Babies thrive on schedules. At least that is what I have read in many books and some even have different philosophies. This includes the same bedtime, nap time, eating times, what is done to help them know it’s time for bed in the bedtime routine (which even includes reading the same book). I read all of this to help Kian learn to sleep through the night. That was a little over a year ago, and it seems that I had forgotten all the things that I had learned from those books.
Our little “creature” has been thrown off kilter. Kian started to no sleep very well around the time that Christmas came and we had a lot of visitors coming and going. Also, Jamie had off for two whole weeks so Kian saw him a lot (when he’s used to about 10 minutes a day during the week). (Side note: Please don’t get me wrong! We love having visitors and want people come out and spend time with all of us!)
Earlier this week Jamie and sat down to figure out what we should do with him. Kian wasn’t falling asleep for about two hours after he went to bed, but was napping well during the day. We thought we should move his bedtime – bad idea since it was the DAY before Jamie went back to work (which was Tuesday). Kian woke up and hour and half later than usual and Jamie was already gone – when I put him to bed Jamie wasn’t home yet and he was still staying awake. Then his naps got bad and he would fall asleep at the time that I would be feeding him lunch – when he would wake up I would end up giving him lunch at 4PM! I was at a loss for what to do and very frustrated – since a lot of times I plan to do things that I can’t necessarily do when Kian is awake.
Finally, I went onto one of my message boards for Mom’s with babies born in May 2004. One of the mom’s posted that she was having problems with her baby sleeping. She listed off all the possible things that could make a baby not sleep: doing something new, growth spurt, teething, over tired… She said her baby was not doing any of those things right now so she couldn’t figure out why her child wasn’t sleeping. Later she came back to post that she figured it out! Her husband had gone back to work and that was the only thing different in their lives! Once I read that I told Jamie. He said that Kian is such a creature of habit and we just changed his schedule all around on him – not to mention all the other changes going on around him!
So, we decided to start just doing things for Kian at the time we would normally do them. And instead of letting him sleep later than 8-8:30AM (this is the first time ever that he has slept later than that!). The last few days Kian has not taken a nap but I get him out of his crib at 2PM like normal to feed him lunch. He has been really tired the last few days and has gone right to sleep at 7:30 when his bed time routine is over. He’s actually been asleep before I lay him down in his crib which is very unlike him!
Jamie and I decided to give the schedule that Kian has been on before a chance for the next two weeks and see if things are better. I have a feeling Kian will do well once we help him get back into the swing of things. Until then I am trying to keep myself from going insane with the lack of time I have to do things during the day.
4 comments:
James too is a creature of habit and he thrives on routine. He too doesn't like to have his routine messed around with, so hopefully it won't be too long before Kian is back on track.
When I try to get things done around the house I try to involve James now, for example if I'm trying to cook a meal I set up a chair at the bench for him to stand on to see what I am doing, give him some fruit to play with and eat and get him to help!! wherever possible and he loves it. I can usually get my meals prepared a lot easier this way.
Susanne Lun
Cambria had a similar problem over Christmas. Being that she was only 3 weeks old on Christmas day, we had JUST started to establish a good sleeping routine where she would wake for a few hours and then start to sleep through to each of her feedings during the night... and at least give us about a 4-hour stretch in there. But once we went to my in-laws house with all the family around (~25 people) and noise and lights, etc... she became very fussy and wouldn't eat well and completely stopped sleeping at night and started sleeping all day. When we came home and went back to our normal every day routine, things fell right back into place and she is doing wonderful again. Funny how picky they are, huh? =)
Suzanne, I am glad to hear that James is the same way!
Jamey, what a bummer with Cambria! Kian was very easily overstimulated (still is!)and that sounds like something he would have done if we were near family...heck he did something like that last Easter when he was about 10 months!
I have to say that those blurry eyed wake up calls for milk are all but a distant memory (although they felt endless at the time). Funny how when you are at that stage you think sleeping for 3 hours straight is a great thing LOL
SO TRUE! Those 3 hour stretches of sleep are the BEST! HAHA! =)
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