When your toddler wakes in the morning do you get him right away or let/expect him to play quietly in his room for a while before getting him? My 2 year old wakes between 6 and 7:30. I have a terrible time functioning before 7am. A friend with a child the same age has set a routine for her child in which she gets her daughter out of her room at a particular time, not necessarily when she wakes. Her child plays quietly in her room when she gets up. I would LOVE for mine to do that but I'm not sure that's a reasonable expectation. If I did it I would be expecting her to play for 30 minutes before I got her. I'm not sure what to think about this idea, for us. It really works well for my friend.
It depends on you and the personality of your daughter. If you can do it, I don't see why not. Toddlers like routines -- if you get her into that routine -- then it should work.
All kids are different. My son would never play in his room by himself upon waking. You may just have go to bed earlier so you can get up earlier. This is what I had to do.
I had my second daughter when my first was 2. I was desperate for sleep, so I put the older one's nightlight on a timer. I set it to go off at 7am and she was instructed that if the light was still on then she had to stay in her room and play. As soon as the light went off she could come get me! I wasn't sure if a 2 year old would be able to grasp this concept, but she did!!! It's amazing what little ones can do. Worth a try, right? Good luck :)
My son doesn't get out of his bed until we go in there, but he does talk to himself, or call for us. Depending on his urgency (sometimes he has to pee), my husband will either get him up then, or jump in the shower first. We have a My Tot Clock, which helps, but half the time he is shouting - it's still blue, but I don't want to sleep! LOL!
Just tell your son what you expect.
perhaps one can't *expect* a two year old to play quietly in her room before you have to get up.
but you can surely hope.
sometimes mine would even oblige!
:) khairete
S.
When my son, 2 1/2 yrs, wakes up he usually comes into our room to get one of us up but sometimes he will just go into the living room to play until he decides he wants a drink or cereal. Our bedroom is only 4 ft from our living room, so we can hear everything he's into (and believe me, its not like we're deep asleep when he's up and about LOL).
