Waking Early in the Morning...

I love the book...healthy sleep habits, healthy child. Marc Weisbluth talks about "sleeps begets sleep" which pretty much means....putting your kids to sleep earlier and your kids will sleep longer. We have a 2 year old. We put him to bed at 6:45pm and he sleeps til 6:15am.

The other thing we have is a night light that you can set. It is a blue moon at night and you can set it for whatever time you want it to change to a yellow sun which means wake up. So if James wakes up before 6 am then we do not go in until we know the yellow sun has come up (unless of course he is hurting) I don't remember the website but it is something like www.goodnitelite.com. Good luck!

My SIL's daughter was the same way!!! They bought her a princess alarm clock that plays music and tell her she needs to stay in her bed (or maybe in her room reading books??) until the musci plays--they choose a tolerable time for them. It's working like a charm. She just turned 3 and they started it shortly before that I think. They also have a reward chart for the days she follows the new rule, and after "x" number of days, she gets a reward; I believe they are working on increasing the number of consecutive days of staying in bed. Hope that helps!

Do your girls know their numbers? When my son was 2 he started waking up really early, so we bought him a digital clock. We covered up the minute numbers so he could only see the hour number, and we told him that he couldn't get up "until the clock says 7." It worked beautifully.

Good luck -- it's really hard when you don't get enough sleep!

Hi, my little one did that as well at that same age. I know that part of the issue was the time change. Everytime the time changed, his sleep schedule also changed so that he would wake up earlier (it didn't seem to matter if the clocks went forwards our backwards). It took some time but it eventually righted it self out so that he would go back to sleeping until 7am.

I'm sure you've looked into this but just make sure that you have blackout shades in the room so that it's pitch black whenever they are sleeping.

T.,

Did this correspond with the time change? My kids always struggle with daylight savings time, mostly in the fall, but in the spring, too. You can darken their room - black out shade or dark curtains. 8:00 seems a little late for a two year old, especially if they don't nap anymore. With little ones, the rule is "sleep begets sleep." The more they get, the more they want. I know that's counterintuitive, but they just seem to work that way. Try moving bedtime earlier in 10 minute increments. They may be so overtired by the time they go down that they can't get a good night's sleep.

Good luck,
S.

I don't know that I have any real advice for you -- our sone 2 & 1/2 wakes up some days as early as 5am. I am looking into getting a night lite with a timer or an alarm clock.

However, I will say that "putting your child to bed earlier" does NOT work -- especially if you already have a reasonable bedtime. Trust us we've tried this several times in lenghts of 2 weeks or more and all we got was a crabbier kid who was not ready to go to bed.

Good luck.

Hello T.,
I wanted to resopond because I'm in the same situation you are. I have 22 month old twin boys who started sleeping in big boy beds in January. They have been doing so well but the last 2 weeks they've been waking up in the morning... too early for me:] I'm glad you asked this question!
I've started to make sure I put them to bed at the same time every night & before they go to be I talk to them about sleeping until they see light in their room. They seem to understand. I heard them wake up, russel around for awhile and then it was quiet again. I like the moon & sun night light idea that one of the other moms gave.
Good luck!

Hi T.,

You didn't say what time they usually get to bed, and I know this sounds totally wrong, but it is a proven fact that if you put them to bed a little earlier they will sleep later. I've heard this more than once....and what could it hurt to try.?

C.