S/O People Messing Up LO's Routine
It is amazing how people seem to disrespect a baby's schedule more than anything else. I saw someone mention this in a PP and had to agree about people not wanting to leave the baby and in turn messing up feeding/sleeping etc. schedules.
My mom is great about adhering to how DH and I have chosen to raise DD but was upset that we didn't come to her house for Thanksgiving until after 2:30 (had to wait for DD to wake from her nap and we weren't going to force her up if dinner wasn'e being served until 3pm). Then we left at 7pm because we usually start putting DD to bed around 6:45 and we didn't want to stray too terribly far from her schedule. We got total flack from every single person at the house, people saying I should treat DD to a late night with family, etc. Treat her? It would hurt her, ruin her sleep routine, and make her more fussy and more upset.
Friday we had a party and we fed her at 5:30 like usual and took her upstairs to start bedtime routine at 6:45. People were so upset that they didn't get a chance to see DD because they arrived later - several (including parents of little ones) asked if I could go wake up DD so they could say hello. I was amazed that people had their kids, less than a year or young toddlers at our house until 10pm thinking we were crazy for putting our baby to bed at 7. When DD woke at 10pm I had one mom tell me she woke not because she was hungry but because I put her to bed too early. WTH???
Re: S/O People Messing Up LO's Routine
people are morons and/or forget what having a baby is like.
my parents are very respectful of DS's temperament (he is SUPER text book high needs) and his "schedule" (not so much a schedule, but he WON'T nap well anywhere but in my arms, in our bed, with a fan on, the stars aligning etc.).
the ILs all told me i was spoiling him, i was creating a monster, i need to keep him awake and around loud noises so he "gets used to it" etc. i finally told mil one day she should break her leg every day so she "gets used to it" on the off chance that one day she may actually break it. (we live 15 hours away from family and have since DS was 3.5 mos old. it's not like they're gonna show up and we need to be ready)
I don't understand why people think our LOs should be uncomfortable and upset for THEM. I always say, baby comes first. If you can't fit into HIS schedule, then sorry we missed you.
eta: my LO goes to bed sometime between 6 and 7, so i know what you mean!
WOW!
In all honesty, DH and I are NIGHT OWLS and so far DS has been a night owl. Going to bed at 7 would be to early for him. I hate how people seem annoyed by DS needing to be fed and changed. Like if he is fussing and I say he needs his mommy, obviously he needs his mommy!!! We aren't on any real schedule yet, but when he is fussy his needs to be taken care of before he begins WAILING. If they aren't its almost impossible to get him calmed down
i totally feel you - every.single. person. in my family and my in laws insist that 7pm is too early for bed time and that i should keep DS up until 10pm. they insist that he will wake up later if we do that. only problem is, we have had him up until 10 (when we go to disneyland) and he wakes up like an alarm clock at 6am sharp. so just dont even listen, youre the mama, not them!
ITA: Keeping a baby up later DOES NOT mean he'll sleep in longer in the morning.
We had a similar issue while spending the weekend with DH's family at his BIL and SIL's house (who do not have kids). Their house is older and the walls are paper thin. Everyone was always downstairs making tons of noise while I was trying to get my baby to sleep in an unfamiliar place. They just insisted it wasn't that loud and that he needed to "get used to" sleeping around loud noises. It was annoying but DS and I got our revenge in the mornings when DS got up at 7:00 and let them try to "get used to" sleeping in on the weekend with an energetic toddler and a couple of equally energetic dogs downstairs.
Yeah, my IL's totally don't understand why DD NEEDS to go to bed at 8pm. Because they're never there to see the fall out when it doesn't happen. They also don't understand naps.
DD goes down for a nap at noon - like clockwork. Generally she starts telling you a few minutes before noon that she wants a nap. On Friday we left DD with the IL's so we could make a few shopping stops. We dropped her off around 11:30. MIL was watching the other grandkids too and I said something like, "At least you don't have to worry about her for long. She'll sack out in about half an hour."
We got back to the IL's around 2:30 and DD was up. I asked her how her nap was and MIL said, "Oh, she never went to sleep! She's been playing so I didn't bother to put her down." DD was scrunched up in a ball in the corner of the couch, chewing on her fingernails, and said, "Mama, I wanna go home to nap." She fell asleep in the car, napped for an hour or so once we got home, then proceeded to be grumpy until 10pm. Totally fun night.
Don't get me started. DD missed Thanksgiving entirely because MIL decided to serve the turkey at 1pm, when DD had just gone down for a nap at 12:30. No one gave me the heads up about the day's schedule until I was just about to put DD down for a nap and there was nothing to be done then. She slept until 3, by which time dessert had already been served. Everyone had left the table by the time I got her diaper changed and brought her downstairs. It suuucked.
I don't really get the big deal. It's not like she knows she missed it. Save her a plate, and she'll be just as happy later. Damn, I was hoping DD would sleep through T-day dinner. It sounds so nice to eat a holiday meal with family without having to constantly be sitting her back down and having to run off half-way through the meal for a quick bath to clean the sweet potatoes off of her.
My kids have never been "scheduled." They are very flexible, so I quite honestly can't relate to the people whose kids must be in bed at a certain time. Keeping my kids out late every once in awhile does not mess them up and they're not total crabasses about it. I know there are kids who just can't be flexible, but it's hard for someone who hasn't been in that situation to understand it.
That's the difference though, just like you said - you know there are kids like that. Some people refuse to believe that certain kids are that inflexible.
For instance - my ILs stay up until 1am on Christmas Eve opening Christmas presents. I don't expect them to change this tradition because DD can't stay up that late. One day she'll be older and maybe she'll be able to. But, they give me sh!t because I don't keep her up that late. Or because I say we need to go home earlier on Christmas Eve after she opens her presents. That I don't get. I can't FORCE her to stay up late and, if I try to keep her up past when she says she wants to go to bed, she turns into a total crab ass and then everyone is miserable. It's not worth it to me to make my child miserable so she can sit in the middle of a pile of wrapping paper at midnight. And they don't understand that.
I read this last night, but was prevented from responding by the ninety minutes it took to get DS to sleep and stay asleep, thanks to the trip to see my parents. I love them, and I love seeing them, but I didn't choose this bedtime. I'm still paying for it today - he woke up exactly at his usual time, not a minute later, and it took another hour of crying and rocking to get him down for morning nap. Poor little guy!
God knows DH and I would love for him to stay up until 9 or 10 (or at least 8 for goodness sakes), but we are stuck with this mad dash to eat dinner and get DS to bed as soon as work is over. It really sucks for working parents, and it sucks when people tell you 'oh the party is just 7-10, that's no big deal'.
Not only can I not keep DS up that late without paying the price, but the odds of a sitter or relative getting him to sleep and keeping him asleep just so we can go to a craptastic holiday party are pretty slim, too. You know, it's not like we're going to have babies for that many years, and I'm not all upset that it's cramping my style, people. (VENT OVER)
My kids are in bed between 6 and 7 every night -- by their choice, not ours!
DD also takes a nap every afternoon for at least two hours; she goes down sometime around noon-ish and is a basket case by 4 if she doesn't get her sleep.
DD is more flexible about going to bed later than DS is. My in-laws found that out the hard way when they babysat a couple of weeks back; MIL changed DS for bed and then took him back downstairs for FIL to play with him. DS was a screaming wreck for an hour because he was so tired and overstimulated. We can keep DD out for an extra hour or so past bedtime without too many adverse effects; DS, not so much.
My standard response is "You're welcome to mess with their schedules if you're going to come to my house and rock an hysterical baby for an hour and a half, then get up with him 2-3 times in the night." I'm pretty fierce about guarding their rest, because it guards MY rest as well. And setting up good sleep habits now is going to serve them well later in life. I teach high school and I see what poor sleep habits my own students have. The first thing to "give" in their schedules is their sleep and they do some pretty unhealthy things to compensate for lack of sleep (caffeinated sodas, coffee, sugary snacks, etc.) It also affects their general health; chronic lack of sleep depletes the immune system. I don't think it's coincidental that my kids, who get plenty of sleep, have far fewer ear infections and colds than DH's sister's kids, who don't get good sleep.
Well, I see both sides here.
On the one hand, my DD is a creature of habit...she does great as long as we stick with her schedule. On the other hand, I don't want to have a baby who can't adapt because I'm not giving her the chance to.
Last week, my sister was in from Colorado. She sees us only 2 or 3 times a year. She asked Kate and me to come to Delaware (an hour away) for dinner at 6. Kate goes to bed at 7, so we would not be home in time for sure. I almost didn't go, but then I thought about it...they never get to see her and it's one night!
Guess what? She did fine. She was happy at dinner because, even though it was late, there was a lot to look at, and she napped on the way home. It was 8:30 when we got home, but we did her bedtime routine and put her to bed. She was fine!
I'm trying to be more flexible/less anal with her as she gets older. I think it's good for her. Schedules are good, but every once in a while, it's not going to kill her to be off.
Thanksgiving in my family was always a very social event and I was hoping it would be the same for DD with the ILs. If I had known she was just going to sit at the table for her meal with me and DH (no other relatives), we could have done that at home and saved ourselves the trip to the ILs.