I'm a Babywise mom but I haven't been following it near as well with Ellie as I did with Ethan. She is still on a schedule of eating every 3 hours, and has no interest in moving that space to 4 hours quite yet, but her naps are all over the place. I really want her to be on a nap schedule and I'm kind of at a lost as to how to do it. I really think that if she would just wake up at 7am, she would be on more of a consistent schedule. I would love for her to nap in the morning at 9:30am after I take Ethan to preschool, until around 11 or 11:30am- when I have to go pick him up. Then she would go down for her other nap at around 1 until 3 or so, and then a little quick nap around dinner time. This schedule would be ideal but I have no idea how to train her to do it!
Right now she eats around 6am and plays until 8am when she starts to get tired. I dont want to put her down since she eats at 9am so I usually try to keep her awake but she is a grump. Somtimes she can stay awake until 9:30am, other times she cant and that is where the schedule gets all messed up! What have you guys done with an early waker and one that wants to nap around 8am -ish? What schedules have worked for you? I really cant remember what I did with Ethan... I really wish I would have wrote it down!
Her feeding schedule is pretty much every 3 hours starting at 6am and then 6pm and 8pm in the evening. I don't think she is necessarily hungry at 6am, I just feed her anyways. Today I didnt feed her until 7am and she was just fine. She was just awake the whole entire time! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
*Oh and I don't think blacking out her room would work for helping her to sleep longer.. We have stayed in hotels where it is pitch black inside and she is still like an alarm clock. 6am everytime :)
No matter what her nap schedule is though , she is usually always this happy...
6 comments:
Well, this probably won't be a helpful comment, so maybe I shouldn't make it, but with Adie it was super easy to schedule her and plan my life, but Chase refused any sort of schedule for a long time, no matter what technique I tried. In fact, he is more scheduled now, but not always, like this morning. He refused to take a nap. So, I guess what I am saying is, if you can find something that works, great, but you may just have a less consistent kid on your hands, or one whose internal clock is earlier than you would like so there's not much you can do to change it. I have been a night owl since I was a baby, and even now, I struggle going to bed early and waking up early, even if I do it consistently. I just more tired that way. I think everyone has a natural sleep rhythm, just my opinion from my experience. Good luck though. I do hope you find something that works. Sorry about the incoherent novel.
I think if she wakes up early you could try just letting her play quietly until its time to feed her. Or, try wrapping her up and rocking her back to sleep? Give her the idea that she's not going to get attention, and maybe she'll learn that it's boring to be awake that early. Then, be really happy to see her when you go get her at 7:30am to feed her. :) good luck! Cara's a 7am alarm clock. I'm not sure how she did it, but I really like it.
I agree with Jess in that there is no reason that she can't just play in her crib until 7 am and that MIGHT help push her schedule back a little bit. Kaylee used to play in her crib for 45 min or so. I think it was good for her. She really didn't even have toys - she just talked and giggled and played.
The only other thing that I can think would be to push her bed time back 1/2 hour or or so just to see if it changes the morning time or not :) Good luck! :)
Every kid is different - all three of mine have been so different and you have to know what it right for that child. Brock was my hardest in this area. I had to schedule him. I finally had to decide "this is when you are going to wake up, this is when you are going to nap, and this is when you are going to bed" - despikte what he thought he wanted to do. It was a rough week or so, but after a few days he would sleep when he was in his crib - i just had to be consistent. Every day at 9 am he would go in his crib - whether he was tired or not - after a week or so, he wanted to nap everyday at 9. (Bytheway - he was around 8 months when I did this - I would not have done it sooner I don't think)
I felt with Gaines that it took him longer to get on a schedule than Bella, probably around 6 months where it was consistent nap at 9 or 9:30, then nap around 1. So maybe in a little she will get that way. It just seemed to happen one day, not sure how. After his first nap we usually go do something so it keeps him busy and when we get home he eats and goes to bed right with Bella. I'm sure she will figure it out soon, but just try and be consistent, always seems to be the key to a lot of things.
I know I don't have kids yet but with the little girl I nanny for had a lot of sleep problems when she was a baby. We finally did the Furber method and let her cry it out which totally worked. However, she was still waking up super early and her parents wanted her to sleep a little longer in the morning. Another part of the Ferber method is if they wake up early let them stay in their crib for another 30 mins to an hour. If they are crying you let them cry but hopefully they play quietly. Pretty soon they will realize that they aren't supposed to get up that early and stay a sleep for the extra time. Once they are staying a sleep up to the knew time you can increase it again if you want and so on and so on, until they wake up at the desired time.
It took Fiona about a week before she was sleeping an extra hour each morning and they were happy with it.
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