Early Wake-Up Call

For the past 3 mornings, this little man (who I think looks adorable with his brand new desperately needed hair cut) has been giving Terrell and I an early wake-up call... and one that we're definitely not used to.

For just about as long as I can remember, Garrison's wake-up time has been anywhere from 7:40 to 8:00. We even had a stretch of time where he didn't wake up a minute before 8, it was more like 5, 10, or 15 minutes after. We've also had stretches where it's typically 7:40/7:45 every single morning. So, ever since starting the 30 Day Challenge I've based my wake-up time and morning routine around him sleeping until at least 7:40. This has always given me a chance to shower and at least get my hair done and maybe a little make-up on before starting and finishing my quiet time. On a few rare occasions he would wake up a little before 7:40 or I might take a little longer than usual with my quiet time, so it would be interrupted and cut short. Well, this week it seems like everything is completely thrown off because little man is waking up so much earlier!

*Just a quick note: Garrison does not get out of bed by himself. From the moment he moved into his big boy bed we always taught him that he had to stay in the bed until Terrell or I came in to get him. I wanted no part of him playing in his room during naptime unsupervised or waking up early in the morning and roaming the house. He also typically likes to lay in the bed and relax until he's awake good. We've actually had mornings where he's asked us to leave because he's not ready to get up yet. It usually only lasts about 2 minutes before he's calling for one of us again, but it's still a couple of minutes to wake up good before jumping out of bed.

Okay, so back to the past 3 mornings. On Tuesday morning he started calling for me right around 7:15. Whoa... where did that come from? It might not seem drastic to anyone else, but to this mama it was a big change from what I'm used to and sort of threw off the whole morning. I tried to wait it out a little just to see if he might go back to sleep. No such luck. I could tell by the way he was yelling "Maama, Maaaaaa-ma, Maaama!" that he was only waking up more and more. So I decided to just go in and get him up. No time for my quiet time or to just enjoy a minute of quiet before he was ready to start the day. I decided to make muffins for breakfast so they would take a while to get ready and we wouldn't be eating at 7:30 when typically we don't eat a minute before 8. Breakfast did take longer and thankfully we sort of got back on track after that.

Next comes yesterday morning... he woke up and starting calling for me about 10 after 7. As in 7:10 am. Oh no, don't tell me this is becoming a habit. Ha! My first reaction really was panic. I immediately starting thinking of ways to head this off and prevent it from truly becoming a habit. So that made two days in a row of Garrison waking up before I'm even ready and out of the bathroom. Thankfully his calling for me was off and on for about 10 minutes while I finished getting ready.

Now for this morning. He starts calling (but this time for daddy) at 6:48. Seriously?! Terrell and I were both determined to make him wait. We could tell it was a much sleepier call because it was sort of quiet and slow. And thankfully it did stop after just a minute and it appeared he actually went back to sleep. Yay! He didn't start calling again until almost 7:35. This time he called for daddy again a few times and then started to call for mama. I was trying to finish my quiet time so he had to wait for a few minutes. Then we heard, "mama and daddy! mama and daddy! mama and daddy and bai-ee (Bailey)!". That cracked us up! He just decided to call for the whole family.

We're really not sure what's going on with these early wake-up calls because nothing has changed about his bedtime or bedtime routine, and he's still sleeping through the night. I'm wondering if he's waking up and instead of letting himself go back to sleep, for some reason, he's just deciding he's ready to get up. Hopefully tomorrow he'll sleep a little later and we can get back on track. If not, I'm seriously going to be looking into some kind of intervention. I do have to say though, it's really hard to be upset about him waking up too early once I take a look at that sweet face and hear, "Good mornin, mama". =)