Viva la revolution, part 1: naps
It’s time for a sleep revolution in my house. Too long has chaos reigned. Too long has it been since M and I spent a whole night, together, in the same bed. It ends now.
OK, I’m maybe being a little melodramatic. But it’s the truth. It’s time for some major changes around here. Nighttimes are not significantly or consistently improving. Naptimes are unpredictable. I’m tired of hearing about people whose kids slept through the night consistently since they were eight weeks old, and I’m tired of not knowing when my kids will need to nap from day to day.
I’ve been primarily a Weissbluth girl. My friend sent me Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child when I was in my second trimester. I was all about early bedtimes, and not letting the kids stay up too long. Um, then I kind of realized I had neglected to go back and read the chapter after 0-4 months. Heh.
So, the first change I’ve been trying to make over the last few days is having a predictable nap schedule by the clock. My adherence to “put them down after 2 hours of wakefulness, max” was no longer appropriate, and was frequently resulting in 4 45-minute naps every day. Not cool for anyone. Now, we aim to start the morning nap around 9 (today was 8:40, but they got up early – I don’t know what kind of crack Ferber is smoking that he thinks it could wait until 10 or 10:30). I’ll even give them a little extra bottle before they go down, so they don’t wake up from being hungry. And, may I say, they’re still asleep right now. Two hours, baby! That’s what I’m talking about.
The goal for the afternoon nap is for them to go down somewhere between 12 and 2. It’ll depend on how long the morning nap lasts, but instead of trying to put them down earlier, I’m now trying to stretch things a little bit. I don’t want to wait until they’re hysterical, of course, but try to keep them awake and entertained for just a little longer.
Some days there’s a 3rd nap in there, at this point more often than not. If they wake up from the afternoon nap before about 3pm, there’s almost no way on earth they’ll make it to bathtime at 6:15 or 6:30 without going completely bonkers. In that case, I shoot for a catnap around 4:30. But if we’ve made it past 5pm and they’re still up, then no 3rd nap.
As far as naps go, I’m definitely still a Weissbluth girl. Ferber, as I said, seems to think the morning nap should be around 10. And there’s just no way that’s happening right now. He also thinks the 3rd nap should be about gone by now, which also isn’t in the cards. My nap schedule is straight Weissbluth, with that 3rd nap hanging around potentially for a few more months.
Anyways, so far so good on the nap thing. But it’s all about to be thrown for a loop, because tomorrow, we introduce Doctor Ferber… back soon with more.
Tags: Ferber, nap schedule, nap transition, Naps, Weissbluth
February 14th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
it was right about this age that the boys started to “get” napping. up until then, it felt like i was losing the battle. we’ve used the sleep easy solution, which i really like. but i’ve found, with all things, you’ve got to tweak it to fit your babies. always. at 6 mo. the boys were napping at 9am and 1pm, thereabouts, for about 1.5 hours each (sometimes, one nap would go for 2.5 hours). man i miss those times! it would still be a struggle to get them to bedtime – they were always so tired and crabby – but they avoided that third nap like the plague. i also found that clock time was actually much more important than sleep time, meaning it didn’t matter if it was just 2 hours from their last nap, if it was 1pm, they needed to go down.
now we are struggling with any naps at all! officially, today, i eliminated the morning nap and kept them up until 11am. it was the first time in over a month that they went down perfect and now they’ve been sleeping for just shy of 2 hours. YAHOO!!!! i needed this more than they did. so it’s my goal to do an 11-1 (or hopefully longer) nap from now on.
cross your fingers for us and we’ll cross ours for you!
February 14th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Oh, sleeping and naps. Is there any topic that is more interesting to new moms? I think not!
Good luck with your new schedule … while Jack is a great nighttime sleeper, the daytime naps are a bit of a struggle. I am salivating jealously as I read that the twins were napping for two hours. I don’t think that has happened for Jack since he was two months old.
These days, he does a morning nap around 9 a.m. for 45 minutes, a mid-day nap around noon for another 45 minutes, and sometimes-but-not-always a third nap for 45 minutes. Then it’s 11 hours at night. I know, I know, I can’t complain, but I really wish that the daytime naps could be longer; it’s such a struggle to get him down and then he’s right back up again!
I also agree with Weissbluth when it comes to naps. I just don’t htink it’s realistic for a baby to nap at 10 a.m. in the morning — that’s HOURS after the typical baby rises! Also, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a 6- or 7-month-old not to have a third nap on most days.
Anyway good luck and keep us posted!
February 15th, 2008 at 12:27 am
One logistical suggestion for Ferber nights… have one parent assigned to each kid for each check-in. We made the horrible horrible mistake of deciding each of us would go in and try to comfort them both. Horrible horrible mistake. As soon as Alex saw me go to Nate’s crib, he lost it even more. It was the saddest ever.
After that happened, at each interval, we would each pat one kid and reassure them then leave. Then we’d switch off for the next check-in.
That would be… ummm yes… completely missing from any sleep book…CIO logistics with twins.
I guess all of this is moot if they are not sharing a room? Mine share a room and having been through CIO together, they sleep through just about anything that happens to the other twin. VERY HANDY for administering meds at night, cleaning up vomit at night, and taking cute sleeping pictures without waking both babies.
GOOD LUCK!
February 15th, 2008 at 12:28 am
PS. Thanks for being so brave to talk about this openly on your blog. I had so many babycenter readers that I had to keep it off my blog. I could kind of kick myself for that one, but I chalk it up to being sleep-deprived.