What to do about dd's bed time? Kind of long.

styme46

DD started kindergarten this year and to get her prepared for no nap during the days, we moved bedtime up. So the routine now is that we go upstairs at 7:30. She brushes her teeth, puts her pajamas on, then I turn her tv on for her. I go upstairs to turn the tv off at 8:00 and usually she is already asleep by the time I get up there to turn it off.

But, we had her parent/teacher conference today and her teacher says that she still gets tired in the afternoons around 2:00. So we are thinking of moving the whole bedtime routine up by 30 minutes. I actually have three questions about this idea.

1) Should we wait until after daylight savings time since that will screw with her body/sleep times anyway?

2) We also have the whole custody thing to consider. We do have a set visitation schedule with my xmil (xh used to live with xmil but she kicked him out because of his alcohol issue. Xh is not allowed to have dd by himself so if he wants to see her, he goes to xmil's house to see her. The schedule is unofficial and NOT in our divorce decree.) which is that xmil picks dd up from school on "her" nights, then brings her home between 7:30 and 7:45 despite me asking her to bring her early enough so that we can stick to the bedtime routine. So part two of the new bedtime idea is to pick her up from either xmil's or my mom's house (depending on who picked her up from school) on my way home from work around 5:15 so that I can get her to bed on time every night. Since our visitation schedule is unofficial and not in any kind of writing, do you think this would be ok to do with xmil? My mom doesn't care, I was talking to her about it today actually. ETA: This is more of a rhetorical question. I know I can do whatever I need to do. I just needed to talk it all out.

3) Do you have any other ideas or comments?

TIA!

DandelionMom

1. I'd start moving up bedtime now.  I think it works best if you move the bedtime gradually.  10 mintues earlier today, 10 more minutes in a couple of days, 10 more by the end of the week. 

2. I don't know about custody stuff but maybe it would help to stress to exMIL that the teacher suggested this?

jettagurl

Is she in all-day or 1/2-day K?  Really, regardless, can't she have some quiet time right when she gets home?  My friend's son just started K, goes 1/2 day, so he goes home to eat, then quiet/nap time for an hour.  Then he goes to bed at 8.

As for the MIL...you don't have an legal obligation to continue that, so remind her of that.  Let her know she needs to either start bringing her home at  6:30 or you will need to pick her up at 5:15. 

 

 

styme46

jettagurl:

Is she in all-day or 1/2-day K?  Really, regardless, can't she have some quiet time right when she gets home?  My friend's son just started K, goes 1/2 day, so he goes home to eat, then quiet/nap time for an hour.  Then he goes to bed at 8.

As for the MIL...you don't have an legal obligation to continue that, so remind her of that.  Let her know she needs to either start bringing her home at  6:30 or you will need to pick her up at 5:15. 

It's all day kindergarten. And I know that when my mom picks her up, she does have quiet time as soon as she gets home. I'm not sure about her routine at xmil's house after school.