A North Dakota mom was shocked to find someone sat in her living room in the early hours.
Sarah Sathren (@sarahsathren) posted footage from her home security camera on TikTok, showing her son quietly making his way downstairs at 1:17 a.m.
Her 5-year-old wrapped himself in a blanket and settled in with his iPad to play Robox, completely undisturbed for three hours.
From left: Home security-camera footage shows Sarah’s son on the couch; and her husband entering the room.
@sarahsathren
Sathren, 36, told Newsweek that her son had gone to bed at 8 p.m., and their usual routine involves a color-coded nightlight in his room: red means stay in bed; and green means it is fine to wake up.
“He decided he was going to ignore that and be up for the day,” Sathren said. “He must have thought it was morning and decided to go grab his iPad.”
The unsuspecting mom only discovered him at around 4:30 a.m., when she woke up to use the bathroom and grab a glass of water.
“While I was drinking my water, I heard a noise in the living room,” Sathren said. “When I peeked in there, I saw someone on the couch on their iPad, and it was my youngest son. He has never done this before, so I was very shocked.”
It wasn’t until Sathren watched the footage that she saw how long her son had been awake for.
“When I looked back at the camera footage, I saw that he came down at 1:17, so he was playing on his iPad for three hours straight! I was really shocked,” Sathren added.
Just as she was trying to convince her son to go back to bed, her husband, Josh Sathren, a heavy-equipment operator who works shifts, was leaving for his early-morning job.
Josh’s schedule requires him to start work at 6 a.m., after a 45-minute commute. When their son began “throwing a fit” after being told to go back to bed, Sarah left Josh to handle it.
Sarah’s clip has gone viral over the course of just two days, amassing over 2 million views.
Over 3,000 TikTok users commented, with many parents saying it was harmless to see the little boy awake to play on his iPad.
“Roblox is fine and there are parent controls. I was watching MTV and listening to the ying yang twins at 5,” one user posted.
“Kids be kids. If it wasn’t a tablet they’d turn on a game system, if not that, then a TV or just play at 1 am,” another wrote.
A third user commented: “That’s crazy, mine won’t even walk down the hallway alone in the daylight.”
Sarah told Newsweek that, after she let Josh take over, their son fell back asleep straightaway.
“I let him sleep until 9:30 before I took him to preschool,” she said. “He also took a nice long nap as well when it was nap time to catch up on all that lost sleep.”
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