I can’t really complain.  Ever since sleep training at 6.5 months, my kids have generally been very good sleepers.  A hiccup here and there, but overall solid.  Whatever combination of good luck and good habits have gotten us there, I am grateful.

Especially so that my kids tend to start the day at the incredibly reasonable hour of about 7AM.  Sometimes they wake up earlier and chat for a while, sometimes they sleep even later and don’t require my attention until nearly 8. (Insane! I know!)  The trouble is that, every now and then, Rebecca will wake up extra early (like 5:45 or 6AM).  Not only have I grown so used to the luxury of 7-7:30 that I can’t handle the sight of a 6 on the clock, but she tends to be pretty cranky if she gets up at that hour and clearly needs more sleep.  And yet, shockingly, my attempts to tell her that it’s “too early” or “not time to get up yet” have fallen on deaf ears.  Since, brilliant though my children are, they cannot yet tell time.

Enter: the Good Nite Lite.

My friend Rebecca got one first, on recommendation from someone in our twin club.  After hearing her raves, and a few extra early (and cranky) mornings, I hopped online and got one for myself.  The deal is that you set your bedtime and wake-up time on the clock.  At bedtime, the light turns on and is a blue moon.  The blue moon stays on all night.  At wake-up time, it changes to a yellow sun.  The sun stays lit for a couple of hours, and then turns itself off for the rest of the day.

Want to know how long it took my kids to adjust to their new light?  Approximately 15 seconds. Seriously.  It arrived in the mail, I set the time and put it up in their room.  That night, I told them that the blue moon means it’s nighttime and time to sleep.  When it turns to a yellow sun, that means it’s morning.  They thought it was very cool.  And the next morning, at 7AM on the nose, the excited shrieks came from their room.  “MOMMY!  Sun is yellow mommy!  Means it’s daytime!  MOMMY! Sun is YELLOW!”

A couple of times, Rebecca woke up cranky while the moon was still blue.  I went in the room and asked her what color the light was. “Blue.”  And what does that mean? “Nighttime.”  It wasn’t an ungodly hour in the middle of the night, so I didn’t really expect her to fall back asleep.  But I offered her a book to read in her bed, and told her to tell me when the light turns yellow.  And then I walked out.  And that was that.

This is genius for toddlers and preschoolers.  It gives them a way to understand daytime and nighttime, even if sunrise is early (though we do have blackout shades in their room) and they can’t read a clock.  They have the independence to figure it out for themselves, and it removes the burden of argument.  It’s not that mommy is making me go back to bed.  It’s that the clock says it’s nighttime.  End of story.

The only down side is that the days of sleeping in (or, at least, lounging contentedly in their beds) seems to be mostly gone.  While I don’t think the yellow light is enough to wake them up if they’re asleep, I suspect much of the time they’re already quietly awake, and see the change of color, and immediately feel the need to notify me of this event.   And on the “minor annoyance” front, the light does have to be plugged in, but does not come with a long cord (just the outlet plug coming straight out of the back).  So I kind of had to jerry-rig an extension cord to hang it on a mostly un-used lamp.

But those two small complaints aside, I love this thing.  It resolved a somewhat minor but annoying issue in our sleep routine (and, as we know, better-rested kids are happier kids, and happier kids make happier moms), and removed a power struggle.  At this age, I will be grateful for small victories.

Disclosure: I was not compensated, or in any way asked, to write about this thing. I just like it, and thought you should know!

Whew! *knock on wood*, it appears to have been a short-lived phenomenon. I definitely heard Daniel around 4:45-5:00 this morning, and decided I was not getting up unless he sounded like he was in distress. Next thing I remember is him chatting/squawking at the much more reasonable hour of 6:30. I’m pretty sure he quieted down at 5:00 and went back to sleep, but early-morning cognitive function for me is a little fuzzy. Either way, we started the day at 6:30 this morning, which makes me feel 100 times better. Hooray!

Because New England likes to kick you in the ass just as soon as you’re starting to get hopeful, it’s about 38 degrees with a predicted “wintry mix” all day today. Awesome. Some day it will be spring, so they tell me.

On the plus side, we start our sign language class tomorrow! Hooray for an outing for all four of us. I hope we all enjoy it. My kids will likely be the youngest in the class (stated age range is 8-24 months, my kids will be 8 months next week), but I’m hoping it skews toward the younger end of the range and it’s not a bunch of almost-2-year-olds. We shall see…

Can someone tell me what the deal is with 4:45 in my house?! Yep, two mornings in a row.

Yesterday morning was a nightmare. When last I wrote, Daniel had gone down for a nap at the ridiculous hour of 7AM. I put Rebecca down at 7:45. Not two minutes later, Daniel was up. I was practically in tears. An hour later he finally went back down for maybe another 45 minutes. The 45-minute trick is usually Rebecca’s, but at least she took a decent hour-and-a-half nap. When Daniel was (more than) ready for his afternoon nap at noon (also on the early side), I was worried. It could have gone either way… either a day of crappy cat-naps, or he’d crash. Thankfully, he crashed and slept for 2 1/2 hours, and the afternoon was significantly better than the morning.

But now, here we are again!! As yesterday’s strategy was not particularly successful, I figured I’d try something different. At 4:45, Daniel was talking and Rebecca was crying. I got Rebecca back to sleep, Daniel clearly was not going down. Talking degraded into crying. I made sure he wasn’t stuck in a corner, and decided to leave him be. Of course, he just kept screaming. After a while (and him becoming louder and louder), I thought I’d try to bring a bottle upstairs, feed him in the dark, and sit in the rocking chair with him. I know, it’s like the anti-Ferber, but it seemed worth a try. Well, he was calmer, but he didn’t got to sleep. Still, I figured I’d stay quiet in the dark until 6. So, here we are again. We’ll see what happens today.

But honestly, WTF is up with the 4:45 wake-up? What changed? Bedtime is the same as it always was (about 7pm). It’s not like it’s light outside that early, and they have room-darkening shades, anyways. No idea. I just hope it’s a phase that will pass quickly…

Sadly, you can’t talk reason to a seven-month-old.

Daniel was awake at 4:45 this morning, and fully refused to even consider going back to sleep. Fine, great. 5:15, we’re downstairs. Good times. At 5:45 I went up to get Rebecca, because I was not going to have them start the day more than an hour off from one another. While I know plenty of people say never to wake a sleeping baby… when there’s two, you do what you must to preserve the schedule, or the entire day is shot to hell.

So, I get Rebecca up. Fine. By 6:30AM, Daniel is (surprise!) exhausted and melting down. 6:30!! Come on, now! You’re killing me. By 7 I could not do anything more for him, and put him down for a nap. At seven o’clock in the fricking morning. When our usual morning nap starts between 8:30 and 9:00. Why do I feel like he’s the one who got up at 4:45, but I’m the one being punished? I wanted so badly to explain to him that he would have been much, much happier if he had just gone back to sleep at 4:45, but he wasn’t having it.

And, of course, Rebecca is wide awake. Greeaaat. I’m going to try to put her down between 7:45 and 8:00, and hope that I’m not totally screwed. I hate these days.