Despite the atrocious weather of late we are in the midst of late spring and with this comes one of a parents biggest annual challenges; brighter mornings! My children have not been immune to the effects of sunrise at silly o’clock in the morning and sunset even later. Joseph, who has never been an early riser, has all of a sudden decided that 5.45am is time for breakfast and will use all of his big blue eyed charm (an a toy or two to the head) to get his own way.
So, I find myself downstairs before the central heating kicks in and before Cbeebies has wiped the sleepy dust from it’s eyes sorting the little man out with his coco pops and his apple juice. All of these early starts makes him a very tired little boy and he still likes his naps, but tends to take them at the wrong time of day, usually during the afternoon school run or even sometimes in the middle of dinner!
Obviously these afternoon kips have a negative effect on his bedtime routine as even the odd ten minute snooze will recharge his batteries and leave him wide awake until stupid o’clock in the evening. In my heart I know it’s time to cut out the naps but I’m finding the transition really, really hard. He can become very grumpy, very quickly when he’s tired and half of me wants him to curl up for a sleep just for the easy life, after all it’s not as if I go to bed at 8pm. My attempts at “quiet time” after lunch with arts and crafts or even a game on Imogen’s Kurio seem to have worked at keeping him awake to a certain degree but with all the best of intentions once he’s in the car or the pushchair on the unavoidable afternoon school run he’s sounds asleep.
Half term next week will see me battle with Joseph’s sleep routine. Orders have been placed for Gro-Clocks and other sleep trainers, I’m looking into the cost of some custom made blackout blinds from Hillarys blinds and reward charts are being made. If all of this fails I’ll be setting my alarm for 4.45am and trying the wake-to-sleep method, wish me luck!
(RRP £34.99) was the first to be opened and is a great value set with 20 pieces including a combine harvester, tractor, trailers, farm animals, fencing, straw bales and even a pair of farmer figures, everything you need to make a great farm! This is suitable from ages 18 months + and is made from good quality plastic. Imogen and Joseph had great fun creating their own farm, popping the farmers into their vehicles and carrying out highly important jobs around the farm.
are also from the range for pre -schoolers and are suitable from ages 12 months +. Johnny and Allie are rubber and squishable with roll along wheels, they are perfectly shaped for tiny hands and Joseph can usually be found with one in a paw.
now with hopefully more to follow suit very soon.
priced at £12.99.
he’s cheap enough to be replaced when the inevitable happens.
