A few weeks ago lots of parents I know were cursing the upcoming daylight savings time switch. For the most part, I didn’t get what the big fuss was about. Just switch to the new time when you all get up, and over the course of a day or two everyone will settle back into the routine, right?
Ha ha.
In the past, this mostly has worked for us, and I guess I was lucky! Its not like we’ve not faced our share of sleep issues, that is for sure. But since our bedtime routine got set in stone (when the babies were around 6 months, more like 2 years old for Emma) bedtime is generally pretty smooth, no matter what. The sleep cues just WORK for my kids, thank goodness, knock on wood, yada yada yada. If the routine is done, they start to yawn, they lie down and (generally) go to sleep. I am SO thankful for this and feel like its payoff for a lot of hard work early on (but also, just really great luck, I am sure).
But. Mornings & middle of the night are another story. Unrelated to DST, Elsie and Delia have been waking up too much, as I mentioned in my recent post about nightweaning. The past week or so I have been mostly sticking to the "no milk until 2am" rule, and while one or the other baby still wakes somewhere between 10pm-2am, they usually go back to sleep (with or without a little complaining) if I go in and tell them that its not time yet. Which is great, in some respects. Could be worse!
But then, they sleep until 4:30-5:30am. Which is way past my 2am rule (and what I wanted – to keep pushing it out further and further until we just nurse upon waking for the day). So they nurse, but instead of going back to sleep for one more stretch, then they are UP! As am I. Until daylight savings time, they were waking twice in the night, but sleeping until 6:30. Emma was also sleeping until 6:30, but is now regularly waking at 5-5:30 (today it was 4:30, though thankfully she fell asleep for another hour). So we’ve all lost several hours of sleep and are not making it up! And since its still dark outside then, its not that (we have blackout shades to help with that in the summer months, anyway). Is it just that their clocks are still set to the old time?
Emma has also pretty much dropped her nap in the past two months (though she still has nap/quiet time each day and occasionally falls asleep), which I think its normal for a almost 4 year old, but thats another 1.5 hours lost for her. Her mood is definitely reflecting it some days! We were doing so well for awhile!
I am not sure what to do. Its not that this is new territory, either — we’ve dealt with the early bird waking off and on for years with all three (and Lonnie, too, ha ha). I feel strongly about the "sleep debt" thing, though, which I read about in the book Sleepless In America. In that book she talks about how a lack of sleep leads to less restorative sleep and more wakeups, which in turn creates more sleep issues. Basically, you need to break the cycle and get everyone caught up on sleep to get back on track. I have definitely seen this happen here. But how? Do I need to start putting them to bed at 6:30? Their bedtime now is 7:30 and that seems pretty early. Maybe we’ll compromise and try 7? Or will that just lead to more 4am wakups (yeowch!). Or do we just ride it out and hope that they gradually start sleeping later on their own?
Parents, what are your experiences with sleep these days? Any adjustments needed since DST? Any other early risers out there? What would you do in my shoes? I miss my beauty sleep (and am definitely NOT a morning person like the rest of this family).
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We find that when we let our bedtime slip to 7:30 the boys wake up earlier. We have to try really hard to back it up so that we leave their room about 6:45 so they’re asleep around 7 and then they wake up after 6 (which is the best we get around here!). I would try earlier for a few days and see what happens! The 4 and 5am hours are evil.
I’ve always heard that if you have trouble with your kids going to sleep, up their bedtime. We did that with my oldest (now 3.5) when he was about 2. We started having him go to bed an hour earlier and that really helped with his early waking. FWIW, my twins bedtime is 6:30, but they just went to one nap a day, so that’s why we keep it so early.
It sounds like our sleep philosophies are pretty similar. Given that I say put them down earlier.
Jack, 3, goes to bed by 6:30. He naps at 1ish for about 3 hours. If we let his bedtime slip to 7ish then he becomes very cranky all day!
Sammy, 16 months, is down by 5:15pm at the latest. He would go to bed earlier but that’s just nuts(he has gone to bed as early as 4pm for a period of time.) He naps in the am for an hourish and then in the pm for an hourish. He’s in that weird space between 1 and 2 naps.
If either one of them starts to get behind in sleep then they have early evening wake ups.
Oh I hate sleep issue! We’ve always had sleep issues. It has never been easy but I am reading your post here AND the responses and now I am wondering. Should we do an earlier bedtime? We haven’t tried it super early. The earliest we’ve done is 7 pm and Declan still takes over an hour to fall asleep and needs intense parenting to even get that far (walking in Ergo, constant nursing, etc . . ). I’ve tried cutting out his one nap or cutting it short and it always backfires. He always ends up more cranky and sleeping fitfully at night. So maybe it is a sleep debt thing! He never seems properly rested, never has no matter how hard I try to get him good sleep. I have Sleepless in America but haven’t read the whole thing. I really need too. I would be so happy if this could all get better just by putitng him down earlier. It just seems crazy, though, that he could nap until 3 or 4 pm and then go down for bedtime just 2-2.5 hours later.
Keep us posted. I am interested to see if an earlier bedtime helps. And I might try it too . . .
Joanne — definitely check out the rest of the book — I think there’s a lot of useful info there about this stuff! I think she does suggest not letting them nap too late in the afternoon (3pm maybe?) which can mean bumping nap earlier. She also talks about catching them at night before they get wound up with a second/third wind, too – that its a LOT harder to get them to sleep once they’ve passed that point.
Declan seems a lot like Emma was sleep wise, early on at least, and it is so hard. I do think she was in a cycle of being overtired for a long time.
Everyone else, thanks for weighing in! Its great to see I’m not a freak for putting my kids to bed so early. I think we are going to try 7 for a few days, as see if there are any improvements!
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