Now that I know how much your kids are sleeping

Discussion in 'The Toddler Years(1-3)' started by E&Msmom, Dec 13, 2010.

  1. E&Msmom

    E&Msmom Well-Known Member

    The twins are back to sharing a room again. We tried to split them up, that was a complete fail.
    So we put them to bed at 830, and most nights they go to bed by 11 or last night MIDNIGHT!!! They just play in their room for hours, despite us going in and putting them back in bed, threatening, sometimes spanking etc.
    They were up again at 7am. thats 7 hours of sleep. = not enough in my book. They are still napping, usually 1.5-2.5 hours a day and as long as we put them in seperate rooms for nap its a non-issue. we can give them their own rooms as we only have a 3 bedroom house and we have a 1 year old as well. But I need a solution....

    You think I could keep one twin up later than the other, and alternate nights? call it "special time" or something so that the first kid can go to sleep since they dont have their sibling to play with?
    Im also in Alaska so we are at about 22 hours of darkness a day, it does not seem to be affecting them. If anything its turning them into little insomniacs.
     
  2. kingeomer

    kingeomer Well-Known Member TS Moderator

    I like your special time idea, I think that is something worth trying out. Another thing I am wondering, do you think that they would sleep better without the daily nap? :unsure: I hate to suggest that, because I know the thought of non-napping children scares me.
    I hope they return to sleeping well for you soon!
     
  3. dtomecko

    dtomecko Well-Known Member

    Do you think they would fall asleep faster if you sat quietly in a chair in their room? Would that keep them quiet and in bed? I tried that when we first moved ours to toddler beds. It worked well for my daughter - she'd be asleep in 15 minutes and would be fine the rest of the night. My son (the topic of many of my posts in this forum) wasn't so easy though. He'd at least stay in bed and be "quiet", but I think it just kept him awake longer. He'd keep popping his head up to see if I was still there. But it might work for you, if you're kids are wired differently than my son.

    The only discipline tactic I've had some success with is threatening (and following through with) taking away a prized possession they love sleeping with. Of course this makes for some rough nights and things will get worse before they get better, but they will hopefully learn you are serious pretty quickly.

    For us, we ended up having to separate them, but I see that's not working for you. I'd probably just let it go and hope the novelty eventually wears off. As long as you don't have to keep going up there every 2 minutes and you can get your stuff done, and they're not majorly crabby all day long.

    My daughter is up all hours too - even though she's by herself. She sits up and reads for hours after I put her down. I can't do anything to stop her, and she's quiet, but she's up til 11 most nights too. She seems to make up for it at nap time and she's generally happy during the day so I just let it go. I suspect if I dropped naps she'd go to sleep easier and skip the reading, but I'm not ready to do that yet.
     
  4. Twin nanny

    Twin nanny Well-Known Member

    Given their age it could well be that napping in the day is keeping them up. I know it sucks to lose naps but it might be worth trying them with no nap for a week or two and seeing if that makes a difference.
    I don't think having special time with one each night is a bad idea, as long as it doesn't cause major upset in the one sent to bed 'early' and the one going in later doesn't simply wake their sibling up anyway.

    My first suggestion is that you sit in their room while they go to sleep and don't even let them get out of the beds (instead of waiting for them to get out and then going in to put them back). That worked really well for my lot. The only other thing I can think of is to take away a lovey if they get out of bed too many times, but they would have to have something they really care about for that to work.

    I hope you can figure something out.
     
  5. akameme

    akameme Well-Known Member TS Moderator

    you may be putting them to bed too late..they may be overtired and hyper. I would try an earlier bedtime and leave the nap. I think kids need 11-13 hours of sleep (total) per 24 hour period).
     
  6. nateandbrig

    nateandbrig Well-Known Member

    I agree that putting them to bed earlier may help. Mine go down at 7p and play a little and are up at 7am.
    If that doesn't do the trick then I would try giving up naps. :-( That's hard to type let alone do but it may be that they need that awake time to get a better nights sleep. Good luck and keep us posted on how things are going!
     
  7. ChaoticMum

    ChaoticMum Well-Known Member

    There is a book called Sleepless in America by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. AMAZING book that explains so much about what we do 'wrong' with our kids and ourselves and sleep.

    I totally agree that they are likely going to bed too late along with the nap in there. With the 7hours at night and 2 hour nap they are gettin 9 hrs - still not enough total. If you move the bedtime up to 7pm they may sleep 12hrs straight.

    All of my kids are in bed by 8pm at the latest - and that is my 8yr old. The babes are in bed by 7, the older boys by 7:30 and my daughter by 8. The big kids are up by 7am and the babes are up at 8an. I am pretty sure by 2.5 we had cut out naps (altho this book says its something you need to play by ear) until the kids get caught up on their sleep debt they may need the nap AND the earlier bedtime. You may need to catch them in their window for sleep which could be earlier.
     
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  8. E&Msmom

    E&Msmom Well-Known Member

    I remember reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy child and it says they should go to bed between 6-8pm and get up the same between 6-8am. That worked for us for a LONG time. We started going to bed later becaues they have more and more energy! I dont know if its because its winter and they cant play outdoors all day like maniacs, or if its because we switched to all organic food (DH and I definitely have more energy since the switch) but we need to figure something out.

    This morning at 830 I sent them back to bed. They slept till 10am. We are skipping nap today and trying earlier bedtime.... I'll keep you all posted, and thanks for the suggestions & commiseration!
     
  9. JessiePlus2

    JessiePlus2 Well-Known Member

    Another recommendation for that book. It helped me a ton with my DS's sleep over the last year. What time are you trying to put them to bed? When do they nap during the day?
     
  10. E&Msmom

    E&Msmom Well-Known Member

     
  11. seamusnicholas

    seamusnicholas Well-Known Member

    My boys are older but as a couple of months ago, they started talking and would not fall asleep until hours after going to bed. Nothing we did worked. One night we said as soon as we hear you talk, you are getting separated and one of you are going in our room. That helped a lot. It ended up that one of them liked going in our room and as soon as the other talked, he would walk in our room and fall asleep on his own (we always moved him back in his bed after he fell asleep. After a few weeks of this (not every night), they started to stop talking when we gave them a reminder.
     
  12. MLH

    MLH Well-Known Member

    I would try the earlier bedtime. If that doesn't seem to do it, I would probably try to cut out the nap. My two started doing that right before they turned 3. They'd stay up talking and playing till 10 or 11 pm. It was a rough couple of weeks after we cut the nap, but they were ready for bed by the 6:30/7pm and they slept through till the next day.
     
  13. BRMommy

    BRMommy Well-Known Member

    Taking away naps and sitting with my daughter at bedtime worked for me. My 2 year old DD was staying up till 9-10pm every night, so I decided to take away her naps. It has worked out great because she is so tired by 6:30pm, she goes to sleep right away and doesn't wake up till 6am in the morning. I also do a 1 hour "Quiet Time" in the afternoon instead of naps. She has a chance to get some quiet rest and I have time to myself even though her naps are gone.

    Also, when I first took away her naps, she couldn't fall asleep right away because of the change in routine. So I sat in the same room with the lights off while she lay in bed. Whenever she started to talk or get up, I would shush her so she knew she had to stay down and stay quiet. She would fall asleep within 10 minutes.
     
  14. Newton twins

    Newton twins Guest

    If the other ideas people suggested doesn't work I would separate them. When my girls were younger we separated them at nap time (one in our bed and the other in their bed). At night we would give a warning and then go in and take a stuffed animal, then blanket, and then their all time favorite blankey. After about 3 wks I think they were good (this was also when we switched them to twin beds and no more cribs). Now at 8yrs old when my one daughter is usually over tired she has a hard time falling asleep and will do anything to keep my other daughter up (we also have no choice but for them to share a room since we have a 3 bedroom house too). So we will take one out (whoever is on the bottom bunk since they have bunk beds now) and that one will sleep in our room. Then when we know for sure they are asleep or when we head to bed if we forget they are in there, we will put the other one back in her bed. This works out nicely for us. We did do it a few times when they were younger too but now sometimes my daughter will ask if she can sleep in our room since she just likes to be alone sometimes.
     
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