"We'll deal with sleep when summer is over."

At the beginning of the summer, Jen and Brad’s three-year-old, Morgan, was usually asleep by 7:30 pm.

But then summer happened.

The days were gloriously long, so they often stopped at the playground on the way home.

Summer camp started later than preschool, even though it was in the same location. They went on vacation, where Morgan got to stay up late playing with cousins. Jen and Brad enjoyed relaxing with the adults instead of being rigid about bedtime.

7:30 became 8. Then 8:30. Even 9 pm some nights.

And as Morgan started sleeping later in the morning, Jen and Brad discovered something they had forgotten: Slow mornings are really nice.

Some mornings they got a little more sleep themselves. Other mornings, they actually had time to drink a cup of coffee, do a little yoga, or just exist for a few minutes before being thrust into parenting for the day.

So they didn't exactly rush to fix it.

It was summer, after all.

They’d get back on schedule before the school year started.

And then suddenly…

It’s the last day of August.

Morgan is still on summer hours. Her regular preschool schedule is about to start again. Jen and Brad’s jobs are about to get a lot more intense after Summer Fridays and shorter days.

And they're feeling slightly panicked about how on earth they're supposed to get Morgan out of the house at 7:45 am again when she’s still dead to the world most mornings at that time.

I know how overwhelming the return to work and school can be, so I gave them just one instruction to start with:

Wake her up earlier.

Ten minutes a day.

That's it.

In truth, the week before Labor Day is kind of a runway to the real school year and its busy schedule, so that’s what they focused on.

The first day was the hardest. Morgan was cranky, and her parents missed their quiet morning. But it had to be done, so they pushed on.

After three days of (slightly) earlier mornings, Morgan was starting to yawn earlier at night. Her parents capitalized on that and moved bedtime earlier only after that happened, rather than trying to move bedtime first and having a battle royale.

Jen and Brad were disappointed to learn that they weren’t allowed to let Morgan (or themselves!) sleep late on the weekend either, but they gritted their teeth and stuck to the plan.

By the day after Labor Day, Morgan was well on her way back to her old schedule, and Jen and Brad had re-established their morning routine.

They started getting up earlier themselves so they could still squeeze in a quick yoga routine or a quiet cup of coffee before work, albeit earlier than they would have preferred. They were yawning earlier at night too.

If your kiddo is still happily living on summer hours, don’t panic and don’t try to fix everything at once.

(Already out of runway before school starts? Don’t try to make up for it by forcing an early bedtime tonight. Here’s what to do instead.)
Start tomorrow morning by waking them up ten minutes earlier. That's it.

Then do it again the next day.

And if you’ve been saying, “We’ll deal with the sleep issues when summer is over,” well… you're not alone. And I'm sorry to say that summer is just about over. 
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Hopefully your sleep challenges just need a quick fix, but if it’s more complicated, don’t worry. We’ll get you sorted out.

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