Preschool Pointers - 33: Make Them Sleep on Your Schedule

Problem:

For a long time I've been an avid supporter of 'the baby goes to bed when it's good for us.' For years now, that's been 9, 10, 11 o'clock at night. It shocks most of my friends when they're reminded of it because what kind of kid goes to bed at that time? Well, we're a "late family" I like to say. My husband works from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. so we're usually not even eating dinner until 9. Then the girls get dessert. Then they mess around for a billion years while I try to get them ready for bed and poof! 10:30.

Sadly, this is no longer working. Since nap has mostly evaporated, I end up with jerkfaces for the last three hours of the evening as they're so exhausted they're just about to die of it. Then in the mornings, they don't even want to get up. They're having breakfast right now. It is 11:15 a.m.

It's not going to work anymore. I need some time at night, and they're going to need to be at school at 7:45 a.m. next year. Meaning they'll have to be up at 6:45 a.m. Which is, like, five hours earlier than what we do now.

Solution:

I have to follow my own rules now. Remember the original statement was 'the baby goes to bed when it's good for us.' Well, now a good time is 8 p.m. Not 11.

So, I'll scale it back. We'll get back to 10. Then 9:30. Then 9. Then 8:30. Throughout the summer. And I've got to keep up on the morning side, too. I have to admit, when it's nice and quiet in the morning, the last thing I want to do is go in there and rouse the troops. Particularly because they are cranky as teenagers in morning. But, it must be done. Today I did it by singing a showtune for them. That seemed to work. I'm sure it will lose its novelty eventually, but until then, well, use what you've got.

I've got a four-month-long project in front of me. Here's hoping I can do it!




 

Guest Post - Specific Tips for Putting Twins to Bed

Today I'm lucky enough to have a guest post from Agnes Jimenez about bedtime...something that can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour for us, depending on the day and mood.

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All children have different preferences when it comes to bedtime. Some like a nightlight; others may
want a glass of water, while some will fight tooth and nail to stay up. Having twins can make this even
more difficult. If you are having problems getting your kids to sleep, there are some very specific things you can do to solve the issue.

Consistency is a huge part of having a successful nighttime routine. Give both kids a five minute warning before bedtime. This will give them a chance to mentally transition and to finish up whatever they are doing. Pick a time for bed and stick to it. Vary this time by no more than an hour on the weekends. Letting children stay up late on Friday and Saturday nights will cause them to basically have jet lag on Monday morning. If getting kids to sleep on the weekends is tough, plan fun things they love to do on Saturday or Sunday morning. This will give them motivation to get up in the morning, which will help them transition to sleeping at night.

Make your evening relaxing and predictable by filling it with calming activities. Read stories, sing songs, or have cuddle time. Make sure both twins have an activity that they like. If one wants a story and the other wants to sing, make sure both have what they need. Try to make it predictable by turning it into a routine. For example, maybe the children have a bath, then get a story, and then cuddle with you before bedtime. You can change a regular bath into a bubble bath, choose a different story, and have them cuddle with daddy instead of you. But keep the main activities the same.

Take care of their physical needs ahead of time. Provide bathroom reminders, make sure they have on
comfortable pajamas, be sure each child has their favorite toy, and adjust the temperature of the room
ahead of time. Be sure they are comfortable with nice sheets and the best mattress. If there are other
preferences like a nightlight or glass of water, make those available as well. Most importantly, leave
before they are asleep and allow them to settle in themselves. It is important that children learn how to
relax on their own.

It is possible to put twins to bed! Be positive and try to make the evening relaxing and calm. Stick to a
predictable routine that varies as little as possible. You can enjoy a nice night with your twins.










 

Babies Aren't Machines; Throw the Schedule Out the Window

One of my biggest problems with blogging is that many bloggers work for organizations that pass themselves off as news. They call their pieces articles. These are not articles. They're commentary at best (and this includes my own work. Unless I'm citing pediatricians and other experts and fully exploring and representing both sides of an issue, which I don't think I've ever done, this is not news. This is opinion.)**

So that when an "article" comes down the pipe on Patch.com about putting small infants on a schedule and cites one pediatrician and a whole lot of anecdotal evidence, I get a bit miffed.

Sue Buchelt tells me that parents are supposed to start working toward getting their infants on a schedule as soon as they leave the hospital. Her methods include stuffing the baby as full as he can get so that he goes at least 3.5 hours between feedings (both breastfed and formula fed) and letting the infant cry it out if he wakes up before it's time.

But it's okay. She knows. Her pediatrician told her. Plus, she has four kids. A singleton and triplets, and it worked for them, so obviously she's an expert on everyone else's kids' needs, as well.

She suggests this schedule and says her singleton was on it and sleeping through the night at six weeks. Her triplets? By three months.

6:30 am feeding
nap after feeding (in bed)
10:00 am feeding
1:30 pm feeding
nap after feeding (in bed)
5:00 pm feeding
8:30 pm feeding

That right there looks more like a dream to me, and not the kind I'm getting while I let my children scream in bed for twenty minutes after they wake up (we'll get to that piece of advice in a moment). And if Buchelt was able to pull it off, more power to her. But what about you? What if your baby gets hungry in between 6:30 a.m. and 10 a.m.? What if he gets tired after his 10 a.m. feeding? What if he won't go down for a nap after his 6:30 a.m.?

Babies, especially very young infants, are not made to fit into your sleep schedule. If you expect to regiment them like this, you are probably in for major disappointment. You're setting yourself up for failure. Babies aren't meant to be scheduled so young. They're all so different. They get hungry at different times for different reasons. Feed them. They are tired early? Put them to sleep. They wake up crying? For God's sake, go to them.

Babies are not machines. They may not be able to express their feelings, but that doesn't mean they don't feel. There's not a damn thing they understand in the world that they just came into, and parents are supposed to leave them hungry because it's not 1 p.m. yet? Parents are supposed to let their infants fend for themselves in the dark, in a room alone, because they've woken up before the allotted time?

The baby isn't crying to annoy you. She's not crying to interrupt your sleep pattern. It's not about you at all. Your baby is crying because she's wet, or she's hungry, or she's scared. She's only just weeks old. She doesn't even know how to smile yet, let alone manipulate you to get some more mommy-time out of the deal. There's plenty of time for that when the children are three, like mine. It does not start in the first months of life. No. In the first months of life, they cry because they need you. Buchelt would abandon them because her pediatrician told her to?

She says, "You need to be okay with letting your baby cry for 15-20 minutes. Which can be pure torture, but if you are the type of person that needs to pick your baby up every time you hear a peep, this will never work for you."

There is a big difference between uninterrupted wailing for 20 minutes and "a peep," and to be quite honest, even if you are the type to check on the baby at every peep, it's okay. It's your baby. It's okay for you to be worried about him and check whenever you want to. You'll soon get to know your own child, provided you listen to your own intuition and your infant's cues, and you'll soon know when the child is resettling and when he actually needs something, be it a diaper change or just some reassurance that you are still there.

Because twenty minutes of listening to crying is hard on an adult, certainly. But how long do you think that twenty minutes is to the infant who is waiting for someone to come? The baby doesn't stop crying because she's magically become satisfied on her own. She doesn't stop crying because her little mind-game didn't work. There is no mind-game. The baby stopped crying because she gave up hope. So, in two months' time, if you've managed to train your child like this, you may very well be sleeping through the night. But you're doing so at the expense of your infant's trust. She needs you. Why not go check on her instead of "putting a pillow over your head"?

Now, if you're one of the unlucky parents who have a lively one who's not ready to give up after 20 minutes, Buchelt advises you go ahead and check on him. But make sure you don't treat him like a human being.

"Do not talk to your baby, and do not make eye contact. No, you’re not being mean, your just letting them know that it’s bed time, not play time."

Yes, you are being mean. You're baby is mere weeks old. He doesn't know bed time versus play time. He only knows that he needed something, he was scared and crying for 20 minutes, and no one came to his aid. He only knows that now that someone finally arrived, she's not there to comfort him.

Then Buchelt comes out with this gem.

"Now offer them some distilled/nursery water for 5-10 minutes. My daughter never drank out of a bottle, so she outright refused the bottle and 2 out of 3 of the triplets drank the water, but either way, it just another way to stall their feeding time."

Everything I've heard says not to give infants water. Ever. But barring that, why on Earth would you want to delay a feeding? If your seven-pound child is hungry, she probably needs to eat, and she probably needs to eat now. Filling her with water to trick her little body into thinking it's full does no favors for anyone. She's hungry because she needs nutrients. This is biological. You'd deny your infant her biological needs because you know better than her body? I don't know, it just seems off to me.

But, guys, if you don't think Buchelt's method will work, she's got irrefutable evidence. It not only worked for her, it also worked for her sister, who has four kids. That's eight children this method has worked for! Oh, and don't forget the other triplet mom for whom it worked. That's eleven children who responded to being bullied into a schedule. With those kinds of numbers in support of this method, I'm surprised everyone isn't doing it.

The point of this post is that mothers give birth to babies, not machines. Babies don't cry to piss their mothers off. There is, at that age, a very good reason for them to be crying. It's the parents' job to figure it out. If you can do that, you'll be sleeping again a lot sooner than those who spend their nights staring at the clock, waiting for their 20 minutes of screaming to be up so they can  go check on their hungry, wet, scared child.

Buchelt's Patch.com article: http://lisle.patch.com/blog_posts/baby-not-sleeping-through-the-night-yet-youve-gotta-have-a-schedule


**Just to be clear, I understood that this piece was a blog.

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