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There’s almost nothing as peaceful as a sleeping child.  Emily takes wonderful naps and goes to sleep pretty well at night… it’s the mornings that are the challenge.  Since she was very little, she’s been an early riser.  She typically wakes up between 5:00-6:00.  Ideally, I’d like her to sleep until 6:45 or 7:00.  We have the cow that switches from a sleeping cow to an awake cow at 6:45, telling her when she can get up and start making noise, but she either doesn’t understand yet or doesn’t care.  If the girls didn’t share a room it wouldn’t be a big deal, but if both girls are up at 5:00, the whole family will be up at 5:00!  For months (or years?), I’d take Emily to the pack-n-play in our basement after she’d start making noise and let her talk or sleep or whatever floated her boat until 6:45, but now she’s getting almost too big for the pack-n-play.  So I just go in when she wakes, take her to the bathroom (she can’t open her door yet), and put her back to bed whispering, “Shhhh.  Betsy (the cow) is still asleep.”  Sometimes it works.  Other times it doesn’t.