Lately Lil Miss Wagon has been pretty sleep-deprived with her transition to one nap at daycare. She really still needs two naps a day, and her one nap at daycare is not any longer than her normal naps. And because of missing that nap, she goes down for bed really early and wakes very early in the mornings. The week before Daylight Savings she was waking as early as 5:15am. So when it came time to turn our clocks back an hour, we were really dreading it and wondering… would we be awake with LMW at 4:00am???
We had already been experimenting with pushing her bedtime back and forward so she could get more sleep at night, but nothing was working. The later we put her to bed, the earlier she’d wake up in the mornings. So we had no choice but to just face the weekend and see what happened when it came time to turn those clocks back.
Here’s the rundown of our weekend.
Saturday
5:15am: LMW wakes and cries for a few minutes, then stops. She quietly rolls around in her crib for a while.
6:40am: LMW falls back asleep. (???)
8:40am: LMW wakes up after almost 2 hours– was this her morning nap? Or just a night waking?? We weren’t quite sure. Anyway, we all get up for the day and have breakfast.
10:30am: We mistakenly put her down for her nap, since her morning nap usually starts around 9am, but after that weird 2 hour nap she’s not tired enough to fall asleep. She lays down but soon pops back up and cries: she has a poop. We get her out, change her diaper, and head out to have some lunch.
2:00pm: After having lunch with friends, Wagon Sr. runs around with her in the stroller (her freaking out the entire time) and she falls asleep for about an hour. We head home and have dinner.
7:00pm: We bathe her and put her to bed. She falls asleep just before 7:30pm, an hour and a half later than her usual bedtime during the week. We cross our fingers that this means a later wakeup tomorrow morning after the time change, and we go to bed early.
Sunday
6:45am: LMW wakes up and we can’t believe it. She has slept over 12 hours for the first time in months! She slept right through the turned-back hour and woke at a reasonable hour. Wagon Jr. wakes at a reasonable hour as well and we all have breakfast.
10:00am: LMW goes down for her morning nap and sleeps for 2 hours. We all go out for lunch.
4:45pm: Both LMW and WJ go down for epic late afternoon naps. LMW sleeps for over an hour and WJ sleeps for almost 2 hours, and we end up waking both of them at 6pm so they can basically eat dinner and go back to bed. We wonder what the night will bring us…
7:45pm: We put the kids to bed and LMW doesn’t fall asleep until 8:40pm.
Monday
6:10am: LMW wakes at a decent hour, but after only 9.5 hours of night sleep. But it’s time to go to daycare, so the whole cycle of sleep deprivation starts all over again.
But all in all, we really lucked out!! LMW spent the weekend catching up on her sleep, taking 2 hour naps instead of her usual 1 hour naps, and she actually took advantage of Daylight Savings by having an epic night of sleep that night. Phew.
How did your kids handle the time change? (Or are you one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to deal with Daylight Savings?)
GOLD / wonderful coconut / 33402 posts
She is still waking up at 5/530, instead of her normal 6/630. Every night she is wanting to go to bed by 545 and I try and keep her up till 630 at least. Going to try later bedtime tonight and see if that helps her sleep in some tomorrow. I just worry that she will wake up at 5 and then not get enough sleep.
pomegranate / 3414 posts
My kids have handled the time change just fine except for DS waking up at normal time on Sunday (which of course was an hour early); we left him play in his crib and all was well.
guest
I thought we had lucked out as Sunday and Monday morning were perfect. Monday night and Tuesday were another story altogether…
This morning things were a bit better, so I’m tentatively optimistic.
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
My son was up an hour earlier, as I had anticipated he would be, but he’s back on track now.
pear / 1837 posts
Wake ups at 4:45, 5:30, and 5. So…. not good.
grapefruit / 4671 posts
4.45, 5.15 and 5.58 this morning, so things are improving I hope.
persimmon / 1128 posts
He missed his second nap on Saturday, so he was exhausted when he went to bed. I was prepared for the worst, but he woke up at 8:45! We almost cried happy tears.
pomegranate / 3595 posts
I love not having daylight savings!!
Hope her sleep gets more organized soon and the later wake ups stick!
guest
We are still trying to adjust LO’s schedule after the time change. He was sleeping around 9:30p – 9a. But now he’s going down at 9 but waking at 7! 10 hours is still pretty good but 7 is early for my stay at home hubs who tends to sleep in!
Oh, and that early morning wake up followed about 60-90 minutes later by a ‘nap’ – that’s been going on for the last 2 months! He just takes a break from sleeping for an hour or two and plays in his crib while talking and then eventually goes back to sleep. I figure it’s par for the course for my super active little boy.
blogger / persimmon / 1398 posts
Oh man… you are one LUCKY mama!!! This is so not how it goes here…
pomegranate / 3053 posts
That’s awesome! Sleep can be so stressful for some families, especially with the early wakings and us parents not sleeping earlier enough like me! Since we’re in Asia we don’t get daylight savings; but since my oldest has been in a new preschool that makes them nap 1-1.5 hours earlier than his usual afternoon nap he’s had some trouble falling asleep. So I’ve moved up his bed time a whole hour and he wakes up a whole hour earlier (yay for me!), sometimes 1.5 hours earlier than his old wake up time (6:30am) but now he nap at school. But I still get cranky pants when he comes home from school.
Sometimes we just can’t win! LOL!
blogger / pomelo / 5361 posts
@Mrs. Paintbrush: This is not how it is at our house, either.
Glad LMW transitioned better than you thought she might! Can she come visit the Baby Dudes and tell them how it’s done?