Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Running Late

Kaylani's bedtime is 7:30pm, but I'm not sure she's ever been in her crib, let alone asleep, by 7:30pm. We work tirelessly to get her to sleep on schedule, but it never works out. No matter what we do, its usually after 8pm by the time we get her down. It's like her bedtime routine just keeps getting dragged out, and I think its just going to get worse.

On normal days, Kaylani will start getting ready for bed at 6:30. It takes less than 30 minutes on non-bath nights to get her cleaned up and changed, which means she starts her 30-40 minutes of nursing sometime before 7. And I don't know what it is, but when we look over at the time, its 8pm. Sometimes nursing takes longer because Kaylani has to burp or just wants to sit up and look around. Other times she wants to hit Mommy or talk to her stuffed animals. Part of me thinks she knows she's stalling, and that's not a good thing.

One of the things we've talked about is starting her bedtime routine earlier. On days when she hasn't napped well (or at all), we'll try to start "marching" upstairs around 5:30 or 6, but somehow it always seems to be after 8pm when we get her into her crib. I can't even explain how we spend 2+ hours getting her ready for bed when we start early, but only 1+ hours when we start at 6:30. Where does the time go?

Now its not the biggest deal if she goes to sleep at 7:30 or 8:30 because either way she'll probably wake up at 5:30. But what we're trying to find out is if she'll sleep longer if she goes to sleep earlier. They say that sleep breeds more sleep, and more sleep is a good thing. What they don't say is how to get her to sleep in the first place!

Its been something I've tried to avoid but I've found myself looking further and further into Kaylani's future lately. Maybe its because I've been reading all these blogs of parents with older kids (check out some of them over on the right) so it's forced me to think way older than now. Regardless of the reason, I'm afraid of the time when Kaylani can delay bedtime because she can crawl away, run away, or just climb out of bed and walk away. Woah, okay, time to come back to the present and focus on getting Kaylani to bed on our terms.

We spend so much time trying to get Kaylani to bed early. Then, there are days like today where I catch a late train home from the city and won't get to hold my little girl before she goes to bed. Kinda sad how that all works out, but we've made her bed and now she has to sleep in it. Or at least we hope she does. I'll see her bright and early in the morning anyways.

5 comments:

SurprisedMom said...

I have two teen girls and I've never been able to set their bedtimes. LOL. Kids, starting so very young, will go to bed on their terms. It's a fact. You can put them to bed, but you can't make them go to sleep.
But isn't it strange that no matter what the bedtime routine is, when we miss it, we get sad? I think I'll go hug my "babies."

Otter Thomas said...

I've told you this before, but our son scoffs at the idea of bed before 11:30. He doesn't believe in it I guess. Routines help in everything, but sleeping is always up for negotiation.

Momo Fali said...

I have heard that thing about putting them to bed earlier to get them to sleep later. My best friend swears by it. My kids get plenty of sleep...it's their mom who doesn't!

Rina said...

How long does she nap?

JonnyTam13 said...

Good thing that we got her to sleep longer after putting her to be earlier...and then screwed it all up this weekend! Hopefully we'll get her back on track starting today, but who knows!

And for Rina, her naps vary, but usually it's 2.5-3 hours total split up between 2 naps. Sometimes we need a 3rd nap if they're all real short...those are bad days!