I just wanted to share this great discovery that we've made. As I probably lamented on here before, Jackson was not sleeping well for a while. We did eventually get to where he would stay in his bed when we put him down at night (after locking him in his room for a couple of nights), but he was still waking up way too early, like 5:00 AM. That's too early for me. His door would still be locked so he'd be in there crying until I decided it was time for him to get up. But I had a hard time doing this...not only did I not actually sleep any more with him crying, but I felt it really wasn't fair to him... What's the difference in his mind when he wakes up at 5:00 or at 6:00? And does he think if he cries long enough I'll get him, since he just cries til 6 anyway?
I'd thought of trying to rig up some clock somehow but hadn't come up with anything. Then a friend told me about a clock that another friend has for her kids. And I was sold.
You can set the time that the clock glows green, which means that it is ok to get out of bed. This means when he wakes up at 5:00, he can see that the clock isn't green yet so it isn't time to get out of bed. When we got ours, we practiced several times (you can manually make it turn green too). He loves it! He tells everyone who comes over about it and has to show them. We started at 6:15 and have moved it back a little at a time and we're now at 6:35. He still wakes up earlier several times a week and will get up and come into our room sometimes but we just take him back and tuck him in again and tell him that he can get up when his clock turns green, and he stays put. And if, by chance, he sleeps later than the "green" time, it doesn't wake him up but he can see that it is green whenever he does wake up.
There are two different versions of the clock, one that is just the clock and can be set to turn green for naps and for night time, and another that can only do night time, but it also teaches the kid to tell time (when they get a little older of course). It has worked for us! We're all happier and getting a little more sleep these days.
Brilliant!
...now if I could only get Clayton to catch on to the green clock thing...
6 comments:
Love it! I was talking to Jackson about it last night. He seemed pretty excited about the thing.
Maybe the post title should have been "Bright Idea" that would have been a more obvious pun :) "Brilliant" is good too though
Now that Eliza has started climbing out of her crib...sigh...I think we're really going to have to invest in one of these babies! You are awesome!
that's a pretty cool clock idea. : )
That is a great idea... don't ya wish you had patented the idea first? So glad it's working for you.
I think we are going to get one of these for Saku. He just moved to his big boy bed and got up at 5 am the other morning. Thanks for sharing this so hopefully it can helps us too.
It looks like you have won many battles lately with sleep issues and pacifiers. Way to go!! And thanks for sharing them with me. It helps to know what other moms do when they have "problems" that need solving. You are a great mom!!
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