Everett has been sleeping from 8pm until 8am, reliably, for as long as we can remember. But he recently has had a bout of waking super early. Like 4:45am early. Probably a combination of new-sister + mom-not-there-for-the-bedtime-routine-for-a-week-because-of-her-back. We tried to let him cry it out, but after an hour it was just cruel. Since we're in no shape to do anything at that ungodly hour, I'm ashamed to say we'd plop him in front of the tv until we could get some coffee in us. By 9am he'd be on his 7OOth Thomas the Train and exhausted.
•••• In a cruel twist of irony, Alice sleeps beautifully until I wake her up at 8am. ••••
It finally occurred to me that I could try to explain to Everett that he was waking up to early. So one morning, we went straight from the crib to the rocking chair to cuddle, and we looked out the window. I showed him that all the lights in the houses were still off and everyone was sleeping. It was still dark – even the sun was still sleeping! He noticed there were no airplanes passing overhead (we're in the flight path for both LaGuardia and JFK, so typically there's one every 30 seconds).
I said "That's right! What a smart boy! Even the airplanes are still sleeping! So tomorrow, when you wake up, call for mommy. And if she doesn't come, that's ok, it's time to go back to sleep. I'll come and get you when the airplanes have woken up."
And... it's working. The last couple days he's been sleeping a little later and later, calling for mommy and then going back to sleep for a bit. Today he woke up at 6:45am, and you know what? I'll take it.
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