No nap & clocks changing....

[sianie]

Hey ladies...

So I was wondering what those of you with LO's who have dropped their nap will be doing when the clocks change at the end of the month?

Previous years DD has still been napping so I've been able to push her nap later/let her nap for longer to get us to a later BT & (hopefully!!) later WU.

This year as DD doesn't nap anymore, pushing her BT back won't work as she is already exhausted by her current BT (7pm).......any tips/ideas? 

[grace annes mommy]

Ugh, I've been dreading the clock change.  I've actually been slowly nudging her day forward over the past few weeks so we're pretty much 7:30 to 7:30 right now, which is do-able with the clock change, but 6:30pm is a real hussle for bt at our house.  I try to do this nudge forward every year and it ALWAYS backfires right as the clocks change and we end up getting up at silly-o-clock for a good while...

So my plan B is... Force a late afternoon car nap, put her to bed late, pray she gets up at a decent time, and do a 12 hr day from whatever the "new" wake up time is.  Stick with it for a while til everyone's body gets settled before I do any more nudging.

[sianie]

I had thought about doing a late CN but TBH, she hasn't napped for so long now that I don't think she'd go for it unless it was a car nap.

I hate clocks going backwards! 

[*Becky*]

I think we are going to go for late car nap xx

[shivi]

playing it by ear over here...I have gotten more and more flexible since emma came along, but that's because she has angel wings ;-)

to give you an idea - last sat we were invited to a 5-9pm ish kids' party so we did -

Sat am Oscar 6.30am up, football, kids' event, left after dinner 4pm, forced a car nap (told him we wouldn't be going to next fun unless he slept) and he did a 4.30 to 5.15pm nap) and then we were well able for a 10pm sleeptime and an 8am wake sunday with an early bedtime sunday night at 6.30pm, 7am wakeup Monday morning


Emma, woke her for football 8am, same catnap in car but much longer - I sat with her and woke her after an hour (she was overtired after long week in preschool) and then she did a 9,30 pm sleep time, 8am wake on Monday....

I used to get myself in a right mess with Oscar and clocks changing and rightly so, even remember a half term when I went home so had a 2 hr clock change in one night (with hour diff btw Warsaw and Dublin) and had some lovely 4-5am wakings for the half term he was 2.5 (and I was heavily pg LOL).

Good luck everyone, with O we'll try and continue the 8pm bedtimes with 7am rising times for now and will be at 6am from end of Oct for a while...

S x

[Mashi]

I think there is an amount of time where you just have to deal with it until natural body clocks adjust....just like you do for yourself!  Most adults who sleep on a semi-regular schedule find they wake early in the first week or so and that gets regulated over a few days to a week with your regular activities that set your biorhythms. 

So you learn you are at work from 9-5 with a lunch break at 12noon...that does not shift forward an hour with the clocks, so your body naturally learns to adjust.  Trying to keep bedtime as normal as possible (a few early nights the first few days help the OT for both adults and kids!) and the rest of the day the same...breakfast when you wake up if need be (but put it off to as close to normal clock time if you can), then lunch at normal lunch time, dinner at normal dinner time and activities at normal activity time, and in a few days it does work itself out!

[Kay Dee]

DD still naps so I'll probably try to push her nap and bedtime out by 30mins and see how she gets on.

DS doesn't nap but I was thinking I could just keep him up a bit late by letting him watch a movie.

x

[sianie]

Interesting points Mashi as DH said the same thing! His thoughts are that now she doesn't nap that we treat her like an 'adult' as far as her sleep goes. I think now we're so far beyond getting her to nap that even a APOP car nap would be a struggle (not to mention the amount of miles we would end up driving to get her to go to sleep!!)

[Mashi]

If she is that far past napping, then I think a catnap won't serve the purpose. It would push her bedtime later and if she is the type who will sleep in later in the morning then all it will do is make her sleep later in the morning....it won't push her body clock later iyswim.  It will be the "set" times like meals, daily activities and such that do the job in the end anyway, so why risk the catnap/sleep-in backfiring on you? 

[sianie]

I agree, even when she has had a (very rare) CN, we always get BT resistance & a short night anyway so I think it will be counter-productive to do this. So do I just keep BT at her normal time on the eve of clocks changing then adjust after that?

[Mashi]

So do I just keep BT at her normal time on the eve of clocks changing then adjust after that?

I would.  She will wake at her normal body-clock time in the morning (so after x number of hours of sleep) and I would encourage her to lie-in if you can (I can do that with my DS some days but not others...toss him a few cars or something and tell him to play in his bed until it is wake-up time iyswim.  But some days he tosses them right back at me and gets out of bed and marches straight out the door ) and after breakfast I would keep lunch to the same time as normal and so on for the rest of the day. I would put bedtime 30 minutes "early" (so if she normally goes to bed at 8pm, that is now 7pm...I would aim for 730 pm) and keep onto that for a few days and then slowly over the week-ish, push her to her normal clock-time bedtime. 

[sianie]

Luckily she's pretty good at lying in bed relatively quietly when she wakes early (& she's still in a cot-bed so she can't get out  !).

[Roseii]

ITA with Mashi re the half hour bit
xx