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.

SPY!!

I always say I wish I had a way to monitor the house at night to see exactly when the boys are up in the morning because they no longer come straight to me. Mark is the earliest riser and there are many mornings I know he's up before six, but I also suspect it could be even earlier.

Take Sunday night, for example. I woke up to a thud. Not a loud thud, mind you but it was obvious somebody was up. Kevin got up and caught Mark had gotten into the pantry and was opening up the marshmallow fluff I had bought at the grocery store. He actually had the inside seal partly open. This was at 4:20 am.

I don't know what he would have done if we had not heard him. Consume the entire jar of fluff? Turn on the TV and watch cartoons until an hour that would have been acceptable to be awake. These are the things I am dying to know.

Kevin and I have been talking about ways to solve our night time dilemma for awhile. We strongly believe that Mark is sleep deprived, leading to many of the cranky behaviors we see in him. So on Sunday afternoon Kevin discovered that our web cam has a motion detector video setting. Meaning we could set it up to record any time there is motion in the house when we have it turned on. It saw Mark walk down the stairs and go straight to the pantry. Unfortunately, it also caught on tape (errrrr, or rather the hard drive) Eric getting up and wrapping himself in the couch blanket and sleeping on the couch. As well as Ben going to my room and back up the stairs several times. Ben actually spent quite a bit of time in my bed, but I didn't realize he was up and down so often.

The only downsides to the video thing is that unless we wake up from the noise they make (and they are typically very sneaky!) we will not know until morning, also there is no way to tell what time the "action" occurred. To me the time is more important than watching their ornery little selves bound up and down the stairs.

However, we have a plan to solve the issue. We can just put a clock radio on the kitchen table at night and it will show the time for every little video clip.

Once we have an idea of how many times and which little boys are up in the night we will be able to find ways to keep them in their beds until an acceptable hour. At least that is my hope.

Who knew parenthood would turn us to spy tactics and surveillance? I surely did not.

Notice little boy in the lower right. Now he has a nice bed. If you can answer the question WHY? I'll be eternally grateful.