Tuesday, February 27, 2007

What a difference a day makes

Well, after my last post, Erik and I have been working with Keagan on his sleeping (or lack there of). I am happy to report that last night he slept from 7pm-2am unnassisted! He then woke up at 4am and 6am for good. We have shifted his schedule to 7pm-6am which is much more humane for me. I know all the books and research says you can't just put them to bed an hour later and that correlates to them waking an hour later... but Keagan seems to be the exception because that totally worked. Considering his sleep is so bad in other ways, I guess it makes sense he doesn't follow the rules. So we are again working with him on going to sleep in the crib instead of rocking him till he's asleep and then putting him down. He did this very well at 5 months, but then when his first tooth and then separation anxiety set in, it was a no-go. He's doing really well with it though- we stay in the room, in the rocking chair, but he is in his crib and we only interceed by giving him back his binky when he can't find it. He really just needs to see us there. This took an hour the first time we tried it on a nap- then 40 minutes, 30 and 20- he's a pretty fast learner. I'm not naive enough to think the good night we had last night will now happen every night- but it is a good start!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never seen a link between isabelle going to bed later and then waking up later. They get set in a pattern and that is it. You could put her to bed 5 hours later and she will still likely wake up at her "normal" time which tends to be 5:45 - 6am. Putting her to bed later just makes her crankier.

Tyree on the otherhand was not a morning kid and we practically had to have a marching band in his room to get him up - even when we put him to bed an hour EARLIER!

They just get set in a pattern and you sort of have to live with it.

Anonymous said...

Just when you get it down to a science, it changes!!!

Liza said...

Keep up the good work Lana and Erik! It's time to give yourselves a break with this whole sleeping thing, and this sounds like a really good plan that's already WORKING. Keep it up!

Amy G said...

Strangely enough, Loula is ok with going to bed an hour earlier/later at night or for her nap, as long as she gets the same *amount* of sleep at the same general time. Of course, every baby is different. I think its more about figuring out what THEY want for their schedule or routine, and not straying from it. Good luck!