Can I please get some advice for bedtime????

[Ashers Mommy]

I will try to make this as short as possible

My husband works second shift. So he doesn't get off work until about 12am...we don't get in bed until about 1am. I literally can not sleep until he gets home. Asher has been on our schedule since he was born. I assumed if I put him to bed at a more normal bedtime I would get no sleep because he would be wide awake at 6am...and with him waking up so often I just didn't think I could handle that. Now, I feel more rested...he still wakes at least every 3 hours....but, he is going right back to sleep now. So I wake up much more refreshed. The past few days it has taken me atleast 2 hours to get him to go to sleep. I usually start around 11pm. Well, tonight he fell asleep at 8:30pm and is still sleeping...it is now 11:30. I would have normally woke him up and tried to keep him up a few hours so he would hopefully sleep better at night. But, tonight I an experimenting. I am thinking if I put him down at 8:30-9:00pm I could have a few hours to get things done before dh gets home and I can go to bed. The past week he has stayed in bed for 12 hours (not slept that long..meaning he will go right back to sleep after feeds) so, since he went to bed at 8:30pm I am hoping he will stay in bed until 8:30am....which would mean I would still get some sleep! Do you think he will rest better with an earlier bedtime?? I didn't think this schedule would have affected him since he is still getting the same amount of sleep.....what do you all think?!?

What is the norm for your babies hour wise...will they keep going back 12 hours?? Or is that too long?

[Conch06]

Often when babies are overtired they will have trouble getting to sleep - that might be the trouble you were having with a later bedtime. However he is still quite young so what works one night might not work the next.

My husband often works 2nd shift as well but I've always subscribed to an earlier bed time for Hunter as it's easier to put him to sleep then and it allows me to have some time on my own in the evenings as well as time with my husband when he is home. He goes to bed at 7:00pm and generally sleeps until 8:30 or 9:00am. Of course there is the odd morning where he will wake up earlier but honestly (especially when he was only a couple months old) I would just pull him back into bed with me after feeding him. Eventually it worked itself into a schedule that works well for us. But I would definitely play with Asher's bedtime - if you hit the "prime" sleepy time (but not overtired) he should go to bed relatively easily.

[Ashers Mommy]

Thanks for your advice!

Asher slept for about 3 hours (which is AWESOME for him..up until 9 weeks he was waking every 1.5 like clockwork) he was just starting to wake up....so I grabbed him, changed him, and nursed him in bed with me and he fell right back asleep! Usually this is where the struggle begins!! :lol: I moved him to his bassinet and he slept another 3 hours!! Which is also amazing...he has slept in bed with us since about day 1. With the frequent nursings it was sooo much easier. I am just now trying to move him to his bassinet. After that he was in bed with me...but was still sleeping at 7am. We all three (me, matt, and asher) got up since we are heading out this morning! So maybe I will try this again tonight since Matt is home! It would be nice to have a few hours to ourselves!!!

[mama bronc]

I agree, if babies get overtired it takes them longer to go to sleep, and often they will sleep for less time than they would if they weren't too tired.

I put my 8mo old in bed at ~7:30, and he sleeps until 5am, eats and then goes right back to bed and sleeps until ~8. He still takes 2 naps a day!

I read a book called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, and it said that the more they sleep, the better they'll sleep. This has definately been the case for my son. I kind of just watch him and let him sleep when he is ready. I keep the bedtime about the same every night, and follow a strict bedtime routine so he knows that it is time for bed when we do this, and he has fallen right into the routine.

Good luck! I know that this sleep schedule can be so trying! I hope you get into a schedule that works for your family.

[Jill]

My ds is 3mo and we are on our way to a sleep schedule. His naps vary although he is starting to take a longer afternoon nap. I don't let him sleep more than 3 hours during his nap b/c I don't want him to confuse day and night. He goes in his crib around 9:30 for the night and he wakes around 5am. I bring him to my bed to feed him and then we both go back to sleep to about 7:30. I have found that the more I feed him during the day, the more he sleeps at night.
I agree with the tired babies sleeping less idea. If I try to keep ds up late so he will sleep later, it seems to backfire and he wakes up more often during the night.
I also keep a pretty strict bedtime routine- bath, pj's, nurse, crib. It seems to help and the bath really relaxes him!
Good luck!

[Kensbev]

I have a 9 mo dd who goes to sleep every night around 7:30 (within a half hour earlier or later, depending on her mood). She usually sleeps until about 6:00 am, wakes up to nurse, and stays in bed until 7:30 or 8:00. Even if she is awake, she knows that she's supposed to be in bed during that time, so she just plays quietly until it's time to wake up.

She's a much easier baby to deal with when she gets her naps, but I find that there's a window of opportunity for those. And if I wait too long (like when I'm shopping and end up coming home an hour late for naptime), she doesn't go to sleep as easily or sleep as long as she normally would.

It's been my experience that they can't vary too much from their established routine. For the most part. If you have to get off schedule one day, that's not going to be really hard to recover from. Just don't make variation a habit! Kids really need an established sleep/wake routine. I would take Asher's lead in figuring out what his routine should be, but once you figure out what it's going to be, try not to make big changes in it.

That being said, my pastor and his wife are real night owls. She told me that they set their son's schedule to suit their schedule. Bedtime was about 1:00 am for them, so they put Steven down at about 11:00 and kept his room dark and quiet (only child) until it was time for him to wake.

So, figure out what works for all the members of your family the best. And, no, 12 hours is actually about right for overnight sleeping. Newborns need about 16-20 hours in a 24 hour period, but that's usually not as consolidated as parents would like, lol! At 3 months, a baby averages 5 hours of sleep during the day and 9-10 hours at night, usually with an interruption or two. At 6 months, an infant may nap about 3 hours during the day and sleep about 11-12 hours at night. They start consolidating their sleep as they get older.

If little Asher is sleeping 12 hours with just short interruptions for eating, just praise God. He sounds like a normal little boy!

[Lisha71106]

My husband doesn't get home from work until 1am, and very rarely am I able to go to bed before he gets home. I try, but end up laying in bed wide awake.

I get Lexi down at around 8pm, she gets solids at 7, and then we start our bedtime routine. This is our routine: after her meal, we cuddle for a while or play on the floor, then I change her diaper and by this time she's already in her pj's since our apartment is so cold even with heaters on, then I put her in her crib or exersaucer while I fill up her humidifier, then I pick her up, turn on both heater and humidifier, then we go sit on the couch and read her a book "God Gave Us You", then we go in her room and I nurse her, then rock her, and lay her down.

Whats hard is I can't get anything done while she is sleeping, because our apartment is so small, and even with white noise and music, the littlest noises will wake her up. But when she's awake she's not content unless she is crawling around and generally just getting into everything.