Operation Kids Sleep In

So, it's no secret my boys are early risers. Usually if they sleep until 6:30 I am in heaven, but it's generally more like 5:30 to six. We are trying with all our might to push this back a little for several reasons. Among them. It's SUMMER people and there's no reason whatsoever to be up before the sun. Also, next year we are a late starting school & the kids won't have to be there until 9:40. AND in a few short days we'll be vacationing in the Central Time Zone and I'd really rather not have them waking up in the middle of the night.

In an act of desperation we've pushed bedtime back. We've done this before but it's never stuck. Mostly because it.doesn't.work. They still get up early, just with less sleep and more fussiness. I'm trying really hard to keep this 8:30 bedtime though because eventually they have to start sleeping later. Right? It's been a week and boy have we been cranky around here. Yesterday afternoon 3 of them fell asleep and snoozed for 2 hours. I knew it was a mistake to allow that but I seriously needed the peace, and it allowed me to get some stuff done.

I figured with a long afternoon nap that bedtime would be a nightmare. Eric went right to sleep (because he is like his momma and values his sleep.) Zack and Ben kept getting up and Mark was up there playing parent trying to chase them back into the appropriate beds. We let it go on for quite a while and finally, at ten got everyone to sleep. Except for Zack, who finally dozed off at 11:30. I may have made a snarky comment about we used to have kids that woke up early, but they at least went to sleep at night. Now they didn't go to bed AND woke up too early. Anyone care to venture a guess who woke up first? Yep, Zack. It's going to be a long day.

The upside of all of this is that while Zack was up early for his late bedtime, it was the acceptable hour of 6:30, and everyone else rolled out of bed around 7:00. So I guess we're making progress. Now my goal for today is to keep them AWAKE through the afternoon so that maybe they'll go to sleep tonight.