Do you wake your kids up when in WDW?

[verlee]

We......ok, ok,ok, I wake everyone up on most days. DH and DS9 are sleepers. They would sleep until 9am+ everyday if allowed. I cannot even begin to say how frustrating that is for me. I NEED to get up and go when we are in WDW. I would be at rope drop every day if I could. However, if I insisted on that, I would have an open rebellion. How do I know that would happen you ask..... So, we try to stagger early days with sleep in days. I walk the resort to combat my need to get up and get going. It almost helps me deal with my sleeping family .

 

[RalphinSC]

I wish I had this problem. As it is now, I'm not sure my child even needs sleep. He runs off of kinetic energy and solar power. The kid can go seventeen hours non-stop in a park, not even be sleepy, and then wake us up early the next morning by jumping on the bed. He's one of those ones that go from asleep to bouncing off the walls in three seconds. So of course, HE wakes US up early every morning while at Disney so he can get to the parks for rope drop. I plod along and do fine since I normally get up at 5am for work, but my poor DW needs a stroller in the mornings so we can push HER to the parks! LOL.

 

[janieenrose]

I am glad you asked that question. I had not thought about it, and I should have. I have two boys. One is an early riser (10yr) and the other (5yr) will sleep until noon if he needs to wake up to go to school, church, etc. I usually try to let him sleep until the latest possible moment before waking him. He tends to get cranky when tired. However, when he misses something because he slept in, he gets upset. Given we have early ADRs during our upcoming trip, not to mention early flights in and out of FL, I think I will have to wake him up. I will give him some warning of the newer schedule, make sure he is in bed early, and make sure we take mid-day breaks so he won't be too tired. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[fairestoneofall]

For the most part, yes, i wake them up. really, it's hard for them to stay asleep when both DH and i are up. on our past trip, we also had a six-month-old who woke up early to eat. honestly, even with waking them up, DS slept later than he would have for school. and DD requires less sleep, so she usually gets up early anyway.

now, when we went June 2010, we had ONE breakfast ADR. and DS was SO grumpy that morning. and we had an early night the evening before that (visited the pool, went to bed early). he finally perked up after breakfast. i had not pushed him to get up early on that trip--just that one day. of course, it was in the middle of summer, so he was used to sleeping later. and it was hot, so he may have been more tired because of that. and yes, we took afternoon breaks--i was not running them ragged by any means.

 

[eliza61]

Not before 7:30 (but then no one had better wake mama up before 7am lol).
We did this the first year on advice from everyone here who swore it would be a disaster if we didn't and it was the worst.
My kids get really cranky when tired and sorry for me, riding pooh 3x's was just not worth the headache.

I know people swear Disney is not a relaxing vacation but IMO the best vacations we've had at disney were the ones with no schedule, no rope drop and no adr's. We get more done and no one is cranky.
No one generally sleeps past 8:30ish and we are really fast dressers.
Now that my kids are teens/young adults we love late night EMH. lines are short, parks is magical after dark

I've never wanted to put my kids to bed early on vacation so sleeping late works so much better for us.

 

[Minnesota!]

We are morning people....at home and on vacation. We average (at home and on vacation) about 5 - 6 hours a night. Even my kids. So, we are 99% of the time up by 630/7 (without alarm clock) and out the door less than an hour later (including 4 showers, 4 people getting ready, etc). However, even if we weren't like this, I would still wake my kids up. We go from sun up (and most of the times before the sun is up!) to well past sun down.

Vacation at Disney World can be relaxing, but we prefer fast paced!

 

[Minnesota!]

I wish I had this problem. As it is now, I'm not sure my child even needs sleep. He runs off of kinetic energy and solar power. The kid can go seventeen hours non-stop in a park, not even be sleepy, and then wake us up early the next morning by jumping on the bed. He's one of those ones that go from asleep to bouncing off the walls in three seconds. So of course, HE wakes US up early every morning while at Disney so he can get to the parks for rope drop. I plod along and do fine since I normally get up at 5am for work, but my poor DW needs a stroller in the mornings so we can push HER to the parks! LOL.

Your son sounds like my sons. They drop about 10 at night and are bouncing off the walls by 5/530 each morning. My younger one does sleep more at times...but rarely.

My older son...since he was born...has required little sleep and is always happy...no matter how tired he should be!

 

[emsmommy323]

We woke up almost everyday between 630-7 and once one of us was up, everyone else woke up too. We were usually at the Food Court around 8 and we only made Rope Drop once at MK, but were there right around 9 everywhere else. HS had no rope drop that I can remember though, and we were there right at opening. The kids were pretty excited each morning anyway so getting up wasn't a problem. But they were asleep by 8-830 most every night!

 

[hollygolitely93]

My kids wake 6:30-7:30 am naturally. While at Disney they would have slept in much later if I didn't wake them between 7:30-8:00 am each morning for rope drop. The extra stimulation as we kept typical bedtimes. I compensated by rest times after lunch so my older one (5) could recoup and he even napped most days.

We woke them. But also be prepared they will sleep harder and longer than typical if you don't wake them.

 

[John Paul]

I'm struggling with the idea of waking them up for breakfasts and or to get into the parks early, but I also know they want to do a bunch of things that require you to get there around opening (TSM, Rapunzel, Peter Pan, other character M&Gs) and not long after. My girls at home usually wake up around 8am (give or take), but if they are tried they've been known to sleep until like 8:30-9am, and I bring them to school a little later...I have a 3Y0 and a 6YO.

Sooooo..it got me thinking, do you wake your kids up? Set an alarm (ugh..setting an alarm while on vacation)? Or take the 'you snooze, you lose' road..and just go when you can and make later b-fast ressies?

Not saying one is wrong or right, just bored and asking....since I can't get on WDW site to keep trying for O'hana (which I've been trying for weeks and can't get)!

We wake them early do whichever park from ropedrop till early afternoon. ten we let them swim or nap. we then return to parks for dinner or after dinner for EMH.

 

[DisneyLoverUSA]

We get up at 6:30 when we are on vacation. The resort starts serving breakfast at 7, so we get up at 6:30 and get dressed, go eat breakfast, then we are ready to go by 7:30.

You get way too much done in the first few hours the parks are open to sleep in and go later. LATER is when the parks get crowded.

 

[Cherinva]

Yes...we usually have the phone call wake us up...we like to get in early, and then take a break in the afternoon if needed.

It really depends on your children though....what works for them.

 

[tigeramy75]

I wish I had this problem. As it is now, I'm not sure my child even needs sleep. He runs off of kinetic energy and solar power. The kid can go seventeen hours non-stop in a park, not even be sleepy, and then wake us up early the next morning by jumping on the bed. He's one of those ones that go from asleep to bouncing off the walls in three seconds. So of course, HE wakes US up early every morning while at Disney so he can get to the parks for rope drop. I plod along and do fine since I normally get up at 5am for work, but my poor DW needs a stroller in the mornings so we can push HER to the parks! LOL.

I am right there with you. I WISH I had to worry about whether to wake them or not!!! They don't sleep past 6:30 at home...they are surely not going to sleep in when WDW is waiting!!! My DS7 does get worn out and will go to sleep as soon as we get back to the resort...DS4 could probably go for 24 hours and never need a break. I don't know where he gets it.

 

[bjscheel]

Yes, we are all on board with being early for rope drop. The one exception may be AK- we don't sweat rope drop there as much, so if we want a break we will do it that day.

DH wakes naturally around 5 am. DD10 is always up around 7 on Saturdays, the day she can sleep in. DD13 and I can easily sleep later on Saturdays at home, but not when there's Disney to do.

We tend to make it an early night most nights at Disney so we are in bed at a decent time.

 

[Annadesu]

We get up early, ourselves. There's no other way to it, in our opinion!

When we were kids, my mom didn't give us any options. It was get up or get left behind, lol. We got over it once we were in the parks, though.

 

[2kids2luv]

We also wake our kids up. DS and DD are usually up by 7 am even on weekends (we haven't used alarm clocks since DS was born). DH and I start getting ready about 7 am which wakes the kids. They eat in the room while we get ready and then head out to rope drop. We aren't late night park people either and always schedule at least one sleep in day. I would love to make an ADR for before MK opens but I'm not that crazy.

 

[angierae]

Since DD is a teenager, if we didn't wake her up, she'd sleep all day! But she doesn't grumble about getting up when we're at WDW

 

[MisWal]

We are not normally early risers, but we do get up early while at Disney. I like the early morning touring with a mid-afternoon break and then return for evening touring. I do plan one day mid-week that we are there to sleep in.

 

[john1928]

We do not wake up early while on vacation...

We've spent 44 days down there over the last 2.5 years and have yet to make a single rope-drop, but we have been swimming after 2AM probably 20 times so you can see how our schedule skews. We travel in the off season when lines aren't particularly bad, we stay for 10-14 days, and our oldest is only 4, so several of the busiest rides haven't been on our list in the past, all of which makes the laid-back approach easier.

We did go to a few breakfast ADRs, and it wasn't really an issue (at home we're generally up at 6:30 or so for work). But, all things being equal I'd rather not set an alarm and just wake up when we wake up while on vacation...

 

[Crystal824]

Yes, I woke DD up during our last visit to WDW. She was only 9 months old. Although most mornings, she was already awake early. I will wake her up on our upcoming trip too (she will be 21 months). I will probaby actually have to wake her most mornings on this upcoming trip because she sleeps later now than she did this time last year.