How To Sleep In When You Have Kids, According To Reddit

When my oldest was a baby, she was notorious for waking up around 5 a.m. every. single. day. I moved back naps, I kept her up late, I even tried dreamfeeds before I went to bed to hopefully make her sleep until at least 6, but nothing worked. Now as an 11 year old, she’s still an early riser, never sleeping past 8 a.m., even on weekends. Some kids are just wired that way.

But one mom on Reddit has really reached her limit, sharing in the /parenting subreddit, “I feel rage when my kids wake up too early.” The original poster (OP) writes that despite 6:40 a.m. being the time they need to be up for school on weekdays, her kids refuse to get up. But when it’s the weekend, that seems to be their natural wake time. “When I hear their voices before 7:30, I feel enraged. Truly I just want good rest. Then I feel impatient for the rest of the day and guilty for that. I want to sleep in so badly. I want them to be quiet so badly,” she writes.

Woof.

As a kid who was an early riser and is now a full-on “morning person” as an adult, I get waking up early on weekends. There’s excitement in starting the day when you actually don’t have school or work to get to, and I think it’s super normal for kids to be up early on the days they don’t have to be. But I also get needing rest — and wanting just one morning where you can actually enjoy sleeping in a bit.

Luckily, Reddit had tons of ideas for her, including the beautiful art of distraction.

“‘This is why I buy Pop-Tarts’ — my boys were up between 4 to 6 a.m. for most of their lives. I was not,” one commenter wrote.

Another agreed, adding, “I don’t think OP has discovered the secret of highly effective parents in this situation: Give them an unhealthy breakfast, put on a movie, and go back to sleep.”

“The trick is to limit screens in regular life so you can play the ‘unlimited screens until mommy and daddy wake up’ card. Their little minds go wild and they work so hard to stay quiet. Set them up with some cereal and milk where they can reach and you are good to go,” another parent shared.

Honestly, most of my weekend mornings when I was a kid were spent on the floor of our living room, watching cartoons and eating whatever my big sister gave me.

There were also a lot of great ideas and hacks to buy OP’s self some extra ZZZs:

• “I’d tell them when I woke up we’d clean our rooms, so they always stayed quiet lol.”
• “I think the answer is to either go to bed earlier or switch off with your partner on whose morning it is to get up with the kids.”
• “What time did you go to bed last night? My mornings got a hell of a lot easier when I shifted my own bedtime earlier.”
• “We also bought milk in smaller containers so they could make cereal. They had their own cabinet with plastic cups, bowls, spoons, etc. It would give us a good hour to rest more.”

Other commenters wanted to remind OP that this life won’t last forever. “My almost-15-year-old practically has to be pried out of bed on the weekends. He was a kid that was up at 6 a.m. no matter what time he went to bed,” one wrote.

“I promise it does get better! My 12-year-old and I slept in until 9 a.m. today and I could have cried tears of joy,” another shared.

Above all, tons of the commenters said it’s all about your kids’ ages and if you can trust them to just watch TV or play on their iPad while you catch up on sleep. I remember so many early mornings snoozing on the couch as my toddler sucked down an applesauce pouch sitting on top of me, Sesame Street on TV. It didn’t last forever, and there is a sweet fondness about those memories now.

But more than one commenter wanted OP to know, if you aren’t a morning person and you’re feeling rage, then it’s time to make your own bedtime earlier. It can make all the difference in how you feel in the morning, and we do no talk enough about how good it feels to have the same bedtime as your 5-year-old.

So get more sleep, charge up the electronics, and make sure there’s a box of Lucky Charms or powdered donuts in the kitchen. Eventually, you’ll be vacuuming outside their bedroom door at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning, absolutely impressed with how soundly they’re sleeping.