Sleep help!

453 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by loon13, Jun 25, 2004

NaturalFamiLEA

Discussion Starter · Jun 23, 2004

I need HELP. Ariana is regularly going to bed between 3 and 5 am. Then we sleep until 1pm or so (earliest I can get up after not having alot of sleep) and I wake her. Even then, she will usually go back to sleep after she's eaten.

I have tried waking her every couple of hrs during the day and keeping her awake as long as possible so she'll be tired earlier and go to sleep.

Nothing seems to work. One time she was up until 1:30, and another morning it was 8am! I need to get her on a normal schedule - I am feeling like crap from lack of sleep and lack or good sleep, and getting up after lunch is pathetic...

Anyone have any advice on how to get her to go to bed earlier (even midnight!) and be up during the day?

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MamaE

· #2 · Jun 24, 2004

Hmm... How old is your dd?

After she was born, my dd went to bed around midnight. This was fine for a while, but then we began to gradually move her back. At around 2 months, we began moving her bedtime up by an hour a week, if that makes sense. You can do this by shortening some naps, working harder to get the baby down at the new time, etc. She took to it well and after a month or 2, she was pretty regularly an 8 PM baby, if my memory serves me correctly.

HTH. Assume your babe is a newborn??

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loon13

· #3 · Jun 24, 2004

I have the same question as MamaE: how old is your dd?

it may not matter, but my dd is now 2 and we went through this 6-9 months ago. (I say 6-9 months b/c I did this TWICE.) Instead of waking her up, I had to keep her AWAKE. I just kept pushing her sleeptime around the clock until she started going to sleep at around 9 p.m. So for instance, the first night, she went to sleep at 3 a.m, the next 3:30 a.m. etc. I think it took me a good 2 or 3 weeks.

Of course, it wasn't easy. Being awake at night as if it were daytime is HARD. There's no place to go, no one to call. And dh needed to sleep, so I had to try hard so that dd wasn't too loud. As much as I love dd, it was lonely. Dh and I were hardly seeing each other at all.

This happened b/c my dd is on a 25 hour schedule. Seriously, I learned this the hard way. She would sleep for 13 hours total (Nighttime + nap) and be awake for 12 hours total (usually 5-6 hours before the nap, 5-6 hours after).

The other part of the problem is that no matter what kind of nighttime routine we do, dd will just not sleep if she is not tired. She will literally be playing actively one minute, then come to me the next and lift her arms to be picked up and nursed to sleep. That's not to say we don't do a nighttime routine, we do. Bath, brush teeth, read stories. But sometimes dd will still have energy. So we just try to peaceful play activites and stay upstairs.

Now that she goes to sleep in the evening and is awake during the day, the only thing that works to keep her on schedule is to wake her at the same time each day. It "resets" her body clock, KWIM?

Unfortunately, I'm not as disciplined about it as I could be. (Hey, I love sleeping in as much as she does!) Right now, dd's sleep time has crept back up to midnight, 1 a.m. But it will be easier to wake her early and keep her busy, since it is summer. Par tof the reason I think she went through this is because it was during the brutal winter. We just couldn't get out as much, and so who really cares if it's daylight out or not, when you're stuck inside. So I am working on it.

Hope that helps. Feel free to ask me any questions.

Loon

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NaturalFamiLEA

Discussion Starter · #4 · Jun 24, 2004

Ariana is 2 months old. She did wonderfully the first month. Bed at midnight (we are night owls anyways) and up around 11am. Then amost as soon as she turned 1 month she changed to anywhere between 2 and 6am. Grr!

Wel the good news is last night I gave her a bath at 11. We played a little (she wasn't real sleepy otherwise) and went to bed at midnight (lights off, snuggled in bed). She nursed and we fell asleep until 1am. Then she fussed a little here and there (eyes closed, very tired) and it wasn't more than 1/2 hr of that and then we went to sleep for the night! It was great! Was very surprised it worked, that early, the first night. Will keep with this ritual again tonight...

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loon13

· #5 · Jun 25, 2004

Since Ariana is so young, I think she's still working out her schedule. So don't fret, it will work itself out.

I'm glad to hear last night went so well! I hope it continues for you.

Hugs, Loon

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