Scheduling help needed

I've been blessed with good sleepers. They go to sleep easily and they sleep through....it's just when they sleep that doesn't thrill me. Right now they:
4:30-5:00 am - wake
12:00-2:00 -nap
7:00 bedtime

Trouble is when they wake up at 5:00, they are still tired. Within a couple of hours, they are ready for bed. But. if I put them to bed (ie go back to 2 naps), they absolutely will not go to sleep for their afternoon nap which makes the rest of the day a nightmare. I was thinking that maybe I should put them to bed earlier and that they might still sleep until the same time. It would suck for me (I get home from work at 6:00 and it would be great for them to wake up later in the am because my internal clock cannot adjust) but maybe that would work.

It also seems weird that they are up for 7 hours in the am and only 5 in the pm.

Is that normal? Any advice?

Oh, I have tried to let them cry in the morning in hopes that they will fall back to sleep but they just don't.

And they are really tired at 7:00 or I'd try to put them to bed later but when I do it, they have a hard time settling down.

 

Have you tried keeping them up later at night? I'm generally a fan of early bed times, but a waking time that early is a killer! If you haven't tried that already, I'd say it's at least worth a shot. Good luck! I hope you figure something out!!! :hug:

ETA- what is the sunrise situation where you are? I noticed after a time change, that the sun was rising earlier and then they'd never go back to sleep b/c they thought it was daytime (when it really was still too early.) So I bought some curtain lining material (the really heavy stuff) and a tension rod- and made a cheap, easy room darkening shade that goes on at night and at nap times. That really seems to help a TON!

 

I await sunrise every morning. It's about 7:15 right now. It's so nice when it seems like the rest of the world is starting to wake up too.

I was editing my post while you were writing yours. I edited it to add that they are really tired at 7:00 too and when I've tried to put them to bed later they have trouble settling...and, which I didn't add but should have...they don't sleep in at all so they get even less sleep!

 

My girls and your boys MUST be talking!! We are always going through the same things at the same times. I have no advice, just know that you are not alone.

 

Sitting here hearing Ezra cry for the past 25 minutes. He's seriously slowing down now and I wonder if he'll actually go back to sleep. If I go in, Elias will wake up too and that seems unfair to him also. I guess I need to put him to bed later and see how that goes. The occasional late night that hasn't resulted in a later bedtime maybe means that "one offs" doesn't work. Maybe I'll have to stick with it for a week or so to see if they adjust their wake times. Maybe I should wait until Daylight savings in March.

I think they are going to have as hard of a time adjusting their bed/wake time as I am. I am exhausted when I get home from work and am in bed by 8:00. I'm going to have a hard time adjusting that too!

 

I have been gradually pushing naptime and bedtime (like 15mins later each week), so far it has done nothing but I am hoping eventually something will give.
Early wakeups suck!

 

We had to buy black out curtains and put in a white noise generator to get the two of them to sleep past 5:00. Now they sleep to 6:30!! And as they get up later, the whole day gets pushed back an hour or more which is nice. So their two hour nap isn't from 10-12, its' from 12-2! And they go to bed at 7:00 now instead of 6:00. Which actually gives me some time with them aside from changing them into pajamas and off into bed.

 

It's totally dark in their room (which brings me to the question of toys - somebody suggested I put toys in their cribs so they can play until xo'clock but they can't see them - what kind of toys do people have in their children's cribs) and I use a humidifier which is very white noisy.

Sleeping until 6:30 sounds like heaven!

 

My two have a few stuffed animals in the crib. That's all. Do they take a binky? Is it too cold in the room? A blanket? Do they get crazy right before bed playing or is it a calm affair? (My two are nuts usually, lots of running and playing.)

The only other option I can think of is to not get them out of bed until X o'clock, check on them yes if they get angry, but don't get them out of bed.

eta: Oh, are they in the same room? Have you tried separating them?

 

Honestly? I think they need to go to bed earlier than 7. Try backing up bedtime ten or fifteen minutes every few days until it's at 5:30 or 6 but don't get them up any earlier than 5am even if they wake up. Once they are sleeping 5:30 or 6 to 5am, slowly move everything (breakfast, errands in the morning, lunch, nap, snack, dinner, etc) ten or fifteen minutes later every few days. That, along with blackout curtains and white noise should help. The say "sleep begets sleep" is so true. When they sleep more hours at night, they won't be overtired so they'll sleep better. It's worth a try!

 

I did a cio with the boys when they were around a year old because they were going to bed around 8 and waking up at 4 and that was too little sleep for sure and they did start sleeping until 5:30. Then daylight savings came around and they never adjusted. I've tried not going in to them until 5:30 but Ezra will just scream and scream and scream and I'm not sure to what end. If he is really not going back to sleep then I'm not that comfortable doing that. If I thought he'd go back to sleep then I would but I don't.

I have been trying to figure out bed earlier or bed later and the going back and forth is what led me to post about this because I couldn't make up my mind. It just seems so weird that they are up for 7-8 hours, then sleep for 2 then are up for 5 and then go to sleep. If I start them going to bed even earlier, then that afternoon wake time will be even shorter. Should I move their nap back too? I do lunch at 11:00 or 11:30 then bed. Would I still feed them lunch first???

 

OK. this is exceedingly weird. They had really good naps today (Elias 2.5 hours, Ezra 3 - Ezra woke up at 3:00). Ezra went and got his sleep sack at 6:10 (the first step in our bedtime ritual) and I thought "Ok, maybe he just wants it on", then Elias got his so I put his on too. Then Ezra started bringing me our night time books. In my mind, once we read the nighttime books, that's it, there's no going back. So I tried to distract him with other stuff but he kept on bringing them back to me. So I read them to him and they were in bed by 6:20. They are chatting away in there. I think Ezra might be thinking "what? she took me seriously?"

I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Wish me luck

 

That sounds like a good thing to me! My girls get all excited when we are walking downstairs heading to our room to drink their milk, and they giggle while I put their sleep sacks on, they know its bedtime, they want to go to bed.

Hopefully a good nap was all they needed to get them sleeping better again!!

We should start a babies who dont sleep club!

 

I agree with the "sleep begets sleep" theory. My guys have been doing so well since we moved their bedtime up. It was difficult at the time because I was still working outside the home. I hated that I only saw them about an hour in the morning and 1/2 hour at night...but it was definitely in their best interest and ours in the long run. Bedtime varies between 6-6:30...before the time change they were sleeping until 8:00am! They usually wake up now between 7-7:30 and take about and hour and a half nap between 12:30 and 2:00. Occasionally, they will refuse their nap. If this happens, they both go to bed early that night by at least 1/2 hour. They almost always wake up happy Which is nice, because sometimes I'm the only one home now in the morning since they wake up so late! I became a SAHM at the end of April and am loving it!! I don't know if this helps, but thought I'd put in my 2 cents
Good luck!!!

P.S. We do not go in to get them in the morning until after 7:00am - period. Unless, of course, someone is crying like something is wrong. Then, of course, we go and check.

 

That has never happened to me - they requested to go to bed! I'd die of shock!

 

I did nearly die of shock. I don't even know if Ezra knew the implications of what he was doing. CHJH - do you still have "HSHHC"? I would love to know what he says about this age and scheduling (just thought of it last night).

Anyways, Ezra woke up at 2:00 and I thought "great. he went to sleep 50 minutes early and he's waking up 2.5 hours early" but he cried for about 5 minutes and went back to sleep and woke up at 4:50 which isn't that bad in my house. And it also seems like Elias is still sleeping!

I guess it seems like the earlier bedtime might be the first thing I try since they seem to request it. Then I guess I'll try the later one if the earlier one doesn't work. My neighbour said she was advised to do the later one for 2 weeks to adjust their body clocks and she stuck with it and her boy used to wake up at 4:30 and now wakes up at 6:00...ahhh, heaven.

 

Well I dont know if its a fluke or what, but my girls went to bed about 15mins early and slept straight through until 615 and 630, which is SO much better than 3-4am!

Here's to hoping we both get another good night sleep tonight!!! :good:

 

I have been going through the same thing recently.. My boys are 15 months and were still taking the two naps because they were getting up so early (5:00 - 5:30) they just couldn't stay awake until the afternoon.. Then they would take the first nap great but fight the second....One night I ended up getting them down by 6:30 p.m. because they were so cranky and lo and behold the next morning they slept until 6:00 a.m.! Thankfully it is finally getting better and this morning they slept till like 6:45 a.m. so I was able wait until noon to give them their nap.. We have tried a few times to push their bedtime until later and it didn't help at all! They still woke up at the crack of dawn... My boys are also definatly the type that needs their sleep or else they are CRANKY!!

 

Well, best laid plans...
I was going to try to put them to bed early again last night but I had a guy in to do an estimate on some work I need done in the house and it took him an hour and a half so he didn't even leave until 6:30. And the boys only had an hour nap that day so I couldn't test out the sleep begets sleep theory. The good news is, because of the short nap (this works about 75% of the time but I would never enforce it because they need more sleep than that in their nap) they slept late - 5:45 - which is a total party for me!!!

Cohlee and others, how did you do?

 

2 nights in a row I put my girls down 15mins earlier and they have been sleeping until 6-630! I'll take that!!! :yahoo:

Thank goodness for sleeping in! Its amazing what one night sleep does for everyone! Dont you agree?

Fingers crossed for both of us, its not a fluke!

 

Oh my goodness, I was just coming to post the exact same thing. I've been doing the later bedtime in hopes of sleeping past 5 a.m. I guess I'm going to have to try earlier. I was a die-hard HSHHC in the first year. I haven't picked it up since about 7 months because they've been fine. I should know better...sleep begets sleep! I'll try the earlier bedtime too.

One thing that did work for a few days was getting them up at 4:30 or 5:00 (when they cried) and changing them and giving them a little milk (2-3 ounces) - they'd go back to sleep for several hours, but then I started worrying about that 5:00 a.m. milk becoming a habit. UGH! I'm so tired of the early mornings.

My thing is not that I want more sleep, but that 5-6:30 is my ONLY time all day to do anything that I need to do. I can't get exercise or reading or meditating or head-banging in any other time of the day. :headbang: I even told them this morning "This is MY hour...you can't have it!" They listened of course...not.

 

Liesel, I was doing the same thing, nursing them at 5 then laying them back down in hopes of another hour or two! And everytime a little voice in my head was saying, "nice bad habit!"

 

If I could do anything like that to get them back to sleep again for a couple of hours, I wouldn't even blink. I'll take the a few years of extra sleep and break the habit later!

So tonight they were tired even though they had 2 and 2.5 hour naps. they only woke up at 3:00 but Elias was a total crankypants. I stuck them both in bed at 6:30 with a big smile on my face. Ezra didn't fall asleep until 7:30. I felt soooo bad.

I just can't seem to do anything consistently with them around this. I still feel like I just don't know what I'm doing. After two good mornings, I'm predicting a 4:30 wake up.

Please please please prove me wrong.