This summer my son's bedtime has gone to pot. My son has historically in his life time gone to bed very early. The first summer he was alive he wanted to go to bed at 6:30 for the night, and then would wake up twice to eat and go straight back asleep. The following winter he went down at 5:45 to 6 (it was dark at 4:30-5ish). This summer, he figured out that he doesn't like to go to bed, if the sun is out, and daddy is playing. I am not a mother that likes children in the evening. His bed time got later and later, until he was up until 9:30, and once we moved he started walking up at 7 with his dad. I can't handle that, it wasn't enough sleep, I was fine with the late bed when he was waking up at 9. When my child is whiny most of the day, I immediately calculate how much sleep he is getting. Plus when is naps went from barely 2 hours, to 3 or 4 I knew that was a bad sign. (Although some would say that is a miracle, I disagree if the whole rest of the day is filled with wines.) As I was frantically trying to figure out what to do I remembered a thing I saw in Parent's Magazine. This mom marked on a clock when it wasn't ok for her sons to get out of bed in the morning (her kids were getting up at 4:30 and 5) and when it was ok.
I decided to try a try a variation, last night got a clock, for $3.50 at Wally world. I popped off the plastic cover, and we deocrated it all fancy like. I made sure to put the cover back on because I didn't want moving the hands.
My son picked out the stickers and we made it fun looking. I didn't really want red, I thought the blue would be nice, but I thought about my son, and I knew he would pick red, the only time he picks blue over red is if the blue has Thomas the tank engine on it. I just taped the arrows on, so they can be moved as time goes on. When it starts to get darker early I plan on moving up his bedtime, but now my husband doesn't want him in bed before 9, because he enjoys playing with him. I have been having an equally hard time with naptimes so that got an arrow too. My husband was saying maybe we should take off the minute and the second hand that way it doesn't get confusing which hand has to pointing where. Part of me thought that was a good idea, and part of me doesn't want to confuse my son when he does try to start telling time. I think he is smart enough understand its where the short hand is.
He is so happy and proud of his new clock. We hung it low on the wall so he could see it at eye level. It will also be useful to pratice numbers. (This picture was totally him, I took a picture of the clock and he wanted to see, I asked if he wanted a picture of him with the clock, and he stood there and laughed, because he was so excited.)
(I can't take a picture on a digital camera without image stablization, and when I turn off the flash so there is no glare it often is very blurry.)
