'no getting up til light goes on'

[earlyriser]

I am trying to get my 18mo old to sleep later in the mornings (currently 5.25am) and am going to start using the 'no getting up til the light goes on trick'. But how exactly do you explain this to a 18mo old? This moring i stayed with her until get up time (when i switched the light on and made a big fuss of 'oh look the light is on this means it is get up time') do i need to do this for a few mornings until she gets the idea or will going into her room when she wakes up only make things worse in the long run? Any advice welcome. Thanks

there's a clock you can buy with night/day on it. someone is bound to tell you what it's called.

Put the light on a time switch? Provide a book or toy she can play with until the light goes on?

we bought one of these timer things people use on table lamps when they go on holiday

we plugged into the wall and then plugged a nightlight onto it iyswim

we set it for 6am, gradually forwarding it 15mins every wee while

it now comes on at 7am

dd shouts "my lights on!" and she cant then get up

di you mean the bunny clock?

Ooh, I've seen the clock/cot toy you're talking about. Found this one with a bunny face on it link but it's not as good as the other one.

Bum, crossed post.

thanks for all the suggestions, i do have a timer switch, but what i need to know is how do i get the message across to my dd that she can't get up until the light goes on without leaving her to rattle the bars of the cot/ cry until lights on time? wake up time can be anything from 5.30 til 6.30 so am reluctant to set timer for 5.45 in case she is still asleep then (ever the optimist!)

right, now i have to wake her from her nap in the hope that this also helps her sleep longer. it doesn't seem right but she'd sleep for 2.5 houurs if i left her. sigh.

not the bunny one. there's a better ne. bugger! iwish i could remember what it is called...

We have a good one. It is just a simple circular night light (about 6" in diameter) run by a small digital clock. The bottom half of the night light has a picture of a bunny asleep in bed at night, the top half a picture of a wide-awake bunny in the sunshine. The bottom half is illuminated at night and flips over to the top half for whatever time you set the clock. It's very very simple but effective. More effective I suspect than those bunny ears.

Very simple but very expensive.

But there is no money we won't pay for a lie-in at the weekends.

issymum - i think thats the one i mean. or at least similar

I think you're onto a hiding to nothing with an 18mo - I've got one of those and she just wouldn't understand. When she wakes early we just either take some milk in or open her blinds so she can look out the window. She also has a few books and toys in her cot.

We did have some success with a light on a timer with dd1 but we didn't do that til she was over 2 - any earlier than that and she wouldn't have understood what we were on about. She was a lot more placid than dd2 and we were able to put her on our bed between us and stick a video on while we had a snooze on early mornings.

18mths you have no chance..sorry...much too young to grasp that concept yet regardless of how intelligent they are. Also some children are just natural early risers. My ds is and he is 3.6yrs. He is more than aware of the time and now knows not to come into mummy and daddys room until at least 7am.

I did wonder if 18mo is too early but i was talking to someone today who had done it with her 18mo old with success. And to be honest i will try anything to get an extra half hour in bed! She used to wake up and babble to herself for anything up to an hour but now she seems to wake up, immediately stand up and start wanting out. If we go in and put her back down she will just cry when we leave the room, and if we take her into bed she will wriggle and poke us until we 'wake up' and pay her attention! Giving her books or toys works for about 5 minutes, and milk would end up sprayed all over the bed...i guess i just have to accept this is her get up time, but baby 2 is due in july and i don't want to be getting up at 5.30 if i've just got the baby off to sleep from a night feed!

The website to which I linked suggests that the child has to be 2. However, there is nothing to stop you using the clock and beginning to point out that the bunny is asleep, the bunny is awake etc.. You never know, she might just get it a few months earlier!

I agree with nemo, 18 months is far too young. My DD was about 2.9 when we introduced this

I bet the person you were atlking to had their child potty trained at 9 months and reading Thomas Hardy at 2 as well!

sorry, don't mean to be rude to your friend but I think you'll find on the whole that 18m is defo too young for now. Think of ways to cope for now: take it in turns to get up; stick them on the bed watching DVD (like in my last post); put toys in cot, etc. Try it again in 6-9 months and then see hoe you get on. Good luck!

TBH I did not try this with either of my children while they were still in the cot. But it worked with them both as 2yos in beds. How dark is her bedroom? Are the light mornings causing her to wake? Could you attack the issue from a different angle for the time being. I would have just said "it is still night time", given DD a cuddle at put her back to bed at 5.25 am.

Her room is totally pitch black, just the way she likes it, but i think maybe the birds are waking her up, this morning it was 4.45am. I do go in when she is standing and rattling the bars of her cot but if i put her down and leave, all hell breaks loose so i either have to stay with her (rather defeats the purpose) or get her up, and I rather stubbornly refuse to get up at 4.45am!!
I have tried cutting down her daytime nap from 2.5hours til 1.5 but if anything she is waking earlier! Any suggestions how I re-adjust MY body clock?!