Jake and the gate!

Jake is a night owl. James and I were, in our former non parent lives, but when you have to wake up several times a night with Mari (me) and normally need 10 hours asleep (the large James mammal) you don't want to party till the sun comes up anymore. Jake does! So to keep his lifestyle from hampering ours and vise versa, we put a gate on his bedroom door (just between the hours of 8:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.) We were expecting screaming and wailing. Instead we got "Mamma, Daddy play," yelled down the hall for a few hours and then he decided he could burn the mid-night oil all by himself. I have heard him talking to himself and his toys as late as 11:30 but for two weeks now the gate has worked wonders. Previous to this Jame was laying down in Jake's room with him until he fell asleep (or rather they both fell asleep) and then I would go wake up James to get him to come to sleep in our room. It was rarely before eleven that Jake would actually fall asleep (despite the hours of laying in bed) and so it was hard on both of us. The gate has been a lifesaver. Thank you Julie Gibens for the wonderful idea! I took a few pictures of Jake just to demonstrate what goes on. The second night we did this I still heard him talking at around midnight so I went down to his room and the pictures above and immediately below are what I found. The bottom picture was 8 am the next day! I don't normally let him sleep so late but I knew he had to be tired. Now he is sleeping from about 10:30 pm 7:30 am!