My 2-year-old daughter is an early riser. Last summer her internal alarm clock started ringing at 5:30 a.m., everyday.

Recently, she started sleeping until 6 a.m. While I’d love for her to sleep another hour, this is why I’m not going to push it: I love our quiet mornings together.

I used to slip her into her jogging stroller and take her for a run before everyone else in the house woke up, but when the weather grew colder last winter, I opted for a more relaxing morning routine. I haven’t kicked my lazy habit even though summer is in full swing.

Now, instead of pulling on running shorts and a T-shirt when I hear her wake up calls, I plop a few pillows on the couch as I stumble through the living room on my way to the kitchen to fill a sippy cup with milk. I then quickly change her diaper before we settle into the couch. I rest my head on the pillows and she rests her head in my arms as she wiggles her pudgy hand in the sleeve of my pajamas so she can rub my forearm. I close my eyes and she sucks down her milk. Some days, we fall right back to sleep until my 4-year-old son, Guillermo, wakes us around 7 a.m.

Other days, we snuggle up and read books or put together puzzles. Or, increasingly, there are days when she demands a Dora video. Either way, we are together, just the two of us.

My husband begs me to give up the routine, let her cry it out so she’ll sleep later. I did that to get her to sleep until 6 a.m., but I feel guilty doing that now. To me, and most of the rest of the world, 6 a.m. is an appropriate time to get out of bed. When I worked, I was up then, or sometimes I was already at work. And, by 6 a.m., Maya has slept about 10 hours. She’s never shown any sign she wants to sleep any longer than that.

Besides, if I let her sleep until 7 a.m., we’d sleep through our snuggle time. We wouldn’t be awake to appreciate the peacefulness that vanishes from our house when my husband and Guillermo are awake.

Soon enough, Maya will outgrow the morning snuggles anyway. Guillermo did at some point and while I can’t remember when or why, I suspect it had something to do with his little sister. Or, maybe I’ll go back to work and won’t have the luxury of our lazy mornings. And, next year, when Guillermo starts kindergarten, we’ll have to kick the habit anyway so we can get him to school on time. So for now, I’m sticking to my schedule, our schedule, because I know one day I’ll miss my mornings with Maya and I know I’ll miss her, too.

Natalie appears every Sunday on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Natalie at her blog A Day at the Park.