Early to Bed, Early to Rise

Miles has always been an early riser. Darrin & I are too, but Miles starting getting earlier and earlier when we moved him to his twin bed. We tried to set a rule that if he woke up before 6am, he had to go back to his bed. We would have to take him back and remind him that it was too early to get up and that he needed to stay in his bed. We would also tell him that he was not allowed to get in our bed. It broke my heart a little to tell him that, but I know that there can't be any gray areas with little kids.

Sometimes he would wake up and go to the couch....which also breaks my heart a little. But, I got over it and the new rule was that he had to stay in his bed or go to the couch, but that he couldn't get in our bed. Now, we even leave a blanket on the couch for him...

A friend told me about an alarm clock that changes colors at a certain time to help the child understand when it was ok to wake up. She said that it worked for her daughter, who is around Miles' age.

So, we invested in the "Teaching Me Time Talking Alarm Clock". This is what it looks like during the day...

We have it set so that it turns yellow at 7pm and stays that way all night...

At 6:15am, it turns green...

Miles says that yellow means "stay in my bed"....and green means "go see momma". It didn't work at first. We kept talking about it for several weeks and praising him when he stayed in bed. He even gets a sticker now when he waits until the light turns green to get up. I'm happy to report that he has stayed in bed until 6:15am seven out of the last eight mornings! He was consistently waking up between 5-5:30am, and now he often sleeps past 7am! I think he when the clock is still yellow it makes him lay there for just a little while and he ends up falling back asleep. Whereas before he would get out of bed the first time he woke up. The first thing he says when he sees us in the morning is "MY CLOCK IS DEEN!" Money well spent.