Stay at Home-ista

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

In our old house (the one that is the size of our current kitchen) our daughter's room was also painted a fun green color. That room was very dark, had only two windows and was pretty shaded. This room is the opposite. It has five windows, light on two sides, a view, and is super bright. So when we tried painting it the same color as before the results were hideous. Just awful. So after attempts at apple, lime, neon, kelly, olive and stem green, we finally found Benjamin Moore's Potpourri Green, just right.

I've been slowly working on the feature wall across from her bed. It has wall letters that spell her name (with toilet paper roll flowers perched in each letter), a multi-colored butterfly decal, four whimsical prints, bunny ballerina prints that she got at her baby naming, and a butterfly cut-paper art that I picked up on my last trip to Ikea.

I hope you notice the Tot Clock on the dresser. I'm telling you, it's the only thing that keeps her in bed until 6am! Click here to see my post on it from Monday. It will change your life.

All the bedding is from Target (or Tar-jay as my grandmother used to say), as is the lamp and the prints over her bed. Here in Northern California we are in earhtquake country, so I feel pretty good about having super ightweight art over her head as she sleeps, as opposed to something heavy!

Jessica

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Monday, April 16, 2012

This, my friends is magic.

When the clock is blue, it is time for sleep.

When the clock is yellow, it is time to wake up.

It's called My Tot Clock, I bought both (one for each of the non-baby kids) from Amazon.

Of course, now our four year old can tell time, both on the analog and digital clocks, so she needs this less and less, but it has been my savior for years. Starting a little before age 2, the kids can understand the color change, and they will actually stay in bed. You can set the time to turn blue and yellow at the bedtime and wake time of your choice (6:30pm and 6:00am for us). Yes, 6am. And it is h-a-r-d to get them to stay there that long. It's genetic, my sister and I woke our parents up well before 6am for years. Although my mother claims to have blocked it out:)

The clock also "externalizes the issue" of bedtime. You are not telling them to go to bed, the clock is. If they are taking too long to get ready, the clock will still turn blue at the same time, so you can say, "we have 10 minutes until the clock is blue. Once you are in jammies I will read until it changes color". That way your child can still have some control over their actions and decisions, without you threatening them with fewer stories or (to them) arbitrarily deciding on a bed time.