Sleep training

In the last month it FINALLY clicked! Both kids now stay in their rooms until 8am every day! Woo-hoo! We have these monkeys, see ... they are amazing. You set them at night by putting their eyes closed and they "wake up" at the time set for them in the morning. Genius! There was many a morning when I had to send them back to their rooms after asking them, "is your monkey awake?" Now when Josiah wakes up he grabs his rocking horse out of the hall and goes back inside until his monkey wakes up. He sometimes wakes up as early as 7am ... but he stays in there until he's allowed out! Elizabeth sometimes wakes up @ 7:30/45 and she uses the bathroom and climbs back into her bed. I feel like I can finally enjoy my mornings!!

I would say that the monkey works best with children who are closer to 3 ... they just don't seem to "get it" before then. There are other sleep training clocks out there and they probably work just as well. We just happened to settle on this one! As a parent you aren't off the hook once you purchase something like this ... you have to do the work of training them to stay in their room ... pointing them back to the clock every time. Also, if your child currently wakes up @ 6am every day you can't expect for them to stay in their room until 8am just because the clock says they should. You must start with reasonable goals with your child and work toward a time that gives you and your child peace!

You can check out all of them HERE at Amazon.com. Our monkey clocks are about half way down the page - and remember the clock is NOT a toy, do not be fooled into allowing your child to carry his/her monkey all around the house - it WILL break!!

THIS is why my children can't share bedrooms ...

Josiah.

My son "sings" himself to sleep. And the last 3 nights he has fallen asleep on the ground. I've been able to transfer him to his bed on two of the nights but last night I couldn't even open the door to get to him!

Early mornings (usually between 7 and 7:30) he comes out, asks to go pee and then I bring the rocking horse back to his room for him to rock on until his monkey wakes up. This morning I heard him come out of his room so I walked down the hall to intercept him. Instead I watched from the bathroom as he went into our room, grabbed his horse, pulled it down the hall to his room, shut the door and started riding. Yaaay!! He's SO my sweet little boy.

Gotta LOVE the monkey ... eyes closed: it's not time to get out of room, eyes open: come on out!

just in the nick of time...

Could hear Josiah "talking" himself to sleep (sounds more like "eh, eh, eh" than real talking. Sounded like he was out and so I went in to grab a stuffed animal that Ellie wanted ... Josiah was on his horse, eyes shut, swaying from side to side - about to fall off! I'm SO glad that I went in at that moment and swooped him into bed. Now that he's in his own bed I'll need to pay closer attention!