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SusanJ
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| Posted: May 20 2008 at 5:14pm | IP Logged
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It's ten past six. My 3.5yo has been napping for close to four hours and my 20mo just requested to go on my back in the sling and promptly fell asleep there. We sometimes go through long phases of both kids napping from 1-3 and then going to bed around 7:30. Then we have phases like this--usually times of family stress--when the kids nap sporadically and then go to bed late and then sleep in really late, leading to more sporadic napping, etc. Ds has to be up three mornings a week for 7:00 therapy but otherwise we don't have morning activities.
Do you let your kids just go with what their bodies seem to need and want with regard to sleep? Or is it better to force a certain, predictable schedule even if it means, in this case, that my dd probably would scream from now until bedtime? Am I adding to their stress by allowing crazy sleep schedules?
Susan
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: May 20 2008 at 5:46pm | IP Logged
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Well.. mostly I prefer that they get as much sleep as their bodies need.. which can change.. like right around a growth spurt some kids will sleep a lot more.
I do try and regulate naps if they're taking away from time sleeping at night.
And when we have early mornings.. I've often found it works better to make all mornings early even if we don't have to go anywhere.. or I get kids staying up too late because they slept in on the night before they need to get up early.
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Pamin OZ
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| Posted: May 21 2008 at 12:54am | IP Logged
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I'd don't know but I have this same thing happen and it drives me crazy. I long for an old-fashioned routine. Does that ever really work?
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LucyP
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| Posted: May 21 2008 at 7:02am | IP Logged
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WE do have a routine and it does work. DD (13m) is "allowed" a nap at about 9.30-10am, usually in the wrap while we have our walk. Then she goes down at about 1, until about 2.30-3pm, and DS rests from 1-1.30. They both go to bed about 7.3o, and wake about 6-6.30 - DS would sleep later but DD wakes him (we co-sleep)
That said, today DD didn't have her morning nap (usually just 30 minutes) and she fell asleep over lunch at noon. So times got bumped up.
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DominaCaeli
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| Posted: May 21 2008 at 8:42am | IP Logged
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We do a very traditional sleep schedule here with my two toddlers, and it works very well--for me and for them!  They go down for a nap after lunch, and sleep from about 12:30-2:30pm. Bedtime is at around 7:30pm, and they usually wake up just before 6am.
They have been on a sleep schedule ever since my daughter was nine months old, when we moved them in to share a room. (Before that, she napped in a crib in our room and he was in the nursery on his own.) They used to do two naps this way, and then we switched over to one in the early morning and a rest in the afternoon, and then we changed to one lunchtime nap...so it has developed over the last year. But they are very consistent in their sleeping and usually go down without any fuss at all, which I attribute to the predictability of our schedule.
We do wake them if they nap past 3:15pm or so, since if they sleep beyond that, they are not usually ready for bed until after 8pm. My daughter seems to need less sleep than my son, so I sometimes allow him to sleep longer, knowing that he will go down easily at night no matter what.
That all said, when they are ill or teething or otherwise not feeling well, we are more flexible with the schedule. And if we go out on a day trip or something, we will alter it to suit our plans. But this is fairly rare for us--we usually plan around it. (Luckily, since we just have these two small ones so far, we can plan around them without too much trouble.)
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melanie
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| Posted: May 24 2008 at 5:56pm | IP Logged
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My 3 1/2 year old does this right now. He doesn't officially nap anymore...but most days he probably still needs one anyway. We all have a "reading and rest time" for an hour in the afternoons. He used to fall asleep then, but now he won't anymore.
But sometimes he will fall asleep late in the day in the car or even on the couch, and then he is up *forever* at night. Then the 8yo is griping because it's "not fair" that the 3yo is up later than him. 
I try not to let him sleep now in the afternoons...if he conks out, I'll let him sleep for half an hour or so, but then I wake him up. He's cranky for a while, but he perks up again and is ok. This is mostly because if I don't get him to bed at a decent hour, he *won't* get the sleep he needs. He doesn't sleep late, really, even if he is up late. He just is cranky all the next day.
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Topic: regulating childrens' sleep
