Snowflake has always had slightly weird sleeping patterns. Not one to settle easily in the evening, we went with the flow and she would doze in the living room until I went to bed and then sleep quite well. It was always hard getting her to sleep before 11pm, but eventually, we got there, with a lot of staying with her, letting her sleep in my bed and at Christmas, she moved in with her sister into her Hello Kitty bed (where she falls asleep with mummy beside her).
Now we have a more appropriate bedtime routine, appropriate for a 6.30am start to get the kids to childcare and me into work for 9am.
Nightweaning was a longwiding process and I hoped it would bring sleep through nights. Not so. Like an internal Swiss clock, Snowflake wakes at 4am and transfers to our bed, which is fine. However, recently she's taken to not sleeping properly after that.
Which would be fine if I went to bed earlier than 1am. I know, it would be the reasonable thing to do to hit the sack at 10pm or something like that. Alas, my most awake time is between 10 and 1am. I've tried to go to bed early, I can't sleep. So I fall asleep at 1am and get woken at 4am, which sounds pretty serious, but actually, I don't feel as bad as it sounds. That doesnt' meant that I don't need more sleep, I do, I am left without energy at the end of the night and don't manage more than watch iplayer or spend too much time on facebook. I don't like what I've become in the evenings, a total couch potato so much unlike my own self. I can't even be bothered to blog anymore. And if that isn't serious, I don't know what is.
So now that I've managed to get Snowflake into a decent bedtime routine, any tips how to get myself into one? I could even get up with her at 4am and use that time rather than spend hours of my life unsuccessfully trying to coerce her back to sleep.
3 comments:
No tips, as it's awfully hard to change your natural sleeping rhythms and I have nothing to offer that you won't have thought of, but lots of sympathy. I hope Snowflake gets a bit better at sleeping past 4am. Maybe she will sleep longer as the days get warmer and she can spend more time outside? (Does she go to the Forest Kindergarten? I remember reading about that on your blog and thinking it sounded amazing.)
I keep telling myself it will get better and at least I could take her to the toilet and get rid of nappies entirely (but too lazy to do that). Forest Kindergarden will start when she's 3, so still a few months to go. The last few nights she's taken to waking at 2am which is better because it means at least she'll go back to sleep properly (which she doesn't at 4am) - in fact I still feel the baby sleep pattern (waking between midnight and 1am) was much more conducive to my sleep than what we have now.
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