Fall Back

Oh no! Never have I dreaded gaining an hour so much!

This means that the babies, who sometimes wake at 6:30 and sometimes sleep in as late as 7:15, will now be waking anytime between 5:30 and 6:15. In an attempt to prepare for this I've been trying to stretch them out at night, putting them to bed a little later, hoping that they'd sleep in a little later.

No luck yet. In fact, as we've been putting them to bed 15-20 minutes later, they're actually waking up 15-30 minutes earlier. I think Weissbluth is right on this one: if you want your kids to sleep in later, put them to bed earlier, not later. It's counterintuitive but it's totally true with our kids. It's only when they started going to sleep by 7 p.m. religiously that they've actually started sleeping all the way until 7 a.m.

A lot of studies have shown that babies, toddlers, kids, teenagers, and adults are all chronically sleep deprived in the U.S. This negatively affects our ability to think, concentrate, maintain a happy demeanor, and maintain a healthy weight. Sleep deprivation makes kids hyper and overly excitable and some studies suggest that sleep deprivation is linked to behavior and cognitive difficulties in school. I know that for Nora and Milo, an early bedtime is key to getting a good night's sleep. I really, really wish they were the kind of babies who could sleep in until 9 a.m. or something. Then we could just put them to bed later, which would be so much more convenient in terms of dinnertime, socializing with friends, etc. But unfortunately they just pop awake at 6:30 or so on most mornings, no matter how late they stay up at night. Their internal clocks seem to be set that way so the only way I can give them a good night's sleep is to put them to bed by 7 p.m. at the latest.

It's a pain and it probably won't go away for a very long time because our elementary schools have a ridiculously early start time. So even when they're older they're going to have to get up at around 6:30. Ugh! What a bummer for a night owl like me.

The other thing I've realized is that different babies just sleep differently no matter what we do as parents. I can count on one hand the number of times Milo has woken up crying in the past 6 months or so. If he ever does, it means there's a real problem. Mostly he just sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. He always falls asleep first, and Nora is always the first one awake in the morning. We didn't do much of anything to make this happen; we just lucked out. And I think it's time for me to accept that Nora is probably always going to be a somewhat lousy sleeper. We struggle and sometimes things get better and she sleeps well, but inevitably it deteriorates again. And again. And again. She takes short, crummy naps, and she doesn't sleep easily at night, and that just seems to be who she is. So it's just our job to deal with it and try to help her get as much sleep as we can. It does seem like Nora just needs less sleep than Milo overall.

Oh, I hope we recover from this time change thing fairly quickly! At least getting up at the crack of dawn will allow us to get to the polls bright and early on Tuesday. I want Milo & Nora to be there for this historic voting event!