It has affected my daughter in a couple of ways. First of all, we have been more permissive about bedtime. I mean, when you are exhausted from dealing with a newborn, the last thing you want to do is fight with a threenager about her bedtime. Second, when I get up early to feed her brother, I let her sleep in. And third, I'm on maternity leave, so unless there's an early morning appointment, there is not a lot of urgency in my schedule.
When you combine these things with the time change, the abandonment of all naps, and everything else, my former early riser is now waking up at 9 am or later, and going to sleep at 9:30 or sometimes even 10. It's plenty of sleep -11 hours - but it needs to be shifted back a few hours, particularly as I go back to work soon.
So, my husband and I came up with a plan. We would get her an alarm clock, figuring that she could use it now that she is starting to tell time, and also, it would wake her up. I wanted to buy her a kid's clock, but my husband really liked a pink-and-white old fashioned dual-bell alarm clock. I went along with it.
We ordered the clock and it arrived yesterday. The kid was in love: she played with it, learned how to switch it off, and proudly put it near her bed. It was Friday night, so I set the alarm to wake her with plenty of time to get ready for her Saturday morning gymnastics class.
In the morning, I woke up and started feeding the baby. I looked at my clock and realized that the alarm was about to go off. All of a sudden, I hear the bell, both through the walls and the baby monitor, followed closely by a blood-curdling scream. Then "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! MOMMY! I am SCARED! It's too loud! MAKE IT STOP! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
I ran in there with the baby still on my boob, half laughing. I turned off the alarm and calmed my daughter down.
Tonight, she made me take the alarm clock out of her room. I promised her that it was off, but she doesn't trust me anymore.
