Sleep Problems Solved

My kids have always been very early risers. When Jacob was a baby I had a rule that I didn't get him out of his crib until 6:00 in the morning. I have tried to stick with this rule with all of my kids. I can handle 6:00, barely, but I can't handle anything that starts with a 5. All of my kids share a room and we have a problem with them waking each other up early in the morning. We started getting into a pattern where either Jacob or Nathan would wake up and get out of bed waking the other in the process, then they would both be in our room at 5:30 wanting breakfast. We would send them back to bed, but they, especially my sweet Nathan, have no concept of being quiet and would wake the baby. This led to me being very grouchy. We also started finding kids asleep in our bed with us during the night. We don't normally let them sleep with us, as much as I love to cuddle with my kids, I just can't sleep when I have a kid squished up next to me. This was all becoming a very big problem. Well, one day, in the November issue of Parents Magazine, I found the answer to my problem. It is called the Good Nite Lite (www.goodnitelite.com). It is a night light that looks like the moon at night and turns into the sun when it is time to get up. It has a clock that you can set for when you want the moon to turn on at night, and for when you want the sun to turn on. We have the moon turn on at 7:30 pm, that lets the kids know that it is time to get ready for bed. We started with the sun coming on at 6:15 and have gradually moved it up. A couple of days ago we were finally able to turn it to 7 am. It has worked so well. It was expensive, but for us it was well worth the money. My kids know that they are not allowed to get out of bed until the sun comes up, and usually they are really good about it. We don't even have unwelcomed visitors in our bed anymore. I am so happy, now if only I could get Adam to understand the concept, he is still waking up between 5:30 and 6.