I have an 11-week old little girl who is FINALLY starting to get on a good sleep schedule. I put her down every night between 8 and 8:30 and she gets up between 6 and 6:30. These times work really well with my work schedule. My concern is how to keep her on this schedule after daylight savings time ends. I'm dreading the possibility of her getting up at 5 am every day! I thought about trying to delay bedtime, but usually she goes right to sleep after she eats, and I don't want to delay her feeding if she's really hungry. Any suggestions?
I grew up in Daylight Savings time and everyone has to adjust. It won't only effect her sleeping schedual but adults as well. It is an adjustment the first few days but it happens. The night that we set are clocks back, keep her up an extra hour. That may help. ( Fall you fall back and Spring you spring forward so we gain an extra hour of sleep)
Hello Elizabeth
My daughter is 7 months and my son is 14 years and I have always used the shades on the windows that block all of the light. You can get really nive ones at JC Penny. I have them as well in our room because my husband is a police officer and works odd shifts. Your daughter will never know that the sun is out with these shades. You will find that you don't need to change her schedule at all.
E., One other person commented to you about shades....I had the same issue with my son, we already had blinds up so I went to Wal-mart and bought curtains. His room is blue and white, so I bought the blue panels and it keeps the light out of his room. The panels were like only 7 bucks a piece. They are a heavier cotton so they don't keep his room black just darker than the white blinds did. I open them during the day and before we even settle for bed I close them back so it "seems" like it is dark outside. Good luck and if you do decide on shades spend a little more (like for the ones at JC Penny)than you would at say Wal-mart (tried those and they curl with heat and sunlight.)
I agree with Dana, but maybe you could try to slowly adjust her eating sleeping time before the change occurs. Work up to the hour... try waiting 10 min. longer before eating and she'll go to bed 10 min. later than usual. Keep doing this for a week or so then add 10 more min. Continue until you have your desired schedule with the time change.
I hate daylight savings time!
I'm not sure what I'm going to do about my 4 yr old. Of course since the time chnage started it's next to impossible to get him to go to sleep until the sun goes down. Fortunately for me he's always been a heavy sleeper so the mornings make no difference.
Maybe you could start before daylight savings time in increments, pushing her night feeding back by just 5 or ten minutes for a week at a time? Then week two you push it back 15 minutes, week 3 20 or 25? You may want to try it starting in the next couple weeks or even wait until it's closer to October.
Just an idea! I hope for every mom out there they get ris of daylight savings or at least put us on Chicago time!
I am a mom of a 10.5 week old girl and am so jealous!! My baby goes down between 9 and 9:30 pm and wakes up anywhere from 3am to 4:30am every morning. It would be perfect if I could get her to sleep until 6:30am like your baby!! How did you do it? Sorry, I don't really have advice on the daylight savings, I just had to ask...
I worried about the same when the days became longer. I bought darkening shades and this seemed to fool him into keeping his schedule. It really didn't seem to affect him long, just like with adults we adjust within a week or so to the time differences. As long as the your baby is getting the same number of hours during the night, she shouldn't be affected too much at all. I actually look forward to the shorter days since now it will make it easier for us to get our son down, light to him means play time. We put him to bed around 7/7:30 and he wakes around the same time each morning.
Even though it may seem like it won't work since she's on a particular eating schedule right before bedtime, the only thing to do is to delay it. You have to basically try to delay everything in the evening on that day. You could try playing with her when she's normally eating that last meal of the day. Use something with lights and movement that will keep her attention off of possibly knowing she's supposed to be eating right then. Even if you can only delay a half an hour that first night, you can increase the time each night until you have her on her schedule again.
I thought it would be really hard too, but it ended up being a piece of cake. Hopefully it will be for you too.
I would start by putting off bedtime by about 5 minutes either every night or every other night til you reach that hour, and then if she is going to bed around 9 when we gain an hour she will be going to bed at her normal 8 and it shouldn't disrupt her morning wake up time. If you are able to build up to it, rather than spring it on her at once, she should adapt pretty well and you shouldn't have too much trouble.
