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Success after IF
Probably a really dumb question.
Our babies have been going to bed for the night any time between 11:30 pm (most nights) and 1:30 am (bad nights) for several weeks now. A few weeks ago, we made several attempts to make bedtime a few hours earlier, but they would just stay awake until 1:30 am anyway, even though they were swaddled and had been through the whole bedtime routine already. It was maddening. So we've just slowly been moving bedtime a little tiny bit earlier every week. Whereas we used to get them ready for bed around midnight, now we start the routine around 10 or 10:30 pm and they're usually out by 11:30ish.
They wake up between 6 am and 8 am, and then after a feeding, they go back to sleep for about three hours. Then there's another feeding and after that one I can usually count on them sleeping for at least another two hours until they seem more awake and ready for the day.
So it seems like they're really operating like they live in the Hawaiian Time Zone or something. They go to bed late, they rise late.
When should we be trying to get them to go to sleep for the night around 7 pm or 8 pm? Ideally, that's what I'd like for them to do. I don't know if it's too early to expect that, though. And then I guess that even if they went to bed then, they'd probably wake up around 2 am or so for a feeding anyway, right?
And is the best way to do this just to slowly make bedtime earlier each week? Is there a way to do it quicker that would actually work?
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Re: Probably a really dumb question.
I have not experience at this but thought I would throw in my 2 cents.
Can you start waking them a little earlier from thier naps so they are tired early. That way you can start moving up thier bedtime.
I want to say around 4 months (when DD was moved to the crib) she started going to bed around 7:30pm. Of course, I played around w/ her naps for a little bit until the schedule worked out great. She wakes up around 6:30-7am for the most part too.
I also think, like pp mentioned, that I'd probably try to wake them up around naptime so they are tired earlier - and go to bed earlier thus waking up earlier. I'd rather go to bed early myself, and wake up earlier - so if my baby did that (which she now does) it'd be perfect!
Dd is not much of a napper so we are lucky because she crashes early every night. Getting her to stay up until 8pm is hard and it's been this way from the beginning. The trade off is that I don't get much of a break during the day since her naps are very short.
Up until a few weeks ago dd would sleep from around 7pm until 2 or 3 am and nurse and go back to sleep until 6 am. About 4 nights a week she'd also wake up to nurse around 11pm. I didn't mind the middle of the night feeding because the whole process would only take me 20 minutes. She'd fall back asleep as soon as she started nursing and sleep through me burping her and changing her diaper and I'd put her right back in her crib without a peep from her. Her new schedule is bedtime at 7:30 and she sleeps til 5:00 am nurses and goes back to sleep until 8:00 am.
I agree with the other posters that suggested cutting out a day time nap (the one latest in the day). It sounds like you have a good bedtime routine in place and since they are swaddled I don't have any other suggestions to get them to sleep earlier. I would be so exhaused on that schedule especially with 2 babies! Good luck trying to get them to bed earlier!
Clomid M/C 8 weeks 2/08 *IVF #1-DD born 3/09
*Surprise BFP-T18 baby lost at 13w 1/10 *FET #1-DS born 2/11