Talk to Me – Early Risers

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.

HERE

HERE

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!!!