Drastic Early Bedtime for Catching Up?

As I wrote in an earlier post, DD has been having a really bad time with night wakings, having the hardest time getting back to sleep. She goes to sleep on her own with no problem and does not have a hard time everytime she wakes up. Now it has spread to DS. Diane suggested that maybe DD was overtired and I think that makes a lot of sense. We have been trying to move to one nap and while DS has been doing OK with it, DD has not.

I referred to HSHHC for guidance in the matter and he suggests a temporarily early bedtime to help alleviate the overtiredness at night and help the child catch up with sleep. I am wondering if anyone has tried this and, if so, did it work?

Any other ideas/suggestions are welcome.

Regards,
Esther

 

As I wrote in an earlier post, DD has been having a really bad time with night wakings, having the hardest time getting back to sleep. She goes to sleep on her own with no problem and does not have a hard time everytime she wakes up. Now it has spread to DS. Diane suggested that maybe DD was overtired and I think that makes a lot of sense. We have been trying to move to one nap and while DS has been doing OK with it, DD has not.

I referred to HSHHC for guidance in the matter and he suggests a temporarily early bedtime to help alleviate the overtiredness at night and help the child catch up with sleep. I am wondering if anyone has tried this and, if so, did it work?

Any other ideas/suggestions are welcome.

Regards,
Esther

 

YEP!!!! We are doing this right now because my kids have lost their schedule due to the holidays. Late nights and no/sporadic car-napping have created two little monsters.

On Wed and Friday night, we had them in bed by 6:00pm. They BOTH slept in until close to 9am. They just needed that extra sleep. The late bedtimes resulted in early wakings, but the earlier bedtimes meant well-rested babies!!!!!

 

Kate, what time do they normally go to sleep? Also, how long will you do the early bedtime and how will you get them back to their original time? It's very reassuring that it worked for you!

Regards,
Esther

 

Esther, I was actually going to ask you what your little ones normal bedtime is? My girls go to bed everynight at 7 pm. Some nights they talk a little in their cribs until they drift off on their on (sometimes not til 8:30). We didn't move bedtime up during the last two weeks, but they did sleep in a little later and I also put them down a little early for a couple of naps and two days this week they ended up taking 3 1/2 hr naps instead of the regular 2. Good luck!

 

Everytime we have a schedule issue and overtiredness, we move bedtime earlier. This will help get the nap back as well. Our girls didn't get to bed till 9:30 last night and guess what they were up earlier than normal. I will try to get the nap early today but I am afraid that they won't nap. But bedtime will probably be at least 30 minutes earlier than what we do for tonight. We always have success with an earlier bedtime. IT might take a couple of nights but it always works for us. We are true believers in HSHHC! Good luck!
When we first moved to one nap, we got nightwakings. This was a sign for us that they weren't ready for one nap yet. We went back to 2 for the rest of the month and tried again the next month. Then it worked and they had no night wakings.

 

Our normal bedtime hour is part of my problem with pushing it earlier because it is already early. It used to be 6:00 but, recently, it has been somewhere between 6:15 and 6:30. I was shooting for 5:15-5:30 tonight but that did not happen. By the time DS woke up from his nap it was 2:15 and you guys know how long it takes to get out of the house with two of them so I couldn't get them into bed any earlier. DD took a 45 minute nap today. That, combined with bad night sleeping, and she was exhausted.
We'll see if going to sleep a little earlier will make a difference but I doubt it. Tomorrow, since we will be home, I am going to try and get them in significantly earlier.
Thanks for the suggestions and the shared experiences. I hope that we have success as well. I'll keep you posted.

Regards,
Esther