Suggestions Please?

For the past week the boys have had different bed times.(They are not sleeping through the night yet but we use to get 5 hr streches). One wants to go to bed at 8 and the other one is still up at 10:30. He is wide awake. I keep trying to put him up and he just screams and kicks his feet in bed. Normally, he goes down pretty good for naps and bed time so I'm not sure whats going on. He also was sleeping from about 10:30 to about 5 or 5:30 until 2 days ago. Then he started getting up 1 more time and his brother is now getting up every 3 hrs. I have read about this 4mth sleep regression but this is just terrible. Sorry for the long vent but I'm at a loss for what to do. Does or did anyone have one that tried to stay up later then the other one and how did you correct it?

 

Honestly, it sounds like they are overtired. What about putting them down at 6:30?

I read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child and I learnbed that babies can only have 1-2 hours of wake time before needing sleep. Mine can go 1 1/2 hours before needing a nap. As soon as I started paying attention to this, they were a lot less fussy in the evening because I was getting them enough sleep and getting them to bed early enough. Here is our schedule:

6 am wake/feed
7ish nap (wake times vary)
10 am feed
11:30 nap
2 pm feed
3:30 nap
5:30, sometimes 6 feed
6 or 6:30 bed
2 am DH wakes them to eat (otherwise they would wake on own at 4 am. So DH wakes them since he gets home from work at 1 am)

What does your schedule look like?

 

I agree potentially they are overtired and that is why they are having problems falling asleep. Having said that there also appears to be a 4month growth spurt time when sleep regresses and they start waking more to eat - at least that is what happened to my babies, and several others on here. These growth spurts can last days or weeks.
At 4months my ds would go to bed pretty easily at around 6pm, and dd would lay down at 6pm and then would cry for at least 15min before falling asleep. So perhaps he just needs a little bit of fussing time? But, it is all what you are comfortable doing.
Hope things turn around for you soon!

 

I agree with pp. I would move up their bedtime to 6:30p or 7:00pm. I hope it gets better soon :hug99: .

 

We're kind of in the middle of this now, but it has improved a little. It started about 3 weeks ago that my daughter would throw a tantrum when we'd try to put her to bed - it was like she was being possessed by demons or something! She'd go down fine for naps, so I couldn't figure out why she was so different at bedtime. I posted a little bit about it at the time, and I agree she probably was overtired. But I did also read about the developmental phases they are going through (brain development - things you can't really see. not necessarily a growth spurt, but the phase can affect their eating, sleeping, etc.). I tried a couple nights moving her bedtime up (she currently goes to bed between 8:30 and 9:00, and we try to start the day around 8). I'm just not totally on board with the whole 6:30 bedtime thing. Maybe she sensed that, but I was just so paranoid she'd wake up even earlier in the morning, and I didn't want to be training that to happen. But I couldn't take the nighttime fighting anymore, so I tried it. She still pulled the same tantrum - (which is why I think it's really the developmental phase, and not necessarily being overtired) and she was wide awake at 4 am.

I went back to my 8 - 8 routine that has worked up until this point and decided to just let the phase pass and not try to change too many things up to confuse them even more. There are times they wake from their third nap too soon, so there's more like a 3 hour span before bedtime, which i know is too long and is sure to make bedtime rougher. So we usually take them for a walk in the 7:00 hour - to kill time, let them sleep if they need to, get them outside, it seems to help.

She still is difficult to put down, but not nearly as bad as she was a few weeks ago. A couple times we let her cry a little while, I've now resorted to turning the hairdryer on to keep her calm and sometimes that will put her out, sometimes we rock her. We're just kind of in a whatever it takes mode now, because the rest of the day is working fine.

They went from STTN for a month, to this spurt where they started waking 2-3 times a night again. That maybe lasted a week. Now they wake once around 5 am - sucks because they didn't used to do that - and I wouldn't technically call that STTN because I don't want to get up at that time! But, they usually go back to sleep until 7:30-8:30 or so, and it's a big improvement from where we were a few weeks ago. So hopefully this phase is on its way out, and you will see improvement soon as well.

What was your bedtime before this phase kicked in? I'd probably try to stick with that if it was working for you, and really work with the one to get back on it. We now rock them in separate dark and quiet rooms as they get their last bottle. It calms them and puts them to sleep usually. (Of course then our daughter wakes back up and we're back to whatever it takes mode to get her back down again, but it's improving - or we're just figuring out what works faster these days). Then we let our son sleep on our bed until we are sure our daughter is finally out in her crib and we move him.

Good luck, I know how hard and frustrating it is!

 

QUOTE(HinSD @ Aug 7 2008, 11:17 PM) [snapback]919962[/snapback]
Honestly, it sounds like they are overtired. What about putting them down at 6:30?

I read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child and I learnbed that babies can only have 1-2 hours of wake time before needing sleep. Mine can go 1 1/2 hours before needing a nap. As soon as I started paying attention to this, they were a lot less fussy in the evening because I was getting them enough sleep and getting them to bed early enough. Here is our schedule:

6 am wake/feed
7ish nap (wake times vary)
10 am feed
11:30 nap
2 pm feed
3:30 nap
5:30, sometimes 6 feed
6 or 6:30 bed
2 am DH wakes them to eat (otherwise they would wake on own at 4 am. So DH wakes them since he gets home from work at 1 am)

What does your schedule look like?


Thanks for your input!
One usually gets up around 4:30 and the other 5:30 both go back to sleep until about 7:30/8
8 feed
9:30 nap
11:00 feed
12:30 nap
2:00 feed
3:30 nap
5:00 feed
6:00 nap
8:00 feed

Mine generally take 30 min naps expect for a longer one in the am and around 3:30. I have tried putting them to bed earlier and then they just end up getting up around the next feeding time.

 

QUOTE(DeniseT @ Aug 8 2008, 09:05 AM) [snapback]920320[/snapback]
We're kind of in the middle of this now, but it has improved a little. It started about 3 weeks ago that my daughter would throw a tantrum when we'd try to put her to bed - it was like she was being possessed by demons or something! She'd go down fine for naps, so I couldn't figure out why she was so different at bedtime. I posted a little bit about it at the time, and I agree she probably was overtired. But I did also read about the developmental phases they are going through (brain development - things you can't really see. not necessarily a growth spurt, but the phase can affect their eating, sleeping, etc.). I tried a couple nights moving her bedtime up (she currently goes to bed between 8:30 and 9:00, and we try to start the day around 8). I'm just not totally on board with the whole 6:30 bedtime thing. Maybe she sensed that, but I was just so paranoid she'd wake up even earlier in the morning, and I didn't want to be training that to happen. But I couldn't take the nighttime fighting anymore, so I tried it. She still pulled the same tantrum - (which is why I think it's really the developmental phase, and not necessarily being overtired) and she was wide awake at 4 am.

I went back to my 8 - 8 routine that has worked up until this point and decided to just let the phase pass and not try to change too many things up to confuse them even more. There are times they wake from their third nap too soon, so there's more like a 3 hour span before bedtime, which i know is too long and is sure to make bedtime rougher. So we usually take them for a walk in the 7:00 hour - to kill time, let them sleep if they need to, get them outside, it seems to help.

She still is difficult to put down, but not nearly as bad as she was a few weeks ago. A couple times we let her cry a little while, I've now resorted to turning the hairdryer on to keep her calm and sometimes that will put her out, sometimes we rock her. We're just kind of in a whatever it takes mode now, because the rest of the day is working fine.

They went from STTN for a month, to this spurt where they started waking 2-3 times a night again. That maybe lasted a week. Now they wake once around 5 am - sucks because they didn't used to do that - and I wouldn't technically call that STTN because I don't want to get up at that time! But, they usually go back to sleep until 7:30-8:30 or so, and it's a big improvement from where we were a few weeks ago. So hopefully this phase is on its way out, and you will see improvement soon as well.

What was your bedtime before this phase kicked in? I'd probably try to stick with that if it was working for you, and really work with the one to get back on it. We now rock them in separate dark and quiet rooms as they get their last bottle. It calms them and puts them to sleep usually. (Of course then our daughter wakes back up and we're back to whatever it takes mode to get her back down again, but it's improving - or we're just figuring out what works faster these days). Then we let our son sleep on our bed until we are sure our daughter is finally out in her crib and we move him.

Good luck, I know how hard and frustrating it is!


Thanks, I appreciate it. Its weird because he goes down really well for naps and we never use to have problems putting him to bed for the night. I try to let him fuss but then his brother ends up starting to wake so I end up having to move him to another room. We only have 2 bedrooms so right now we have to keep them together. I do hope the phase is on its way out. I really don't mind an 8:00-8:30 bedtime because it will give me a chance to spend time with them once I go back to work. We'll see what works best for them though. I do hope its just a phase like you experienced.