Do you have an early morning kid?

I do.

Both are notorious for waking up at 6:15 am every single morning, and sometimes, life gets a little bumpy when they think about waking up at 5:30 am.

What do you do if your baby wakes up early?

What do you do if your toddler wakes up early?

What do you do if both of them wake up early?

 Stop fighting it.

EMBRACE THE MORNING. 

I hear some moms are joining the 5am club on purpose. I wish I could. I try to wake up before them and I just wake up the entire household. Even if they are sleeping in their bed, the sense of me being awake stirs their little bodies. 

It’s time to turn on the coffee pot and pour yourself a cup of coffee.

Just get going with your day because there’s no changing who they are, this is just how things are going to be.

If it is before 6 am, I’m #gameover.

I  let the kids play and I stay in bed until 6, or at the very least remain horizontal on the couch supervising with one eye open.

6 am is A-W-E-S-O-M-E

Why?

6 am is awesome because nobody else is awake.

The rest of the world is still sleeping so by the time you’ve had coffee, fed hungry bellies, and wrestled your kids dressed than its time to hit up the world without people in the way.

Have you ever been to the playground at 8 am? It’s AMAZING because you get the entire place to yourself, both mom and child. 8 am means not having to worry about someone else helicopter parenting your toddler as he climbs to the top of the dangerously high slide. It means getting to sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee while you scroll the Instagram (you could also read a book if you’re sophisticated like that). It means always knowing where your child is because he’s the only one on the play structure.

6 am is a perfectly acceptable time for life to get rolling.

6 am is also hard…

6 am is hard because you’re not waking up because you want to wake up but because some tiny dictator decided it was time to wake up.

Before children, I needed to get up at 5:30 and I would run, and then get ready for work at 8:30. Now with children, the 6 am alarm clock comes with screaming demanding needs. #rudeawakening.  There’s no me time before mom time with a 6 am a child. I’ve tried to wake up at 5 or 5:30 to make my coffee before they get up, but either I’m too tired from motherhood, or I wake up the ENTIRE HOUSE.

It also kind of sucks because the rest of the world is trying to ignore 6 am, so play spaces are empty.

It means waiting for indoor play spaces to open, and typically morning nap time runs right into scheduled activities. 6 am is lonely.

But you’ll find your morning friends. 

Pour Another Cup of Coffee

and keep going with your day, because 6 am means a 7 pm bedtime and mama gets a few hours of shows/reading/studying before she has to go to bed at the totally reasonable hour of 9:30.