Up at the crack of dawn
Today we had play group at the church. I somehow got put in charge so I was there on time. Everyone else was late (which doesn't bother me). We have play group at 10:00. I thought this was a great time because it's before lunch and naps. Well, everyone came and my friend Ali Hoelzer said, "Sorry we're late. We woke up at 9:15." Come to find out everyone (there are five moms) woke up at 9:00!!! I was up bright and early at 6:45 (which was actually later than the other mornings this week). Will woke up at 7:06 (which is six minutes later than normal). I was feeling sorry for myself when I realized that I haven't slept later than 8:00 in more than two years and I could count those mornings on my fingers. But then...I realized there are a few things about my boys sleeping habits that I wouldn't trade for all the late mornings in the world.
1. My boys take naps. They may to be the greatest naps all the time but they take them. They both fight me off and on but I'm a lot more stubborn than them and I make them stay in their rooms to take naps. I have seen way too many examples of rotten kids to know that napping is essential for happy babies and toddlers. I should add though, that not all non-nappers are rotten because Will's friends are all really good kids and none of them take naps.
2. My boys don't sleep in my bed and they don't sleep in my room. This is something I am really opinionated about. Kids do not belong is parent's rooms! I thought this was normal-having your kids sleep in their own cribs and own rooms-but it's not apparently. All of my friend's kids have at some point or still are sleeping in their parent's beds or rooms. I think that is crazy! I spend all day with my kids, I don't need to have them in my room during the night.
3. My boys are both in bed by 8:00. This is also something that Will's friends are either just starting to do or still don't do. Having them go to bed early is what saves me! I need that time with Mike and on the nights Mike is gone, I need that time to myself. Will isn't excited about bed time but he knows he has to go to bed and no amount of crying is going to get him out of bed.
4. Will sleeps through the night (Isaac is working on this one). When he wakes up in the middle of the night, we let him cry himself back to sleep unless he has a fever or something. I believe kids need to learn to soothe themselves to sleep and I'm not going to spend forever trying to calm them down and get them back to sleep. I have tried staying in the room until Will falls asleep and it only makes him more upset and takes him longer to fall back asleep. Isaac has been waking up at 3:30 and we just let him cry himself back to sleep too.
Anyway, everyone does things differently when it comes to their kids sleeping and I know there are a whole lot of people that disagree with me. This works for us. My kids are well-rested and well-behaved. And...I won't have to worry about getting them up for school.
1. My boys take naps. They may to be the greatest naps all the time but they take them. They both fight me off and on but I'm a lot more stubborn than them and I make them stay in their rooms to take naps. I have seen way too many examples of rotten kids to know that napping is essential for happy babies and toddlers. I should add though, that not all non-nappers are rotten because Will's friends are all really good kids and none of them take naps.
2. My boys don't sleep in my bed and they don't sleep in my room. This is something I am really opinionated about. Kids do not belong is parent's rooms! I thought this was normal-having your kids sleep in their own cribs and own rooms-but it's not apparently. All of my friend's kids have at some point or still are sleeping in their parent's beds or rooms. I think that is crazy! I spend all day with my kids, I don't need to have them in my room during the night.
3. My boys are both in bed by 8:00. This is also something that Will's friends are either just starting to do or still don't do. Having them go to bed early is what saves me! I need that time with Mike and on the nights Mike is gone, I need that time to myself. Will isn't excited about bed time but he knows he has to go to bed and no amount of crying is going to get him out of bed.
4. Will sleeps through the night (Isaac is working on this one). When he wakes up in the middle of the night, we let him cry himself back to sleep unless he has a fever or something. I believe kids need to learn to soothe themselves to sleep and I'm not going to spend forever trying to calm them down and get them back to sleep. I have tried staying in the room until Will falls asleep and it only makes him more upset and takes him longer to fall back asleep. Isaac has been waking up at 3:30 and we just let him cry himself back to sleep too.
Anyway, everyone does things differently when it comes to their kids sleeping and I know there are a whole lot of people that disagree with me. This works for us. My kids are well-rested and well-behaved. And...I won't have to worry about getting them up for school.
Comments
Layla doesn't take naps anymore, unless she falls asleep in the car. Ryan takes wonderful naps, sometimes I worry that he is sleeping too long...but never wake him up because I think it is wrong to wake a sleeping baby.
But I also believe that whatever works for each family, as long as they are happy with it...the wierdos!
when it comes to naps and bedtime, all i ask is, "who's in charge?" and the answer better be "Mom" (or Dad, maybe, except he is such a softie at our house).
i think it's in healthy sleep habits... where it lists the signs that a kid isn't getting enough sleep--like always falling asleep in the car and stuff like that. yesterday callie (2 1/2) fell asleep on the way home from taking avery to school--at 9 am!; so i knew she hasn't been getting enough sleep).
i think it's great that you're in charge at your house!!
hey, Adrianne, i want to put you on my blogroll since i'm coming to your blog so often. is that ok with you?
Shannon, of course you can add me to your blogroll. Can I add you?
Lauren, well, she does whatever she wants. I guess we shouldn't get frustrated at an 8 week old's sleeping patterns. In all honesty, though, she's a pretty good sleeper. She'll go to sleep for the night around 10:30pm and will stay asleep until about 4:30am, get a feeding, and go to bed again until 7 or 8.
Jess
Since it was your birthday yesterday, I was thinking about you. I decided to check out your blog and was interested to see this post. I know we talked briefly about this in Branson as couple of weeks ago and I was happy to see that we shared the same ideas. As you state in your post, we spend all day with our children, why would we want to spend all night with them too? We have been very fortunate with our children. All 6 of them sleep well and have since they were about 4-6 months old. The challenge, I am finding, is that as my children are entering their early teen years, I am having to relax bedtime rules. Finding that fine line between allowing your older children more freedom and still maintaining a fair set of rules is easier when someone else is doing it. As it is in our house now, everyone under the age of 12 goes to bed at 8pm. Dan, 12, is allowed to stay up until 8:30 and Caleb, almost 14, stays up until 9. One of the good things about having these rules is that being able to stay up late is seen by all of our children as a privilege and as such an early bedtime, even for one night, is an effective punishment - especially for Caleb. It was amazing how his grades improved when he realized that he would have to go to bed at the same time as his then 4 year old brother if they didn't. Isn't parenthood great?
Welcome to our blog! My boys don't share a room yet. I have heard from different people that their kids sleep better when they finally share a room. I am really nervous about making that switch and hope not to for awhile. Right now Will doesn't wake up too often. When he does, I usually let him cry himself back to sleep unless he has a scared or sick cry (you know what I mean?). But, I have a really hard time letting them cry too. My husband doesn't and will either sleep through it or make me stay in bed. Sometimes I will go into Will and he doesn't seem to need anything (maybe just a nightmare?) so I stay with him until he calms down and then leave him. He doesn't like that very much but will go back to sleep in just a few minutes. Isaac just started sleeping through the night too. It is nice to be getting sleep again.
Jason, Mike and I talked about that just recently, "When do you extend bedtime?" I like your idea. Mike said that when our kids reach seminary age they can stay up as long as they want but if they are too tired to go to seminary, they are too tired to stay up and will have to have a bedtime. I don't know. I honestly can't remember what mom and dad did for us. Did they give you a bedtime?