Early Morning Riser

Pervasive Parenting

By Kodey Toney

 

Early Morning Riser

 

I talked last week about Konner waking up at the same time each day. That's only partially true. He wakes up about the same time, and lately it's been even earlier. 

As stated time after time, children on the spectrum are usually on a schedule or routine. Konner is no different, but lately it seems that he's waking up even earlier than usual. 

Lately he's been getting up around 4:30 every morning. This in itself is bad, but Konner also likes to come into the bedroom and tell us that he's awake and ask us if he can go play on the computer. I rarely have a problem with him playing on the computer, so I'm not really sure why he asks every morning. In my mind he does it to make sure that we're awake. Let me make something else clear, Konner is not a quiet person, especially at 4:30 in the morning.

With his ADHD, and the meds have worn off at this point, he's usually jumping around on his tiptoes flailing his arms saying, “Daddy, daddy can I go play on the computer…can I play on the computer!”

Now I'm not a morning person anyways, so this just drives me crazy most mornings. Depending on what morning it is I'll tell him either to go try to go back to sleep or just go get on the computer. Sometimes it's easier to let him than to have him come back every five minutes and ask again and again and again and…well you get the point.

I tried to explain to him that on the weekends we like to sleep in a little bit. In all honestly we haven't been able to sleep in since he was born almost 10 years ago. However, this Sunday he came in it was 4:30 in morning and he said, “Daddy can I play on the computer,” very loudly. “I replied very quietly and with a little frustration, “Konner, we're trying to sleep. Please be quiet. He said, “Daddy, I know you guys like to sleep in on Saturday.” I had to laugh a little bit and tell him to go ahead and get on the computer. He had his days mixed up, but he was trying to understand that others need to sleep. I’m not sure why he doesn’t.

He also comes back in every 15 minutes or so to let me know what’s going on within the game he’s playing. So when he’s awake I’m awake. I may try to go back to sleep, but I can’t.

The problem with all his early-mornings is that he wants to go to sleep early now. Instead of his regular 8 p.m. shower and then bed and go to sleep he goes and lays down at 7 p.m. and he may go to sleep without a shower. I've been trying to keep him awake at night thinking maybe it would help him get up a little later too. So far that hasn't worked.

As I said last week, it helps with getting ready for school during the week.

All of this is part of the reason that I've been getting up on Sunday mornings and sitting at the kitchen table, which is just off from the computer room, drinking my coffee and listening to him on the computer it's not the worst problem in the world. And sometimes it has it's perks.