teething, not sleeping, and adjusting bedtimes

374 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by mamabeth, Jun 15, 2004

alaska

Discussion Starter · Jun 15, 2004

I tried this in the nighttime parenting section, but no one had any advice so I'll give it a shot here. (Just hoping for an answer or two before nighttime rolls around again

)

My son is 18 months old. His eye teeth are coming in. For the first year of his life, he went to sleep every night between 7 and 7:30 p.m. - by his choice. When he turned 1 (and got his molars) he went through a period where he refused to go to sleep. When we got through that, he'd adjusted his bedtime up to 10 p.m. or so. I got it back down to 9:30 - not a vast improvement but better. The last few nights it's been 11 p.m. or later.

I know that when he's done teething, he'll go to sleep easier. My question is this though: Is there anything I can do to adjust him to an earlier bedtime? I desperately miss my alone time with my husband. I also don't think my son is getting enough sleep. . . he's not off by much, only an hour or so according to "the experts," but still.

Any ideas? Is it possible? (By the way, we won't CIO. We currently take turns putting him to bed - we read him stories and then one of us lies down with him until he falls asleep.)

amy

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Leilalu

· #2 · Jun 15, 2004

HI,
My daughter is 19 months and her eye teeth are starting to come in as well. Fun Fun. I am not really into pain medicine- but occasionally I will give her Hylands teething tabs before bedtime. We brush our teeth right before bed,and I think brushing irritates her gums. The chamomile in the tablets seem to help some.

We don't let her CIO either- I have always held her to get her to sleep.
When are his naptimes? I am trying to get her to take one nap a day for a longer period of time and notice she goes to bed a little earlier because of this. Maybe he is just at the point where he can stay awake for a longer period of time? And each child is different according to sleep needs.
I also notice it is hard for her to sleep at night if she is overstimulated during the day. Like if we run too many errands or do too many fun things. I try to keep it somewhat simple.
Leila

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alaska

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jun 15, 2004

He's already down to one nap a day - usually a two hour nap from 11:30 to 1:30, give or take a half hour or so. He wakes up between 7:30 and 8:15 every morning.

good point about overstimulation - maybe we're having dinner too late (6:45 - 7:00). His bath is usually at 8:15 or so....

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mamabeth

· #4 · Jun 15, 2004

i'm just reeling from an hour and a half of trying to get my dd to sleep. she is also struggling with eyeteeth...poor little girl but also poor mamas! I just tried to get her to sleep earlier (we do a bathtime, storytime, nursing, bed, thing) and it backfired...she was more wired and I think that's why it took that long. It's hard but I think we're just going to have to ride it out until these teeth poke through! We are also fans of Hylands although I didn't think to use them tonight...addled brain.

Hope that makes sense and is somewhat helpful, cause I'm sooo tired and wondering if she'll be up again soon.
Peace.

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