the mighty quinn never quite made it through daylight savings time this year. the clock ticked back from 6:30am to 5:30am, but he never reset. by the time we got back from new york, he was waking up as early as 4:45 and not going back to sleep.

so we got doug.

doug the dinosaur is a lamp, on a timer. we explained to the mighty quinn that doug was his new roommate, and that we weren’t allowed to get out of bed until doug “woke up” in the morning. (this wasn’t our idea, fwiw. we stole it from friends who, in turn, paid for the advice from a sleep therapist.)

the first day we set the timer for 5:15am, and put the mighty quinn back to sleep (unconvincingly) until doug woke up about 30 minutes later. the second day we moved it back five minutes, and then ten, etc.

by day five, the timer was actually going off FIRST, at which point we just set the timer to 7:00am and called it a day. and, for a bonus, even when the mighty quinn gets up first, he plays quietly in his crib until doug’s awake.

and sanity and balance has been restored to the household.