Edited to add: Chaotic Mom, you rock! Thanks for explaining how to get a picture on my blog!!!
This is my first time posting a Works-For-Me Wednesday idea, but I found it on Rocks in my Dryer's blog (love the name, by the way) and loved it! So here goes.
Anyone who knows me has heard by now that my boys get up early. No matter how late they go to bed (and we've tried) they get up around six. When they were much younger, they used to get up around 5:30! At that time I finally found a source that explained that if you put your kids down for the night earlier, they will sleep later. It made no sense, but we tried it, and it worked. When they were a year or so, we were putting them down around 6:30 (so early!) and they would sleep until around 6:30/7. Such an early bedtime became really tough to maintain, so eventually we moved to 7 for their regular bedtime.
Since they were getting up, raring to go, before 6:30, we decided that 6:30 would be a good goal to shoot for. I bought a digital clock with big numbers and told them they had to stay in bed until 6-3-0. That worked for a while, but eventually they were getting up earlier and I had to take them back to bed reminding them to stay in bed until 6-3-0. Sometimes A would come in at 5:45 and would have a fit when I reminded him how long he had to stay in bed.
So I did two things (I know, this was a very long build up to get to what finally works, deal with it!) that have been working (at least for the last two weeks):
1) I have moved the time on their clock back little by little without telling them. Right now it is twenty minutes early. I know, very sneaky, but it helps!
2) The boys now have radio alarm clocks in their room. The rule is they have to stay in bed until the music goes on. And it's working!!! Plus I've been moving the time for them to stay in bed later and later, so as of last night it set for 6:45 (which is really 7:05 - shhhh, don't tell them!).
And that is how I've got my boys to "sleep in" - works for me!
If you are doing Works-For-Me Wednesday as well, please link to your post below. And remember, don't link and run - leave a comment! :)
19 comments:
I really like this "works for me Wednesday" and I think I may do it for a while, instead of the wordless thing!
I love your alarm clock idea, and did it with Bug Boy. he loves having TWO Clocks in his room, one analog and one digital. Hey, whatever works, right?
I started using a clock in dd's room when she was young--four maybe. I just covered up the minutes and she had to stay in bed until she saw a 7 (before I covered up the minutes, she got up a few times because it was 6:07 or something). I use the sneaky mom time thing especially around daylight savings. Thanks for the reminder!
Very clever! My oldest is an early riser, too. The alarm clock has been good for us too. He's not allowed out of bed before 6:00, and if others are still sleeping, he has to play quietly in his room until they're up (sometimes this works, sometimes...not so much!).
Helen is not allowed to come upstairs until a seven is the first number on the clock. She was coming up at 6:15 for a while, and then as it started getting light earlier and earlier, she'd come up when the sun came up. Made for some VERY unhappy parents.
So. Now there's the not-before-seven rule. Her clock is a little bit slow on purpose, but not TOO much, because she has been known to refer to other clocks and come up anyway: "The clock on the DVD player says seven and the clock on the microwave says seven. And YOUR clock says seven, Mommy!" Grr. Annoying smart little kid. LOL
My son's an early riser, too, and we've also found that keeping him up later doesn't help and actually makes it worse. I love this idea and will use it when he's old enough to read the numbers! (9 months is a little young, I think!)
Love it! My little one gets up way to early too... This morning was a good morning; he slept 'til 6:15. The past few mornings it's been before 6. Argh. Thanks for the tip! I"ll be sure to use it when he gets older.
I'm not doing Works for me, but I wanted to say that we put Noah to bed at around 9 and he stills sleeps until 7 am when we finally wake him up. I don't know how we'd get him to bed earlier nor would I want him to sleep too late. I just hope it'll straighten out once he starts school this fall.
I will be sharing this with my unfortunate sister who has kids that wake up around 5 daily (7 yrs old - 11 mos.)Luckily, I have kids who like to sleep in a bit and wake up around 7:30 and sometimes 8:00.
She's gonna love this!
Love this, mine are the exact same way. No matter what time they go to bed, by 6am they are up and ready to go.
Welcome to WFMW :) Mine is up too :)
wow great idea----
Wish i would have seen it when my kids were really little! :)
You are one smart momma- I am totally stealing this idea ;)
UGH. Each of my boys has been VERY different. Good news, as they get older they all seem to be sleeping better.
My WW pic was of our old house (my camera is on the fritz so I'm using old pics). The original owner had lived there for 50 years, didn't touch it much the last 10-15 years he had it. SO, I had to tear a lot of junk out, kill a lot of bugs (we HAD to use chemicals), then clear out the dead/live bugs and dust. I had to use chemicals twice, it was so bad.
I did all of this before our stuff arrived. Yes, it was a lot of work, and I gladly did it while Hubby watched the boys. ;)
LOL BTDT - Our kids were the SAME! Great idea to use it for your WFMW! Thanks for visiting my site!
Seriously? My boys, ages 5 and almost four, get up at the crack of dawn too. We put them in bed now at 8pm and it is still somewhat light out. We were letting them stay up till 9 but I am trying to do better. I don't know if I can do better than 8pm
Oh, what a great idea. I can't wait until my little guy is old enough to read a clock, he is always up at the crack of dawn too!
My first boy was an early bird too! Many days were started around the same time: 5:30-6am
Thanks for the tip if my second starts the same thing!!!
My kids are the same way. I will have to try this. We did the same thing...tried keeping them up late thinking they would sleep in and that was almost worse because then they were so crabby.
I have early risers, too - what a clever idea.
I love this idea. We have a bunny alarm clock where the ears go up/eyes open at alarm time. If the bunny is asleep so are my boys. Or that's how it worked until recently. I'm going to try your idea instead...
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