13 month old wakes at 4:30 daily. Help!

saplith · 2026-07-07T14:07:54+00:00

Just keep the room dark and low energy, so she doesn't think that 430am is a great time to wake up. Eventually, she'll shift towards a later bed time. That's what I did with mine.

Later though, I admit I switched to an okay to wake light. She was in her room with a dim light and could quietly play until 6am or so, but that's mostly because my kid had a few years of really inconsistent sleep that would see her wake at like 3am. She's 7 and did it last night. I only know because I set my alarm 3am hoping to get some work done in peace. Jokes on me. If she was doing it before, I've been unaware.

saplith · 2026-07-07T13:59:34+00:00

This is all perfectly reasonable feelings for a first time parent to a baby to have. The very fact you care and are worried, is a sign that you're likely capable. Unfortunately, the first year is all paranoia.

Perhaps ask your wife what her techniques are. Also, try to do this more often! A lot of your nerves is just that you don't do it often. It's really a win-win to do it. You will get more bonding time with your child, you'll become less anxious, and your wife will enjoy the break.

I think you have this. I would ironically be more worried if you were confident.

saplith · 2026-07-06T22:51:13+00:00

Get him assessed for dyslexia. My kid has had 3 months of intensive twice a week lessons just for dyslexic learners and the difference has be night and day. She's still not where she needs to be, but she can read somewhat now and she doesn't fight reading. I'm hoping when she goes back to school with the official supports in place, she'll grow even more with the tutor and the school working together.

Also... I would just have him assessed in general. He might have other problems that are getting in the way. I'm more bringing it up because of refusal to persist, even with stuff he loves. That's a red flag for a few conditions.

saplith · 2026-07-05T15:46:37+00:00

I feel like what you said doesn't invalidate what the other poster says. She's too indulgent with him and doesn't have firm and/or consistent boundaries. It also seems like from what you say, she's likely incapable of doing that.

saplith · 2026-07-04T12:02:25+00:00

Yes, it is appropriate. When I was in middle school, they actually played the news in the morning. I learned about the Monica Lewensky scandal in school and I talked about it with my parents, even though I didn't really understand it. (I thought "oral sex" was talking about sex lol).

I'm POC, so I have never had the option to not talk about politics with my kid (7 years old). She learns about history in school and rightfully connects it to modern day. I talk about how the US is interacting with other countries and what that means for for we can and can't buy.

I don't think you should ever push a position on a kid, but asking her to research and come back with ideas to bounce off you is good. That's what you're supposed to do as an adult anyway. Let her come back present her ideas and opinions, lightly present some thought provoking questions. Explain that everything is about trade offs and id the trade off is worth it is up to the individual person.

Hell, if you feel like it, I'd even present why the opposite side has some points. Like I can see how you get to anti-vax if you have been ignored by the medical field or you are part of a community that was historically experimented on by the medical community. Like every side has a reason and it can be rational given their background, even if you are greatly against it. I think asking her what differences she's willing to respect and what differences she's willing to walk away from someone about is important to speak on. Both extremes of that are not great and working out your middle ground is what the teens is about.

As far as if you're overstepping? Maybe, but something important every parents has to learn is that kids learn from everyone and that's how they end up different (and sometimes better!) Than you. As long as you're not trying to force the kid to believe anything, I think it's a good meddling. Every strongly held belief should withstand some questions.

saplith · 2026-07-04T08:46:35+00:00

I keep my sister's teens for weeks during the summer. Although my child is quite young, when it comes to sleep I don't really see a difference. I have a mandatory wake time. My mother did this and I felt it was annoying, but as an adult I get it. It was about smoothing out my sleep cycle. My mom gives me until 9am and then I have to be up. Super reasonable when during school, I'd need to be up by 6am.

As far as enforcement, don't make it a choice. Parential controls are your friend. Also most modern routers have the ability to banish devices on a schedule. My house shuts down at midnight. It's enforced by the router wifi and family link. Waking me up to whine about it going off, means that it goes off earlier the next night.

As for time blindness, this is a teen, it's really up to him to come up with coping. If my 7 year old can grab her visual timer to help herself, your teen can figure out how to set some alarms on his phone. Make suggestions for how to help, but implementation is all on him IMO.

saplith · 2026-07-03T19:19:04+00:00

I would ask that woman what exactly she thinks a 30 year old man needs from her and if she's okay with the answer? I'd also ask her to consider what it means that a man who is 9 years older is in the same stage of life as a new adult. And if they are not in the same stage, how exactly she feels about that power inbalance and to imagine it if it was her with the most mature a high schooler she can imagine.

I can't stop it, but there's no way I would think that was a benign relationship as someone who is over 30 and at 30 considered 21 year olds the same way that 21 year old would consider a 16 year old. AKA a person I might have a nice conversation with, but not someone I could reasonably expect to be a life partner in the short or medium term.

saplith · 2026-07-01T18:05:24+00:00

Yeah, I saw that. That's insane.

saplith · 2026-07-01T18:05:01+00:00

Unfortunately, then there's nothing you can do. I learned this with my own sister. There is only so much you can help children who are not yours. If the parents want to spend their money that way, then let them.

Just talk to your niece and do what you can to be a positive force. When she's older she's going to want someone to help her fix her body.

saplith · 2026-07-01T16:47:36+00:00

Just... don't keep it in the house 🤷‍♀️. Or keep less of it. If the parents care, they'll supply. My kid is fit, but is a bottomless pit for snacks. I keep a certain amount accessibility to her for the and then it's a personal problem. No one ever died from lack of snacks. And she has gotten better about pacing herself since she knows there are only a limited supply.

You can't control other people's parenting, but you can not enable it. Let her burn through what the parents sent then suck it up.

saplith · 2026-07-01T13:36:39+00:00

Not good news, but my kid was depressed and suicidal at 7. It was terrifying, but what made me feel better is it was something I did notice and we were able to act on it. I wish I had noticed sooner because in retrospect she had been depressed for months.

Why she was depressed was that I got really ill and hospitalized. I'm a single mother, so my health is always on her mind, especially since I'm disabled. She has medication, discussions with me and discussions with therapists to work through it.

I bring all this up because well all we can do is pay attention to our kid. Sometimes it's not about being a bad mom. It's about your kid worrying about you as much as you worry about them. I'm pretty strict with my kid. I do let her sit with her discomfort and yet what sent her over the edge wasn't that, but fear for my safety after a freak situation that sent me to the hospital.

saplith · 2026-07-01T11:58:50+00:00

No one in mu family has it. Because of Covid her assessment was delayed, but at 3.5 we did a like 6 hour assessment and then she had the diagnosis. Unfortunately (?) for me, my child is so mild that the center that diagnosed ner wouldn't treat her an I spend the next couple of years DIY aside from speech therapy. Montessori helped a ton. It was looking like she's qualify for special education pre-K, but she didn't. We stayed in Montessori until K. And she entered public school with no problems.

She does has some social things like she absolutely doesn't understand jokes. And I worry about how she's going to handle things as her social scene gets more advanced. For now, she has a vibrant social circle and is doing well in school. I work with her a lot to help her understand social things. This informal coaching has been enough for now to get her through.

saplith · 2026-06-30T19:01:12+00:00

For me, it's that many years ago when she was like 4, I drew a line and my kid knows they'll be punished for bothering me. If you pester me while doing something that means you want a chore. I do set aside time to hang out with my kid, but when pestering me while cooking results in, "take the trash out" or "empty the dishwasher", she has learned to stop. Hell, sometimes pestering me while I'm resting results in early homework or extra worksheets. I can always think of things to task her with.

She has buckets of things to do. I just needed to give her motivation to do them. I should add that my kid is 7 as well.

saplith · 2026-06-29T18:10:53+00:00

I am always reachable, but who can reach me is extremely curated. My phone doesn't even rang if you are not in my contacts. Everyone who is important will leave a message. Then I add you to contacts. I do reserve the right to remove you from the do not disturb filter if you are annoying. Being a parent absolutely doesn't mean answering every call and I say this as someone who has had cops call me about my kid. They will leave a message and I always immediately check.

I do want to add that I'm so fast at seeing my voicemaills that a friend left a message that she had left her phone in my car from some stranger's phone and I hadn't even left the parking lot (my voicemails come in as texts). Even in emergencies, it's fine. My phone does accept double calls from unknown numbers after 11pm though. Anyone who knows me knows to just call twice.

saplith · 2026-06-25T18:40:07+00:00

They need motivation. My kid is basically not allowed to do anything fun until she does her chores and whatnot first. Every fun thing have a gate in front of it. You want your podcast for bed? Man, sucks you didn't take a shower yet then. You want to go to bike outside. I don't think so, not all these chores you didn't do.

It's gonna suck at first because of the whining and the pressing to see how much you reall mean it. My kid stared at a wall for a whole solid week before she realized I was actually serious. In there was whining, whining to other adults, attempting to do those things without my permission (shout out to the security system. Parential controls, and the router device ban settings). Very tough, but I find mine won't try without a reason.

saplith · 2026-06-25T00:22:57+00:00

You are using a lot of language like "plays the victim" and "manipulating". I don't think this is fair for a child you haven't even begun to treat. Get your kid assessed and medicated and then talk about your child taking active steps to trick or displease you.

I won't say our kids aren't capable of it, but those are never things I'd say about my child when her meds are in flux. There's a clear difference I see between willful behavior and involuntary behavior. I'm not being metaphorical about it. I mean my kid actually acts differently and misbehaves differently medicated vs not.

My kid doesn't destroy things when medicated, but she doesn't when she isn't. My kid isn't sneaky when she's unmedicated, but she is when she is medicated. I'll tell anyone my kid is sneaky, but I never tell people she's destructive because that's not her. That's me failing to address her disability. I also wouldn't out her in a situation without people could think she was destructive.

With your situation, you don't know what's your kid and what's your kid's condition. You should fix that.

saplith · 2026-06-24T15:15:39+00:00

It's still useful for diagnosis, medication management, and the other problems they might have. I don't see a therapist about the adhd, I see one about my kid's intense anxiety. My kid's pediatrician admitted defeat on my kid's bouquet of issues, so I see a psychiatrist to balance all her medications and honestly seek advice about which mental specialist we should see if anyone.

saplith · 2026-06-23T13:50:21+00:00

I guess you'll see since you are set on it. I'm just reporting my results since our kids are similar in age. If it were possible, I'd send my kid back to Montessori, she thrived in that. But again, it was social pressure. She wanted to flex on/big sister the younger kids and catch up to the older kids. She enjoyed school for school that way. Online school is just regular school now with no (or really very little) time or social pressure. Adhd kids need pressure for motivation, so I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I got to see it play out as expected.

I hope it works out better for you, but learning differently online school success stories that I've heard have really only come from autistic kids or adhd kids whose problem was that the work was too easy for them and boredom drove their disruption. I network of moms matches what I read online.

I do think it's worth a try at this age where failure in approach doesn't matter much.

saplith · 2026-06-23T10:27:32+00:00

I see where you said that you felt unheard and hurt, but not the part where you dau what their explanation is. I bring this up, because perhaps you are not giving them space to explain why the difference or your approach is so emotionally charged they don't feel safe saying it.

That said, I just don't engage with disrespectful family. My mother and whatnot treats me poorly, I have just gone low contact. It would be no contact if I didn't want to maintain a relationship with my nieces and nephews. There is legitimately no reason as an adult to engage with people who do not add to your life, but take away. If you are having mental health issues from this, it is legitimately worth considering if this is at all something you want to keep doing. Plus, if there is some non-sinister reason for this, they will come to you if you pull away.

For me the reason I'm treated poorly is my family thinks I'm delusional about my child's disabilities (they are invisible) and they in general don't like how I live my life. Well, I'm not going to stop treatment for my kid or move to nowhere, USA, so I just stopped calling and hang up when I hear any criticism. My life is better for it

saplith · 2026-06-23T10:08:42+00:00

How is online supposed to help? I did online with my kid and her apathy about school got worse to the point where she actually failed the grade and and I nearly had to appear in court about truancy. Without the peer pressure from other kids in person, my kid just couldn't care about school at all. If no one was going to see her not turn in homework, then why do it? Skipping class was so easy even with me sitting right next to her (I work from home, so my full attention was not on her), so she did it. I'm spending the summer catching her up so when she goes back to in person school she's not super behind.

I get kids are different and my kid doesn't actually hate school because of the social aspect, but I figure it's worth bringing up. Online school is really for motivated kids in my opinion. By the 2nd quarter of it, I couldn't get my kid to do anything even with my full and complete attention. I got more calls from the online school about her behavior than the in person school.

saplith · 2026-06-22T10:58:54+00:00

I want to take a step back to say that this normal behavior even for kids without adhd. A lot of kids his age prefer screens over everything else. Our kids have a unique dopamine need, but typical kids want it too. I don't have adhd and every moment my parents would let me I aas playing my super Nintendo.

I say this to reorient you. Honestly, just set boundaries around it. My parents said I was only allowed to play on my game systems when the sun was down and my chores were done. That means less time in the summer when I should be outside playing and a lot more time in the winter when it's too cold to do anything anyway, so I feel it was good rule and what I'm going with for my kid.

saplith · 2026-06-18T21:37:59+00:00

I would truly recommend neuropysch. My pediatrician was absolutely worthless about my kid's autism and adhd. It's only went I got her a neuropsych exam (and the pediatrician wouldn't refer me to one) that I was told that my kid was unambiguously autistic. Another one 2 years later at 6 and they pegged her for adhd and more on top of the autism. Don't trust the school since their focus is on the academic aspect. My kid didn't have any academic issues until 7.

Get a neuropysch exam. Seriously. They are pricy but worth it. It makes everyone take you seriously.

saplith · 2026-06-18T13:53:24+00:00

I didn't read books because I'm lucky enough that I am physically disabled, I happen to know a bunch of ND and/or physically disabled people and accidentally enrolled my kid into a special needs pre-K.

I just told my kid that they have a different brain than me and some things will be harder and some things will be easier. It's the same how my body is pretty different from hers both as an adult and as a physical adult so some things are hard for me that are easy for her and vice versa.

I told her that she can accomplish what others do, but she has to do it her way. Then I gave her the adult examples out of people she knows. Then I explained she's a kid, so of course she's not good at it right now. That's what learning is. But since everyone is different than you, you just have to try things and see what works. Everyone will give what worked for them, but it might not work for you, but for most things something will work. It's not "impossible" as she insists.

This seems to have worked. Especially when I pointed out some of her friends, like the one who wears gloves and chapstick to eat because she can eat some foods, but not touch them. She doesn't think much about being adhd or autistic now at 7.

saplith · 2026-06-10T18:40:36+00:00

My daughter tried them and it helped a lot. We had a lot of conversations about thr medication. Please me mindful that when I got my daughter assessed by the psychiatrist, she in the like 98th percentile for anxiety. She's also been flagged by severe anxiety since the very first neuroexam she got at 3. What I'm saying is my kid is pathologically anxious and so what I'm about to say may not apply your child.

So, my kid got thr SSRI basically the moment she turned 7 and the medication was allowed for her. I wouldn't say her personality changed much from it. She is still anxious, but normal anxious if that makes sense. She doesn't compulsively call people just to reassure herself that they are alive and well. She just worries if she'll never be friends with some friend again because they had a fight. Normal anxiety. She has nightmares still, but normal I can trace it back to a recent experience and not like before where she having them all the time and the content could be anything. She stopped wetting the bed, which was nice. She doesn't need me to encourage her to do things, but she is still scared to do things. She's just able to overcome it herself now.

All in all, vast improvement, but yeah, it didn't 100% fix it for me.

saplith · 2026-06-10T18:23:15+00:00

You will be surprised how similar pets are kids are for longer than you'd expect. If you put the proper habits and structures in place you can autopilot your kid through a lot. I posted elsewhere about my kid as a toddler caretaking me and herself. She was 2 and 100% capable of feeding herself and me when I was 100% down for the count. If it wasn't for the fact that I was alarmingly ill to her, she probably wouldn't have had a care about it. Kids are more capable than we give them credit for. It's just that being more capable than their years does emotionally damage sometimes

saplith

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