The problem with young children is that they have no concept of time. When they wake up, it is time for everyone to get up whether it is 4:30 or even earlier. And, young children can’t just go make themselves breakfast while we lounge around in bed until a reasonable hour.
We were going crazy. Sure, Little Man was sleeping through the night, but he was getting up so early that we were still loosing sleep. And, since he couldn’t tell time, it was impossible to convince him that it was not time to get up.
Enter the most amazing alarm clock in the world…
It took me forever to find this thing, but once I did, it changed our lives. It is not really an alarm clock. It is actually kind of the opposite of an alarm clock. Rather than telling your child to wake up, it tells them it is NOT time to get up. (Queue angels singing.)
It is simple. You set the night light on the clock and then set a wake up time. Instead of a bell ringing to wake your child up, the color of the light changes. It took all of 30 seconds to explain to our child that he cannot get up until the light turns green.
Now, instead of him demanding to get out of bed at 4:45, we hear a sweet little voice at 6:00 in the morning (or much later!) saying, “Mommy. The clock turned green. This has even made it into our family jargon. When we put him to bed, we say, “I’ll see you when the clock turns green.” And, he says things like, “Mommy, when the clock turns green can we play trains (cars, transformers, whatever.)
Oh, and it has a digital and analog display with a button that says the time out loud so he is actually learning how to tell time too.
If you have a young child that gets up way too early, you have to try this thing. You might be able to find it locally, but I just got ours from Amazon.com.
What a great idea!