Baby and fireworks - WWYD?

WinesNot Whines

We live very close to where our town puts on their July 4 fireworks show (it's practically in our backyard). I think the fireworks are scheduled for 9:30 pm this year, which is 90 minutes after M usually goes to bed. You can definitely hear them from our house, and they are LOUD. I'm trying to decide how we should handle this. They will almost definitely wake him up if we put him to sleep at his normal time.

Should we do our normal bedtime routine 8 pm, go get him out of the crib when he wakes up 90 minutes later, and try to put him back down again when the fireworks are over? Or should we try to keep him up until 10 pm, which would probably involve encouraging him to take a late nap so he's not too tired/cranky? If we do the latter, we could walk down to see the fireworks, which he might enjoy (or might terrify him, I really don't know what to expect).

LMH1209

I'd probably put him down at his usual time and see what happens. It sounds like your son probably will wake up, but maybe there's a chance he'll sleep through it. (DS has slept through some things I never thought he'd sleep through... and then other times he"s woken up when I sneezed.) Even if he wakes up, DS sleeps better overall dealing with a random wake up than he does going to bed late. If I put him to bed at 10:00, he'd probably be awake at 5:30.

Hey Jellisy

We've played it both ways.  When DD was 4 months old we took her to the fireworks on the 4th (and quite a few times after that the first year) and she LOVED them. Last year we decided to skip the fireworks (I was in my first trimester and tired) and discovered that a lot of folks in our neighborhood set them off.  It was pretty constant from 9-10:30.  DD slept right through it.  We had her windows closed and the AC on.  This year we are going to take them again to see the fireworks but I think we are going to do Lake Barcroft since it is so much closer to home. 

NoVABrideNS

Our DD is going to be exposed to closeby fireworks this coming weekend and I've thought a lot about how to handle.  First, we're going to put her to sleep in the bedroom that is furthest away (we'll be traveling) and with her sound machine.  My plan is to comfort her if she wakes up (in the bedroom) - I'm not too worried about this affecting her sleep training.  However I've read that babies sleep pretty soundly for their first sleep cycle, so I think it's possible that she wont wake up at all.  Who knows.  Sometimes I've gone in and touched her back when she has been whining or something in her sleep and she doesn't wake up for several hours.  For this situation though, I would rather comfort her when she wakes up after going down at the normal time than to try two big changes (late nap and late bedtime) in one day.  The good thing is that fireworks probably wont last longer than 30 min to an hour, so hopefully it wont be too disruptive.  Good luck!

MrsPhilDunphy

I would just put him down and see what happens. Does he sleep through thunderstorms? If so, there's a good chance he'll sleep through the fireworks.

I haven't decided what we'll do. I think C would love the fireworks, but it's still kind of late for him, especially since we all need to get up and go to work/daycare the next day. 

tracy042206

My kids have both slept through and woken up various years.  They actually slept through them when they were little and last year was the first time Maggie woke up so we watched them then on TV.  I would put him down and hope for the best, he might surprise you.

Artslvr

I'd put baby down regular time and see if he wakes up - if he does, keep him up till it's over, but if he doesn't, even better.

tomandcourt

Do you have a white noise machine? I would use that. Definitely don't keep him up - the disruption to his schedule would probably be worse than the noise potentially waking him up.

J is a pretty light sleeper, but when the smoke alarm goes off in our place it never wakes him up (we have white noise), so I bet M could sleep through the fireworks. 

rnin02

LMH1209:

I'd probably put him down at his usual time and see what happens. It sounds like your son probably will wake up, but maybe there's a chance he'll sleep through it. (DS has slept through some things I never thought he'd sleep through... and then other times he"s woken up when I sneezed.) Even if he wakes up, DS sleeps better overall dealing with a random wake up than he does going to bed late. If I put him to bed at 10:00, he'd probably be awake at 5:30.

I agree with this! Late bedtimes make the whole night bad for us, he wakes up frequently and gets up early, ugh. 

DCtoLowcountry

I had this debate with myself last year. We put DS down as usual and had no issues with the fireworks.

Sofka

I agree that he may sleep thru it

as much as I'd love to see if DD would like the fireworks, we are going to wait at least one more year, they may be too loud for both her and DS and it's not worth staying up 2 hrs past bedtime for us