My daughter just turned seven, and for the entire past school year our routine was this: Alarm goes off, I get up right away and go to her room. I lay beside her in her bed, gently rub her back and tell her it’s time to get up. I roll her over onto my belly, stroke her hair, and ask, “Do you have to pee? I bed you really have to pee” 
and she always gets up right away and goes to the bathroom. While she’s in there, I turn on TLC so she can watch the cartoons and get dressed while I make her breakfast (I lay out her clothes the night before). Sometimes I do have to keep peeking in on her and remind her to finish dressing. While she eats, I fix her hair and get myself ready, then she brushes her teeth and off we go. The whole process takes exactly one hour.
Serious suggestion. Record “Saber Dance” to CD, tape or mp3. (You need the full orchestral version, not just a midi.) Play fairly loudly (though not punishingly) from across the room (very important). Trust me, this works. It’s possibly the greatest "wake up’ tune ever written.
Follow with "okay, Sunshine, up and at 'em. That’s it, … , off to the bathroom …, " etc. Don’t leave till the little one gets up. After a few repetitions, the song either becomes part of the getting up routine (get an alarm clock that’ll play it) or it becomes unnecessary. Either way, problem solved.
Oh, Lordy, please don’t do this. My mom used to do this, only she would put it right on our face. I still haven’t forgiven her for it. What an absolutely horrible way to wake up, and reinforce not wanting to get up in the morning!
I think in part because of this, I’m still struggling with sleep disorders and problems waking up. I have found over the years though, that if I don’t get enough light and stimulus first thing in the morning it takes forever for my brain to kick in gear. The first thing I do when I get up is open all the windows, turn on all the lights, and turn on the tv or radio. Also, it helps to make sure you don’t exercise or have caffeine within a few hours of bedtime.
We are *not * morning people. I completely sympathize with my daughter’s inclination to stay in bed, but that doesn’t change the fact that she can’t.
The first time I go in there, I wake her up gently, and warn her that I’ll be back in five minutes.
When I come back in five minutes, if she’s not vertical, she gets treated to my (in)famous worse-than-the-Bradys rendition of “Sunshine Day.”
If that doesn’t do it, I go get the spray bottle.
She’s fifteen, though. At five, I just would have scooped her up, put her on her feet, and pushed her toward the bathroom.
What are his consequences for sleeping in? Getting a ride to school with mom? If that’s the extent of it, it’s no wonder he misses the bus all the time.
As a kid, if I missed the bus, I had to walk to school because mom didn’t have a car. Consequently I never missed the bus.
My advice? Offer consequences and follow through.
I think it’s important to not take too much responsibility for your kids’ problems. I wouldn’t stand there and cajole and wheedle someone to get out of bed, even if they are only 5 years old. I’d let him know that from now on, if he doesn’t get out of bed on time, he will face the consequences. Missing school or being late, going to school in his pajamas, without breakfast, etc. Seems kind of mean, but in the long run it teaches them to take responsibility for their own actions and that their problems are not necessarily your problems.
And I’d review how much sleep he is getting… children that age need 10-12 hours of sleep a night. My 7-year-old still goes to bed at 8, and that seems to give him the right amount of sleep.
If you think that your kid’s problems aren’t your problems, then your kids’ teachers clearly aren’t as quick with the phone as my kid’s teachers are.
He’s five. Allowing him to be consistently late for school isn’t going to help anything.
Sure, maybe at 5 your kid’s problems are yours, but it’s good to lay down the groundwork for them being able to take care of themselves when they’re older. It’s not like you can solve all their problems until a certain age, and then expect them to be able to help themselves all of a sudden. It’s a gradual process, and I’d expect a 5-year-old to be able to do a small thing like getting up when they’re told. If they can’t do that, why would they think they have to do other things such as their homework, chores, etc? It’s called personal responsibility, and a 5-year-old should be able to take it in small amounts. But that’s just my personal parenting style, everyone’s different.
Light is in fact a key part of getting your biological clock in sync with the length of the day. Many people with sleep disorders just have their internal clocks drifting with respect to the external clock.
Here’s a recent Science News article about it. Anyone who has problems waking up or has teens with such problems should read this article. Excerpt:
I’m not surprised that there’s a lot of advice along the lines of throw stuff on him, pick him up, punish him, and so forth.
Here’s an idea, try to look at why he’s sleeping in. Encourage better sleeping habits through self discipline, not by punishing him and having him sit in class half asleep.
In a similar vein, try to convince him that he, a five year old, wants to go to school: to have fun, make friends, learn new things. Motivate him to motivate himself.
There may be deeper reasons why your kid is sleeping in, and better solutions.
What time are you putting him to bed? Five-year-olds are supposed to be getting eleven hours of sleep a night (well, 11 out of every 24 hours). Is he?
I didn’t get that much sleep at five, but then I was hyper and my parents couldn’t keep me in bed that long. This doesn’t sound like the OP’s child’s problem.
Which brings up an idea. If junior won’t get out of bed, then set his bedtime back a half hour. Explain that it is obvious that he needs more sleep because he won’t get out of bed. And since being late to school is not an option, then you have no choice but to move back bedtime. That puts the ball in his court.
My dad used to push my door open and launch himself, shouting “PAPA NINJA!” (or “Geronimo”, or later, “Kawabunga”), a towel tied around his neck like a superhero’s cape, and land square on my bed.
This started when I went to school full-time.
After a few weeks, I got really good at hearing their alarm when it went off, and I’d get up first, and create new ambushes for the Ninja.
… Yes, I had a weird childhood. Why do you ask? (My dad is, basically, a french canadian version of Robin Williams, I swear to god…)
These kids didn’t seem have any problem getting up.
This is clearly a job for the family dog.
Or at least that’s what my parental units did with me.
Hell, I can remember my mom telling the dog from the kitchen “Go wake up shakes, Go wake up shakes…”
Shortly after that I could hear our fifty pound dog galloping accross the living room into MY room then he would jump up onto my bed, Which at that time I was so small, it would send me flying into the air about five feet. Then once I landed hap-hazzardly back on the bed the damn dog would proceed to lick my face untill I got my ass up!
This thread amuses me. “Oh lordy, we need a creative solution to get a child to do what he is told.”
Well here’s one: Tell him in a calm, firm, tone that it is time to get up. If he hasn’t learned to respect a calm, firm tone yet, then you will have to add some small consequences until he get the idea. Earlier bed times, no TV, confiscate a favored toy, etc.
And you assume that he is getting enough sleep. Unless I missed it, you just state that as fact and don’t provide any detail. Whether he’s not getting enough sleep, or whether it’s a control thing, sticking him in bed at 6pm and being clear about why you are doing will work wonders.
Creative solution… Bah.
Right on, Waverly, with a solid assist by PunditLisa.
If as parents you are putting this much effort into getting a 5-year-old’s ass out of bed in the morning, what the hell are you going to do down the line?
You’re gonna be in for a world of pain if he thinks he has a say in such matters.
How has the kid gotten to the point that he thinks staying in bed is an option?
I don’t understand it.
But by all means, don’t bruise the fragile little prince’s inner self…
Oh, get off it. The OP has not even come close to referring to her child as a “fragile little prince” or any of the other twee little names that invariably come out in threads like this. Upon rechecking, she says she’s tried bringing him juice, is considering an alarm clock, and would consider throwing water on him as an absolute last resort. Oh yes, he’s a pampered little prince all right. :rolleyes:
So he’s 5, and he’s not a morning person. I’m not a morning person, either, and even at the advanced age of 29, I sometimes behave irrationally when first awakened in the morning. I’ll fall back asleep even when I know damn well that if I fall back asleep I’ll miss my shower and feel grody for the rest of the day, or whatever.
That having been said, I think that the previous suggestions to 1) ensure he’s getting enough sleep, by moving his bedtime back in half-hour increments if necessary, 2) flood his room with light in the morning, and 3) physically lift him from the bed are good ones. Sometimes just being moved from a prone position is enough to shake the sleep off.
Alarm clock with a snooze. For example, my clock’s snooze is 9 minutes. Maybe this could be his morning routine: His alarm goes off, he hits the snooze and gets up and dressed before the alarm rings again. Turn off alarm, go get breakfast.
Is nine minutes enough time for a five year old to get dressed? Maybe it should be a nine minute time period for getting out of bed anmd another for getting dressed. If the kid was already awake and out of bed (1st snooze), he should probably be able to get dressed in nine minutes (2nd snooze). Go get breakfast.
This, from a guy who flipped out and cancelled a family vacation to punish a daughter he thought was braiding the fringe on his wife’s new chenille throw. Yeah, sure.