Now that everyone is juuuust about healthy again, we really need to get bedtimes back on track around here. After our extra late night in the emergency room a few nights ago, Peter's sleep has been really out of whack and I've been struggling to get it back on track. He has been such a consistent sleeper for about a year now, and anytime his sleep gets thrown off it's only ever taken a day or so to reset it.
Yesterday he didn't wake up until almost 10 in the morning, after we couldn't get him to bed until about 9 pm. I decided that I was going to try and skip his nap and just push through for an early bedtime, in hopes that it would get his nighttime sleep back to normal (normal being about a 7 pm bedtime). Well, I was able to get him to bed at 5:30 last night, and expected that he would sleep until seven or so this morning, but he slept until nine! Then he didn't fall asleep for his nap until a couple hours later than he should have, and I just got him to bed tonight around nine again. I'm a little extra paranoid because daylight savings is this weekend and it always takes a while to scoot back bedtime when that happens. I don't want to have a 10 pm bedtime. I need my nighttime alone time!
Carolyn has been tough at night too, she's basically been tough for months now, but the last two nights she has woken up to feed in the middle of the night and then wouldn't go back to sleep for over an hour. Times when I am not in the mood for playing include, but are not limited to, the middle of the night. I decided last night when I was awake for the second time, for an hour, in the middle of the night, that I was going to try and let Carolyn cry it out again. Today I tried letting her cry for her naps and it went amazingly well. She only cried for maybe five minutes before falling asleep both times, and she never got as completely beside herself as she had the last time I tried. Usually she goes down for naps pretty well but is really hard to get down at night, but tonight I walked her around for a little while and set her down awake and she fell right asleep! Hooray! Hopefully it's not a fluke and she'll get sleep trained after all.
Those couple hours at the end of the day when the kids go to bed are so significant for me. I've said before that I'm not a morning person, and I often get a little jolt of energy at the end of the day, and if the kids are in bed then I get so much done. Blogging is also a lot more fun when I can take a little time on a post, and it can feel like a chore when I am squeezing it in right before we head to bed. I'm considering waking Peter up in the morning at his "normal" wake up time, and maybe that will help to get the day's sleep on the right track. Hm... it is his birthday though. I'm not sure how much I want to mess with his birthday. We shall see.Labels: Motherhood, Parenting