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Sooo, we may, MAY, have some sleep progress. As you all know, we have been suffering through Keegan sleep issues for a long time, since birth in fact. I know you are tired of hearing about it at least as much as we are dealing with it, but the most frustrating thing is that they don’t seem to improve as he gets older. After an excruciating couple of months when we battled with jet lag, guests, and simply regular life that translated in multiple nights wakings, super early wake ups (as in 4, 4.30am), more sleep training, crying and just overall crankiness, especially on our part, we decided to try something new. Enter My Tot Clock. It is an over-sized, sturdy clock, whose face changes color depending of the time of day, mainly blue during sleep time and yellow when is time to wake up.

The idea is that Keegan will not be allowed to get up till the yellow light comes on. Of course you set the wake up and bed times, and you can dim the night light to nothing as well. You can even set to have lullabies playing and wake up music, or story telling, but we do not use that feature. It has settings for timeouts (red light), positive reinforcement (green light) and naps. You can also override any setting, and manually start any routine.

Taking advantage of Keegan’s fascination with clocks, we began using it during the Christmas break and I have to say that we had some moderate success so far. Nothing as drastic as the site’s testimonials, but success nonetheless. First of all, now Keegan knows that he is supposed to wait for the yellow light. When he goes to bed he says “yellow light on awake ” or “luce gialla up” or something to this effect. It is a big difference from before, when we could only tell him he was too early, which of course meant nothing to him. Also, he often stays in bed till slightly later (we are still in the 5.30/5.45 range, but it is a start, and much better than 4.30/5). We had been creeping up the wake up time, little by little, and we are now at 5.40am. Hopefully we will be able to move it closer to 6 am, eventually.

There are of course set backs; there are still times when he wakes up a little earlier, but at least now we have an enforcement measure: we are not picking him up till the yellow light comes on, no matter how much he cries or how many times he calls out mama or Tiziana…oh yes, if after a while, if I don’t answer his calls, he starts calling me by my first name. Maybe he thinks I am not quite certain he is referring to me when he calls out mamma. What a weirdo. Not that he ever calls out for daddy or Matt.

The clock also helped with nap time. Again, for a LONG time we decided not to fight his preference for stroller or car seat naps. We were simply too exhausted to deal with it, and with the blessing of our doctor we enjoyed his 2/3 hours naps strapped in into some sort of seat. However, with winter coming, we really wanted him to get him used to sleep indoors, in a bed. So, with many days to reinforce his behavior during the holidays, we started putting him to bed in his room, in the big bed. Again, we used the clock, which has a setting for naps, and stood our ground. The first day he cried more than half an hour, and we had multiple escapes, but the next few days got better. Now, while still resisting, sometimes crying and escaping from the room a few times, he naps in his room. We don’t always get two full hours, but it is a start.

So, is this a miraculous clock? Not quite, but we did get some improvements so far (hoping that they will stay even after the novelty effect worn out, and when construction will begin). Most importantly, Keegan accepted the clock as part of his sleeping routine and he is excited when he waits till the light comes on.We are also really hoping it will be more and more effective as time goes by. When Keegan will be older, we can even use it to teach him to go play on his own in the morning and not to wake up up till the yellow light is on, maybe set to a comfortable 9/10 am…one can always daydream, right?

For now, we will wait for our morning call: “mamma, yellow light!!!”