Something is wrong with our chlidren.

5:45am can't be normal. 5:45am is a bad time to start a day. 5:45am is exactly 35 minutes before my alarm goes off. 5:45am can't be a normal time for our children to start rolling out of bed.

There is something wrong with our children. Did we, as parents, do something wrong that gave our children the idea that they need to be getting up so early? Every morning, we fight the 'get up' time with all 3 of our older children, and here is the dilemma:

Our youngest, we try to keep asleep at least until 7:30a, preferably 8a. But at 6a, when the other kids have long since started to roll out of bed, I have to choose; do I keep them quite, but up? Or do I make them stay in bed until 7a (their normal, allowed, time to get up)? If I force them back to bed and they throw a big stink, they could wake up the baby. And that would be bad, too.

I recognize that in a number of years, the challenge will be reversed and we will be unable to get our children out of their beds in time for school. But for now, I can not understand what pushes them to get up so.dang.early.

If you have any ideas that do not involve chains, whips, gags, sleeping pills, medicine or sharp pops on the head, please feel free to share. Until now, we've been able to avoid the these methods, but golly - we sure would like to sleep in a few minutes past 6am...