' and he has crossed over into overtired - you might try putting him to bed much earlier. Combine it with getting up a little on the early side for a few days and you might find him going down much easier.

Like PPs, we try to get them up about the same time on non-school days. DS1&2 need to be up by 7:15 for school (7:55 bus). On weekends, we try not to go later than 7:30 am wake up. Usually one of the three is up by then anyway so we are up anyway.

Also, I will usually open their bedroom door and turn on the hall or bathroom light about 10-15 min before they absolutely need to be up - so around 7-7:05am. The ambient noise/light of us getting ready in the morning shifts them from deep sleep and they are much nicer about getting up when we go in.

[gatorsmom]

At our last school, the kids started at 7:15am. This meant we had to be up at 6:20am which was hard for us. We are nightowls over here. We hammered out a routine that works well for us now. The kids are asleep by 8:30pm at the latest. We start getting them ready around 7:30pm. Also, I have their uniform set out the night before, backpacks and snowclothes are all packed the night before and sitting by the door. In the morning I've given up on yelling over and over for them to get their clothes on. I just go on their rooms and I actually dress them. Gator is starting to hop up and get dresses himself when he sees me coming, so I don't think I'll be doing that for him for much longer. LOL Then once they are dressed they just have to brush their teeth, pee and eat breakfasndnd then we go. It takes us about 35
min when I dress them myself.