Wake Up!

I think it's safe to say that most of my parenting career has focused around sleep.
Either it's getting the kids to sleep through the night or getting them to stay asleep until the morning. And by morning I mean anything with a 6 in it. Excuse me, anything starting with a 6. That is 6.01AM onwards. My kids have always had an affinity with waking around 5AM. Or earlier on some awful occassions.

"Tell them to wake up when the sun gets up."
"Give them a digital alarm clock and tell them to get up when it says 7AM"
"Give them a regular clock and show them where the big hand needs to on the 12 and the little hand on the 7."
"Give them vodka." (finally a reasonable suggestion).

But it never mattered.
If one woke up at 5AM I was always too worried that by forcing them to stay in bed, they would by virtue of their loud protests, wake one of the other two. And whilst it's terrible to be up at 5AM with one kid, it is far, far worse to be up at 5AM with all three children.
And so, through fear, fear of the early riser yelling head off, we have been (well I say we, but let's face it, Richard is no earlier riser, and at times that I have unceremoniously kicked him out of bed to deal with the early rising child, I have felt terribly sorry for said child as Mr Grumpy yells head off and bangs around house and makes enough noise that he then wakes the other two, at which point he then has all three children awake and then everyone is yelling which means I dont stand a chance of getting back to sleep anyway. Instead, Richard and I have come to a gentleman's agreement. I get up at Dawns crack, manage the rugrats, and at 7AM I wake him up and crawl back into bed. At 7AM Mr Richard is a far sunnier individual to be around, and I feel safe in the knowlege that he will look after them, as opposed to finding large cushion to suffocate them.

I recall the Dora the Explora alarm clock we bought Ella, or perhaps it was the Hello Kitty Clock. After studiously explaining to our two year old what the number 7 looked like, she took off with the box and sung it to sleep in her dolls pram. Later I think she dropped it, inserted steel blades into it and tortured the alarm clock, because aside from her never really understanding that the number 7 takes about 2 hours longer to appear than the number 5, by the time she was old enough to appreciate numbers, she had completely destroyed the clock.

Then came the lessons in regular clocks.
This is the big hand, this is the little hand, you have to wait until the little hand is here.
Points helpfully to the number 7 on the dial.
But again, when your now three year old wakes at 5AM, the patience required to wait until the little hand is on the 7 is almost non existant.
By the time first child was 4, we were working on the sun technique.
"You get out of bed when the sun comes up."
Ella arriving at 5AM in my bedroom.
Pitch Black.
"Ella, the sun is not up."
"Yes it is."
"No, ah, no, it is not"
"Yes it is, I can see it."
*Looks around in pitch black room for mobile phone to read time*
"Ella it is bloody 5 AM !"
"Is that when the sun gets up Mama?"
"Ella you can tell when the sun gets up because you can see in your bedroom without turning the light on. Mores to the point honey, you can see in Mummy's bedroom without turning the light on."
And on and on it went, week after week. Ella waking up with no intention of waiting for the sun to join her, and me too scared to make her go back to bed.

Oh I hear you.
Reward charts.
Yes, had them, thousands of them, all sorts of stars, all sorts of stickers.
Nope, she's not interested.
Threats!
Nope tried that. No good.

But bribes.
No-one had mentioned bribes to me.
They say you get more honey catching flies.
And doesnt one just!
"Ella if you sleep until the sun comes up tomorrow morning Mummy will give you a chocolate doughnut."

Yes, terrible.

But.

It worked.