Blackout!

Brennan has always been such a good sleeper. He was sleeping through the night by 2 months and has been sleeping 12 hour nights since almost then. I've known for quite some time that he was waking up before 7am, because he would start saying, "Mommy, I'm ready to get up, please!" right at 7am on the dot. But I was okay with that because he was following the "lay quietly in your bed until 7am" rule. That is until recently. For the past two weeks or so, he's been either calling for me or getting out of bed on his own before 7am. Some days even before 6:30.

Only two things have changed that I can think of during the past weeks. 1.) I have been working out every morning. I've been setting my alarm for 6am and getting up and doing either one or two T25 workout videos. Maybe I'm disturbing him? Or maybe he's always been awake this early, but now that he can actually hear that I'm up and moving around too he's unwilling to stay quietly in his bed? 2.) I bought new curtains for his room. I love them. They are red and much cuter than the short, ugly blue one there before. But they are also very sheer and let in a lot of light. And it is super bright super early here on the east coast. Maybe the sunlight is causing him to wake early?

I'm two weeks into my workout routine and I'm actually enjoying it (most days). And I definitely think getting up early is the best time for me to get a workout in, so I'm not going to change that. Yesterday I did buy some blackout material to add to his existing curtains to try and block out some of the light. I was looking for a quick fix, so all you sewers out there, turn a deaf ear. I bought the material and some stitch witchery at JoAnn's yesterday morning and while Brennan was at school and Bryce was taking a rare morning nap, I worked some magic on his curtains.

Here's the before. The curtains look almost pink in this picture and I took this yesterday on a super cloudy day. You can see how sheer they are and how much light is coming in.

They stay open during the day and when they're bunched up, they're obviously not as sheer looking.

And this is the after. I took this picture less than 45 minutes after the first two above and now not a speck of light is coming through those babies!

In this one, I tried to pull the blackout material aside on one panel so you could see the different side-by-side.

And one shot of them open.

So now we will see if this helps him sleep in a little in the mornings. I'm also thinking of starting some kind of incentive plan with him where he can earn a sticker every morning he stays in bed until 7 and after he earns 5 (or some agreed upon number) he'll get a doughnut or ice cream or something. I sound like such a teacher. Kyle always says to just send him back to his bed.

And I guess I could always force him to go back into his bed, but this kid can scream and I'm also trying to keep Bryce asleep, so I haven't been doing that. And he's been pulling the "I have to poop" card and then once he's on the potty "its' only gas". Thankfully most mornings he is relatively happy to sit on the couch and watch me do my workout. But I need that hour from 6-7 to be my Mommy time. That's the whole reason I started setting my alarm and getting up early and now it's all seemed to backfire.

Oh and as for the curtains, no big tutorial here. The material was $6.99/yard at JoAnn's and I used my 40% coupon. I bought the super weight stitch witchery since the blackout fabric is quite heavy. I came home, took the drapes down. spread one panel out and cut the new material to size. And my cuts are UGLY! But like I said, I wanted a quick fix. I used that material as a template to cut my second panel. They are just attached at the top of the original drapes, so a few minutes under the iron with a damp cloth and VOILA! Hopefully it holds! If not,  I've got my stapler ready. Just kidding. Maybe.