I have never been a morning person. I hate getting up in the morning. I particularly hate getting woken up before I’m ready to wake up. So for me, one of the hardest things about being a parent and that I’ve never got used to, is getting woken up every morning. Every morning. 7 days a week. At the weekend, on holiday, on your birthday, when you’re sick, every day. It’s utterly relentless.
I have tried various tactics to make my son’s waking time later; blackout linings, making his tea time later, bedtime snacks, warmer bed clothes, fewer bed clothes, toys laid out in different ways to busy him for longer before he comes into our room, various different central heating timer settings, fairy lights on a timer switch that indicate ‘OK to get up’, then ‘OK to come into Mum & Dad’s room’……Nothing has really worked.
As soon as he was old enough we started leaving milk out for him to drink when he woke up. After all, I’m always thirsty when I wake up. But this was never one of my delay tactics, just something I thought he should have.
A few weeks ago, we added to this a slice of bread.
The first morning, I awoke in a sort of panic. Where is he? Is he OK? Apparently he had got up, eaten his bread, then gone back to bed and dozed back off to sleep.
Every morning since then he has either done the same, or if he has not gone back to bed he has played happily in his room until we get up. Sometimes for an hour or more. (and this is a child who never plays on his own)
This is too good to be true. Could something so simple as a slice of bread really have ended the era of the early morning wake up which I was expecting to continue for several more years?
I feel so much more rested, less grumpy and able to face the world. Why did it take me so long to think of something so basic?
Parenting with Understanding 
This really does sound too good to be true, but I am so going to try it!
This was lovely to rread