Just not before 6am, please.
Our ‘weekend’ house in the US was filled to brim over the holidays, and most mornings Hubby and I were the first ones up – little J never quite shook the jetlag and so the three of us were up and at ‘em around 5am most days (argh). But that changed when a friend of mine came for a visit with her three year old, and suddenly we were no longer the early birds.
Turns out, her little one was a wildly early riser. Let’s just say one morning when I stumbled downstairs at the crack of down, I found my friend drooling into her coffee as she watched her little daughter painting her nails. At 5:30am. And this was not the first activity of the day. It was crushing to realize I might never sleep again if this sort of thing was in my future, and so the conversation turned to tricks and tools to get older kiddos to stay in bed.
Here’s a look at what a few Yummy Mummies recommend to help win back your mornings:
The Gro-Clock is for children who are too young to read an ordinary clock. Its glowing screen showing images of stars and sun to communicate the difference between sleep and wake-up time. The changing images encourage children to stay in bed longer as they learn to ‘stay in bed until they see the sun‘. And latest version has a new feature allowing parents to choose whether or not to display the digital clock during the usual ‘stars to sun’ countdown. So older children can now start to learn digital time, as well as look for the arrival of the sun and the start of the day.
The Gro-Clock
Available at Bumps to Babes, HK$330