Dear Parents who
love sleep as much as I do and have early risers, tell me….how do you keep your
kid/s in their room in the morning?!!
Before moving to the
big boy bed, Henry would wake up early but contently laid in his crib. He would talk to his 15 “friends” that were
in bed with him, watch his projector “movie”, or even find ways to reach his
toys through the crib bars and bring toys in to his prison crib to play. Honestly, he would be fine in there for 30+
minutes (emphasis on the +) which gave mom and dad time to wake up without a kid all up in our business sleep a little longer.
And then we moved
him to a big boy bed and sleep seemed to cease as we know it.
Now, we get a wake
up call anywhere from 5:00am – 6:00am (6:30 IF we are lucky) that goes something
like this:
Hear rustling in his
bed through the monitor.
Hear footsteps run
to the door, open door, slam the door closed. (always slamming doors)
Hear bathroom door
open, slam close and peeing.
Hear flushing and
slamming the toilet seat closed. (We get it kid, you presence is known)
Hear rather loud
footsteps RUN down the hall. (My son walks like Godzilla, I swear)
See blinding light
flash in the room as terry and I reach for the sheets to protect our eyes from
the light.
Hear “Time to get
up!!!!” Usually followed by “I want to go downstairs and get pancakes!!!”
Followed by “MOM! No more sleeping!”
Sometimes he will
crawl into bed with us (save your “awwwwww, that is sweet” until you read the
rest) but bring the loudest, most obnoxious toys** ever to play with in our bed before
we have had enough and just go downstairs.
Well played my son. Well.
Played.
(And yes, that is actually our room with the snoopy stuffed animals and lava lamp.)
This week alone it has been this monkey that screams, a toy truck that
has batteries dying so gets stuck on the same annoying 3 seconds of a song
repeatedly when turned on, and pig bank with coins that sings.
UGH.
Now we had tried
putting a child lock on the door knob on the inside when we first moved him to
the bed. That lasted all of THREE days
before he figured out how to remove it.
We taped that thing on and he kept removing it. Sure, it delayed the inevitable….but it just
became a pain for us to keep putting back on.
Last night we moved
a few door knobs and put one with a locking mechanism on backwards so we could
lock it from the outside and he would be locked in. This morning instead of hearing the footsteps
we hear pounding on the door followed by “MOM, I HAVE TO PEE NOW!!!!”
Fail.
I have heard about
and seen these.
Wake up clocks. I guess I wonder if
they really do work?
See, I have a very
independent toddler. The kind of toddler
who knows he isn’t supposed to do something, but does it anyways. Example, he had a screw (don’t judge) and was
hammering it into an empty box because Terry was using a screw and Henry wanted
to do the same. Henry went to the wall
and wanted to hammer it in the wall. Of
course we yell say “NO! Do not hammer that
into the wall. You are not allowed to do
that.” To which he replies “Yeah, I know
but it will be OK. It is fun!”
Yeah, that is what
we are working with here.
So, I am not sure if
one of those clocks would keep him in the room or not. Plus, if he has to pee, it won’t get him back
in the bed once he is out.
So talk to me
parents: Do you lock your kids in the
room? Do you let them come into your
room? Do you just suck it up and get up at 5am with them? Do they stay in their room when
asked? How do you handle the potty
situation?
Just curious!
**Please note that we do not buy the obnoxious toys and have noted those who give us obnoxious toys so we can return the favor. We are not ungrateful for the toys....but come on parents, I think we agree that there are select toys out there that if you receive from someone, chances are they are trying to tell you they don't like you or you did something to piss them off!!!
