Thursday, December 22, 2011

What to do when your toddler starts waking up early

A few quick hints on what to do when your toddler very suddenly decides that three hours before sunrise is a good time to start the day.

1. Whimper to yourself quietly when you hear him calling for you at 4:30 in the morning knowing this has happened with enough frequency that it's going to be the norm for awhile.

2. Coerce your little man back to sleep for 20 minutes so you can trick your body into thinking you slept in.

3. Realize it's time to accept that early mornings can be productive and repeat the mantra, "I will become a morning person" over and over again.

4. Do a challenging yoga session while your toddler watches Sesame Street. You figure you might as well wake up every cell in your body despite the inability to bend over at this ungodly hour.

5. In addition to yoga, read 50+ pages in your book, take a shower, curl your hair, eat breakfast, and do the dishes all before even the dog wakes up for the day.  If you are going to be up, you might as well be productive!

6. Try not to cry when your neighbors comment on how tired you must be as you quickly realize your attempts at keeping him quiet are failing miserably.  Be thankful they have earplugs (yikes!) and that are super understanding about the whole thing.

7.  Look at the bright side, many people get up that early to go to a desk job that they hate. At least you get to stay home and play with your cute little man all day.

8.  Solicit advice from your friends on Facebook, someone has to have a good approach that will stick.

9.  Try not to drink copious amounts of coffee so that you can actually sleep when he finally goes down for a nap.

10. Channel your inner law student where you could think and operate intelligibly on a mere four hours of sleep a night.

And if none of these tips work succesfully, just count down hours until it's late enough in the day to have a glass of wine.  It's just a phase... you will both survive it, so keep your chin up, young person.


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