Scheduling questions and why is DD doing this?

Hi ladies,

Happy Friday :drinks: (we made it through another lovely week!). So the kiddies are starting to sleep a lot better. We have our bedtime routine down and I know their cues much better, so we usually avoid chaos and they drop off to sleep after their bath and a few sips from their bottle. DS is sleeping about 7-8 hours before he wakes and DD about 5 hours. So we're pretty happy b/c with our shift approach\, each person usually only has to do one feed during their shift. They only thing is they are waking 5:45-6:15 for the day and that's TOO early. What can I do to shift this? To be honest going to bed later is not an option b/c we have melt downs and earlier seems kind of nuts (we start baths at 5:45pm). Any suggestions?

The other question is DD and her eating. The ped said she is more of a snacker but this is getting ridiculous. We sometimes can't stop her from eating but most of the time she will eat 2-3 oz and pull away and unless you sort of trick her she just won't eat but we know she's hungry. She needs a 10-15 rest period and then starts again. Now this is all compounded by the fact she is babbling and would rather "talk" than eat. Grrr.. any suggestions? At first I though mayber her reflux was acting up b/c we took her off of her prevacid but she was like this before too.

Thanks,
anna

 

the food thing made me immediately think reflux. FWIW my boys' eating behavior remained difficult even when their meds controlled the acid pain adequately. they're still picky eaters and more likely to snack. my pedi says they'll eat when they want to eat, you can't force them, and try not to sweat it. easier said than done. as long as your pedi isn't concerned, i would try not to worry too much.

for the wake up time thing, there may not be much you can do. keeping them up later won't necessarily result in later wakings. in fact they may end up waking earlier. we've got early risers and only in the last week or two have they started sleeping past 6:30. and they're 20 months old! yes, i'm desperate for a sleep-in day, too. :gah:

 

ha ha Sara... I guess I was being too hopeful. Can you imagine the beauty of sleeping in and having children that do everything the way they are supposed to? I guess that is totally surreal and wouldn't be that much fun b/c their quarks are what make this adventure amazing :laughing: Thanks, I will watch DD and see if she needs her meds again.

 

1. Sometimes mine wake around 7:00 AM, which is about 2 hours too early. Unless they are doing their hungry cry, I just say "go back to sleep", leave them in their sleepsacks & beds, and go back to sleep myself. They sleep in my room, so when they see me sleeping, they go to sleep too. If they are hungry, I leave them in the sleepsacks, give them a quick bottle & kiss, and put them back in their bed. I then go back to sleep and so do they.

2. DS does this too. I will let him skip a meal and then he gets really hungry and chows later--like a bottle and a half + 2 solids. That is fine with me--as long as he gets his daily food intake in, then I don't care what time during the daytime he gets it. But I make sure he gets it during the day, so he doesn't wake up at midnight hungry.

 

Sometimes, especially with babies who have reflux, more frequent, smaller meals are actually better for them. Frustrating for us, but better on their little tummies.

As for the sleeping, I don't know of much you can do. Moving their bedtime to later often backfires & they sleep less, moving it to an earlier time sometimes works better to get them to sleep more. Or you can try just leaving them in the crib if they are not crying & see if they will fall back asleep. But, to be honest, I always felt like I was doing pretty well if they didn't wake up before 6!

 

I agree that snacking seems to help refluxers, and maybe it was too early to take her off the meds? I would suggest trying her back on the prevacid again and see if it helps, but if it doesn't, then it may not be reflux related and just be her way of asserting independence! :lol: You'll get that lots in the next few years!

The sleeping issue...I have a different opinion as most, and maybe I was just blessed with 4 kids who sleep good, but I don't believe all kids have a built in "bed time" as such. We have preferred all our kids to be on a later sleeping schedule, first because my husband used to work until 1am and there was no way we could start our day at 6am, and now because he doesn't get home from work until 7pm, we don't want the kids going to bed before daddy gets home. Our 3.5 yr old and the twins all go to bed around 9-9:30pm. When the twins were younger their bedtime was around 10-11pm.

First, is their room nice and dark? Is the sun waking them up? I have aluminum foil and poster board over the twins window to keep it nice and dark, it's almost nighttime dark in there even at naptime at 2pm. It helps them sleep later. Secondly, if they are going down at 6-6:30 it's almost a given that by 6-6:30 in the morning they are going to be ready to get up for the day. Once mine started sleeping through the night, 11-12 hrs was the longest they would go before they were ready to get up. So I would try shifting their nighttime a little later. But don't just shift it 1 hr and expect them to adapt, I would try shifting it in 10-15 minute increments. Do each shift for a few days, and see if you can ease them into going to bed a bit later, and sleeping in a bit later. It's going to take a few days to transition them so I would do it nice and slow so they don't get overtired. You'll also need to shift nap time by the same amount of time. At 4 months old they should still be pretty flexible and it shouldn't take you long to get them onto a later schedule.

 

We tried shifting to a later bedtime, but they still woke up at the same time in the mornings, which meant they were getting one less hour of sleep each night. We decided that wake up time is part of their natural sleep pattern & are just going to have to deal with it. As much as I would love to sleep past 5:30/6:00, I just don't see it happening any time soon. I wish I had better input for you.

 

I second the suggestion about putting yourself back to sleep as a way to help them go back to sleep. That always worked for us as well. They were in a co-sleeper beside the bed, and so if they woke up early I would usually feed them (if they were hungry) and then lay back down beside them and go back to sleep. They usually would follow suit. Some days it was a lost cause and they were just up for the day. But quite often it would help ease them back in to sleep.