Are you a schedule Nazi?
I haven't heard anyone call me that, but I think I could admit to being one myself.
How old are your kids now? Have you always followed a rigid schedule?
Our "babies" are 17 months old. When they were in the NICU they were on a 4 hour schedule and that is what we stuck with when they came home. Sometimes it ended up being a little less than every 4 hours, but very rarely was it much more. Life in the first year was crazy enough I couldn't imagine just winging it or feeding them and having them sleep whenever they wanted. We fed all of them at once which some people were surprised at when we told them. If I would have fed them one by one during the day on my own that is all I would have done. By the time I would be done with #3, #1 would have almost been ready to eat again.
Do you think that your schedule is conducive to healthy sleep patterns in your kids?
DEFINITELY!!! I am such a strong believer in this! I read a book called Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child and I think the information that we followed from that book including a strict schedule is the reason that they have always been such great sleepers. They all slept through the night at just over 3 months old! Around the same time they settled into a good nap routine as well, with 3 naps at the time and now 2. One thing that I have always remembered from the book was that sleep begets sleep...so if they are better rested they will sleep so much better. Another key point that I took from the book and still use is to control their wake up times. 7:10am is wake up time for the babies regardless of whether they would still like to hit the snooze button. There are many mornings where I have to wake all 3 of them up, very rarely are all 3 of them awake. The reason that I do this (and I say "I" because Daniel would rather let them sleep) is because if they do sleep in, then it messes up the schedule for the rest of the day. They do not want to go down for their morning nap and then are grouchy and often times fight their afternoon nap as well. A number of people are quite surprised that I wake them in the morning but if it keeps things on track for the rest of the day and gives us generally well rested happy babies, that's what I'm going to do. Once we go to 1 nap a day I can see letting them sleep in in the mornings because that nap will be later than their current morning one.
Do people give you a lot of flack for being a strict scheduler? How do you respond?
No, no one has ever really given us a hard time for being so strict with our schedule. I think our friends and family realize that this is what works for us and it is what we have to do to keep ourselves sane. And for the most part they see that things run pretty smoothly. I am a routine person myself so I don't think I ever thought we wouldn't have them on a schedule. I find that I need to have some quiet time that I can count on throughout the day to maintain some sanity, although that quiet time is usually doing something around the house.
Has your routine become more relaxed as your kids have gotten older?
I would say it has relaxed a little bit. I think my real Nazi stage was when they were still on bottles. For the majority of their 1st year they had bottles at 8, 12, 4, and 7 and those times weren't too flexible, either with them or with me. Now that they are done with bottles meal times are usually within a half hour window, but nap times and bedtime are still fairly strict otherwise we pay the price.
How do your kids react when they are completely off their schedules- and how do you get them back on track?
This is one of the reasons that we do stick to such a strict schedule! If we miss that "window" of nap time and put them down later for some reason, they think they get to skip that nap and will just talk to each other or cry instead of sleep. If they go to bed much later than 8:00 we are pretty likely to have grouchy babies the next day. To get back on track we put them to bed a little earlier the next night or two. Or if they are having a few days of bad naps, Tylenol usually does the trick to knock them out! A little bit of drugs is something that both the babies and I need by that point.
Many people are surprised at how much our babies sleep. They are awake shortly after 7:00am. They nap for one hour in the morning (which I always have to wake them from). In the afternoon they sleep anywhere between 2-3.5 hours. Then off to bed at 7:30pm, which they do so well. We tell them it is bedtime, they grab their blankie and go to their bedroom door. We lay them down after a quick cuddle and they are usually sleeping within a few minutes. Same thing throughout the night...we never have to get up with them in the night. The odd time I will get up to give one of them their soothie or blankie that may have got thrown overboard, but generally if they do cry out they will go back to sleep on their own within a minute or two.
Disclaimer: I should admit that while I have just been bragging about our great sleepers they have been goofing around during almost all of their afternoon nap. After going down at 1:30, Mitchell was laughing and giggling at something or someone still at 3:20 and Maggie and Casey were saying "hi" to each other. Now at 3:40 after replacing Maggie's soothie twice (that Mitchell plucked out her mouth), they have finally fallen asleep. They do sometimes struggle to get to sleep in the afternoon but always go to sleep great at night.
Maggie sporting her latest battle scar under her eye courtesy of Mitchell.
The thing to do tonight was take daddy on a walk around and around the island leading him by his finger. Maggie started it and then the boys joined in later. Casey wasn't too happy about having to share daddy, even though he got a whole hand to himself...funny boy!
Judging by the toys that the boys wouldn't let go of when we played downstairs yesterday, Casey may be a janitor and Mitchell may be a hockey player. Casey and his vacuum.
Mitchell and his hockey stick.
2 comments:
Great answers.
It's so funny to see the exact toys at our house!
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