Four Things I’ve Learned about My Children’s Sleep
This would be the world’s most awesome post if I had four secrets for making my children sleep on command (seriously, I’d make this one of those unbelievably annoying “pay-to-view” blog posts and sell it for $1,000 per view. You know you’d be willing to pay).
Instead, these are four things that I know about children’s sleeping. Of course, my sample size is two, so I wouldn’t dare to presume YOUR children are like this:
things I’ve learned about my children’s sleep
- My babies don’t sleep in. They generally get up between seven and eight a.m., so I’m not complaining, but I don’t have those children who are rolling out of bed around ten or eleven. If they do sleep in, it’s the most extra special bonus in the world (and it usually falls on a day when we have somewhere we HAVE to be at nine a.m. Of course).
- Putting them to bed later doesn’t mean they wake up earlier. In fact, it’s usually the opposite – they sleep better if I put them down for bed early. We have 1:00 p.m. church this year, which means Ani misses her second nap, so we come home, play for a bit, have dinner, and put both girls to bed by about 6:20. I love Sundays.
- The later I go to bed, the earlier they wake up. It never fails! If I stay up working on some project until the wee hours of the morning (which is rare, because I’m super tired by ten o clock like an old person), suddenly my children are waking up all night long and then getting up for the day at six thirty. So, I mainly avoid tempting fate and I go to bed on time.
- Breakfast must be served within five minutes of them waking up, give or take one minute. Ella comes into our room as soon as it says 7:00 on her clock, leans on the bed, and in her most dramaaaaaatic voice says, “I’m starving to DEATH. Let’s go have breakfast right. now.” Which is why we have cold cereal most week days. Because if I try to make anything more complicated, she asks for a bowl of cereal WHILE I make breakfast. Which kind of defeats the point. Plus, to be honest, my favorite breakfast is cold cereal with bananas, dried cranberries and whole milk. Who needs pancakes?
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Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Except for us, it's oatmeal because I hate cold cereal.
And afternoon church. Only been one Sunday and it's already the bane of 2014. The one saving grace is we have a small ward which means extra little classrooms so at least kina got a nap and was cheery during nat's utter meltdown after church.
I would say you have children that sleep in. Same early bedtime here with a babe who wakes up between 530 and 6. 7 to 8 would be heaven!
I am SO glad to hear that you eat cold cereal for breakfast most days! For some reason, that makes me feel so much better that WE usually eat cold cereal. I keep having ambitions of making cheap, healthy breakfasts, but my kids are usually too eager for breakfast (or I'm out teaching piano or I'm too lazy).
And you consider waking up between 7 and 8 getting up early? In our house, that is (unfortunately) sleeping in.
Ha! 7 or 8 IS sleeping in!
I wish my oldest would sleep in until 8! She's been messed up since daylight savings time ended and now gets up between 6 and 6:30 daily (ugh!). You could have otherwise been writing about my kids' sleeping habits!
You speak toddler sleeping truth here, so your sample size is perfect.
You may I have 2 kids and I may have 5 kids, but it sounds like our kids are a lot alike! I love Sundays, too. We spend Sunday afternoons at my parents' house and we leave their house at 6:00 and the kids know that it is bedtime when we walk back in our door at 6:30. (Well, the older kids get to listen to an audiobook instead of sleep.) They don't even question it, even in the summertime! It's great and makes for a relaxing Sunday.
That sounds just like my two. Unfortunately, they both wake up at the exact same time, and one wants to eat breakfast immediately, and the other wants to nurse immediately, so one is always sad.
Hahahaha. These are so true. (Except number 4. My kids are not cold cereal fans.) When we had 9am church our kids would sleep in every Sunday. Seriously. Every Sunday. It was the one day out of the week that we had to be somewhere that early. And when we go to bed late we are always, always punished with an extra-early wake-up. Seriously, what is up with that?