We Need Sleep!

We have a problem in this house, it's called sleeping. S-L-E-E-P, our children just don't quite get it. Not so much Braden but Alexa for sure. How much sleep should a 2 year old get anyway? Most nights she gets maybe 8 hours and I just thought kids her age needed more than that. We have always tried getting her to bed by about 8-8:30 but many nights it could be more like 9 and the girl usually gets up anywhere around 5AM. It's crazy really. We tried the whole keep her up later thing, didn't work. We tried the get her to bed earlier thing, didn't work. Are we domed? Has anyone else had this problem? Is there anything we can actually do about it? I'm not even kidding, the other morning she was up at 4:30. Same thing every morning, all the sudden we here the "click" of her light going on then some banging as she pulls books off the shelf. We try to go up and tell her that it's still night and put her back into bed....she will actually stay in bed but will just sit there and talk, play, read, but never actually goes back to sleep. It wouldn't be so bad except that when Braden was sick he was getting up during the night again and now is back to doing that every night. Maybe we just have to suck it up and deal with it until they start getting older and sleeping later, longer, better. But seriously, I'm sure we're the only people in the world up eating breakfast at 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday. Matt and I joke about how in not so many years we'll have to actually drag them out of bed for school....that's when we'll get our revenge! :o)

Speaking of sleeping though, I LOVE going to get Braden up from naps and in the morning. He never has been a crier, we'll just hear him in there talking, playing, yelling for dada. But when we get in there we are greeted with his cute little smiling face. Usually pulling down the bumper pad so he can see us when we get there. Super adorable!

Such a happy boy!