Update, It worked! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

I'm at my wits end! 5 out of 7 days can not begin this way!

I have to get DS up and out the door before 7am in order to drop him off at the sitter and be at work by 7:30am.

I get up at 6am, get ready and wake him up at about 6:40. The minute I walk in the door I am met with opposition. He screams, he cries, he kicks and flails. He refuses to get up. Ive tried putting his clothes on while hes still in bed (he rips them off), hell half the time we leave in his PJs.

Hes goes to bed every night around 7:30/8pm.

Please share some techniques you use to get your LO up and out in the a.m. My kid is going to think Im a monster because all I do is fight with him lately.

Side note: Hes bright eyed and bushy tailed by 7am on the weekends.

Message edited 4/14/2014 9:03:20 AM.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

We went through something similar with DD. We also have to be out the door by ten to 7.

Now I wake her up earlier and let her watch one show in bed. This gives her time to relax and wake up. Then after her show is over, she starts to get ready.

There are still days that she gives us a hard time, but at least it's not every.single.morning.

ETA - I should add that DD is 4. We started doing it this way maybe 6 months ago.

Message edited 4/11/2014 8:06:38 AM.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

Would your sitter mind putting him in clothes for you? Maybe you can just leave him in his pjs, skip the fight and just throw him in the car still asleep. Let him wake up on his own, in his own time.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

Some ideas:

Put kid to sleep earlier. If DS goes to sleep late, he is particularly unpleasant in the AM.

Start off with a show that he loves. Get kid dressed DURING this time period. Then breakfast. Then out door.

The whole thing usually takes 1 hour for us. If you skip breakfast, it's maybe 45 minutes.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

The only suggestion I can give is wake him up a little earlier. Pick him up and lay on the couch with him for a little bit. My son needs to be cuddled a little when he wakes up. He hates to just be placed directly in the car. Sit a little bit and put a show on. Can you take him over in his PJs? Is it a big deal? My DH is the one that handles this mostly early mornings. He gets boys up a bit earlier and let's them watch TV on the couch till he is ready. My youngest is 2.

Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

I have a similar problem. Every day is a fight. Dd goes to bed by 7 andwe need to be out the door at 7.
Some days she will refuse to even be taken out is the crib. She is 18 months.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

When all of the above mentioned (great advice by the way) does not work... Warn your ds that you will leave him home by himself if he doesn't get up and listen to you..and do a count down ex. Say I'm giving you 10mins to get up and work your way down to zero mins... And then make believe you left him like walk out the door!!! That will scare the day lights out of him..he will know that you mean business!!

I know this sounds absolutely mean but I went through the same thing with my older ds. Everything was an issue... Putting on clothes, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, putting on coats and shoes... One day I got sick of talking and begging and this is what did (I read it in a parenting mag) and I pretended to walk out and leave him...he was not happy thinking that I left him. I had to do this only once and that was it! Now when I say let's go..it means let's go now!!!

P.s. I made him think I left him for less than a minute...

Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

I am no help. We hired a nanny to avoid this problem. DS likes to sleep till 10am most mornings LOL. I wish i could too.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

Thanks for the advice ladies!! Great ideas. I think I definitely just need to switch it up a bit.

I am going to try to wake him earlier to give him time to wake up a little. Maybe I will put Mickey on for him while I try to dress him and myself.

I do end up dropping him off in his PJs most days but he is not night trained yet (hes still in a crib) and he almost always leaks through his pull-up (open to a great night training pants/diaper suggestion as well) so I have to at least put fresh underwear and bottoms on him. He is going to be starting Summer Camp 2 days a week in June and he will need to be dressed those days. I am nervous about this.

Thank you!

ETA: He naps great. At least 2 hrs a day.

Message edited 4/11/2014 9:25:15 AM.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

I think he needs to go to sleep earlier . I would also just leave him in pj's and pop him into his car seat

Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

Maybe you can try opening his bedroom door and turning on the tv about an hr before you leave and the noise throughout the house will wake him up

Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

We wake my DS up at 6 and let him hang out in our bed and watch cartoons with a cup of milk for about 1/2 and hour. It kind of eases him into it.

You might want to try it.

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

When DS started his new preschool last month, he was used to a leisurely morning. Suddenly he had to be up, dressed and eating breakfast by a certain time. The best way I could think of to get through this transition was to let him play with my phone. He knows that if he lets me get him dressed quickly then he can play Angry Birds until it's time to leave for school. It works like a charm... it's his favorite thing to play right now, so every morning he lets me get him dressed and then we go downstairs and he gets to sit at the table and play for about 15 mins while he eats yogurt and I get his backpack ready. It works for us and we usually have no problem getting out the door. Of course there are some mornings where he resists giving up the phone, but hey... I'm dealing with a 3-year-old... nothing's perfect.

The TV show idea is good too. It's all about distraction. And not being driven to drink before 7:30 AM!

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

Funny, I just posted the other day how I have trouble getting my 2 year old out the door and asked lif if bringing him to daycare in pjs would be okay and everyone was like 'being a parent means waking up earlier and how hard is it to dress a toddler' but here people are saying bring him in pjs to the sitter...and all these wonderful suggestions!

Anyway seems we're in similar situation ...on days he has daycare I've been putting him to sleep night before in comfy clothes that can be worn out if he refuses to get dressed in morning (like black sweatpants soft shirt) still need to fight the diaper-shoes-jacket :) but its one step easier

Good luck!

Re: Help! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

Thanks for all the advice ladies!! I wanted to give you an update.

Today went great!! Fingers crossed it stays that way. I woke him up 30 minutes before we had to get out the door as opposed to the ten minutes I was giving him before. I let him lay in my bed and play with his iPad (and wake up a little) and he was happy to do so. I chose the iPad over the TV because if worst comes to worst, the iPad is portable and we can take it with us. I'm afraid he wouldn't want to leave the house if he was watching TV. It was a good non confrontational morning thank god! He even went potty and got dressed without a fight. First time in forever!

Thanks again for the advice!

Re: Update, It worked! My 2 year old refuses to get up in the morning.

Awesome! Glad you had an easy morning, fingers crossed that it keeps working!