Fracking Gro Clock

I decided recently it was time to stop using a baby monitor for Tyger for several reasons, one which being we'll need the monitor for Baby Bear soon as he's getting far too big for the set up we have in our bedroom so will have to go into his own room (sob) in the near future.

Anyway, I bought Tyger a Gro Clock to help with this transition (and largely to help me with it, too).  For those of you who haven't come across these devices before it's basically a digital clock that displays a big star with twelve little stars around it through the night and as the night progresses the stars disappear until it gets to the time you have programmed in as your 'getting up time' when a yellow sun takes the place of the stars (it also glows blue through the night so doubles as a night light).

Well, it was a massive hit.  He loves clocks (or, as he unfortunately pronounces it 'cocks') and generally anything electrical/lit up etc. and particularly likes stars right now (which he calls - are you ready for the Goram cuteness - 'twinkles').  I had some problems setting it up because when your five month old decides there's really no need for sleep before midnight most nights (and still wakes up for at least one feed in the night) and your two year old thinks 5.30 onward is an acceptable time to get up your brain turns to mush.  So, for the first night I did little better than bash the - only three - buttons with my fingers and hope for the best.  I was sort of under the impression you needed to set a bedtime as well as a getting up time (you don't) and actually set the nap time instead and...not-that-long-but-too-long-to-bother-with-here story short the stars stayed on until 7.30 pm.

Anyway, I fixed that last night and Tyger just loves his new cLock.  It actually helps him to stay in bed (before he was fine whilst he got his bedtime story but as soon as you left the room he'd get out of bed, go to the door and scream) because he just lies there and watches the clock until he goes to sleep.  I think he also stayed in bed this morning until the 'sun' came out (6am).

The down side is the same down side we have with anything Tyger likes: he's very obsessive.  It's hard to do anything nice with him because he screams when it's time to stop and it's hard to buy him anything he can't have with him all the time because...well, he wants it with him all the time.  So, all morning he's been telling me he wants me to show him this fracking clock.  He's not the sort of toddler who can be trusted with a run of the whole house (even in a bungalow) so this would involve me taking him through the two separate baby gates and then lifting him up to see the clock (it's on a set of drawers).  Fine, except then he'd scream as soon as I took him away again.  He'd scream if I left him in there by himself.  And he'd even eventually scream if I just let him look at it and didn't make the 'stars' come out and re-enact 'bedtime' again and again and again.

So, it's easier to do nothing and let him get upset about that.