If you have been following along with my blog posts, you'll know that we sleep trained Mckenna at 6 months. I wrote a whole post about it with all the details here, so go take a look! Recently though Mckenna has been waking up between 5-6 am and her "set wake time" is closer to 7. Sometimes these sleep set backs are caused by development or illness or a number of other reasons. We determined this seemed to be that she just didn't know if it was time to get up or not. When we would go into her room, she would always ask "I'm all done sleeping now?" or "Its time to get up now?" Her room has blackout blinds so she really doesn't know if it's light out or not.
After a few weeks of this we decided a clock of some kind was needed. There are a few great toddler clocks on Amazon so check out all the options. We went with the Gro Clock and so far it's working really well!
The Gro Clock is a toddler friendly clock that encourages them to stay in bed until their "set wake time". We set Mckenna's wake time to 6:45 am and when we do our bedtime routine we just turn the clock on. When the clock is in sleep mode it shows stars and when it's time for her to wake up (6:45am) the sun comes onto the screen. It's very simple for toddlers to understand and Mckenna is really excited about it. There is also a cute short story book that comes with the clock that helps to explain why sleep is important and how the clock works.
Mckenna still seems to be waking early some mornings but she's content to stay in her bed. As soon as the sun rises on the clock she yells "Momma, Dadda the sun is up, it's time to get me up!" It's so cute and she grasped the concept right away.
We have only been using this clock for less than a week. It's possible the novelty will wear off, but I'm hopeful we will continue to use it for years to come. Everyone's child is different and this may or may not work for you. I think if you are having early mornings with your toddler, its worth trying!
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