How Do You Shut Off an Internal Alarm?

From the minute Evan was born (five weeks early, I might add), he has been an early riser. He must have been born with an internal alarm because no matter what time he goes to bed, he wakes up at 5:30 on the dot. There is no snooze button and apparently there is no resetting this internal alarm.

We can usually let him stay in his crib until 6:00 or so, but by then his "talking" is loud enough that we know one of us has to get up. Recently he has progressed from just talking to pounding his hands on the edge of the crib. I think if he had a tin cup in there he'd run it along the slats of the crib to get our attention.

I had a new theory that it was the light that was waking him up, so Wednesday night before bed, I used binder clips to hang a dark sheet over the window. I was sure it would work--so sure that I even stayed up a little later than I should have (I mean--I was watching I Love the 80s--that is definitely worth trading for extra sleep, right?). Sadly, my theory was totally wrong. Even though Evan's room looked like it was still the dead of night, he wasn't fooled. I was up and playing with him by 6:05.

The optomist that I am decided to try it one more time. Same result. Only this morning he woke up even earlier! We were reading Humpty Dumpty at 5:45.

There has to be a way to reset an internal alarm. Bryan should be the expert on this because he somehow managed to change me from the morning person I was before we got married (up by 6:00 even on Sundays) into someone who eventually enjoyed sleeping until 10:00. I bet he regrets that now that I also long to stay in bed when Evan's alarm goes off.

Bryan and I are both out of ideas on how to get Evan to sleep later--it feels like we've tried everything. So, if anyone knows how we could get Evan to sleep even until 6:30, let us know. We'd be incredibly grateful!