We Know Who this is REALLY About

Why, YOU, of course, sleepy parent.  We know that the reason you are concerned about your child's sleep is because it impacts your own.  Trixie remembers taking a class for New Moms when she herself was a new mom and listening to another class member complaining about her baby's sleep pattern.  The little tot was going to bed at 8 and was waking at seven or seven-thirty in the morning.  The rest of the class was shocked to hear that a baby would actually someday maybe perhaps sleep through the night.  But not this mother.  No, no, no.  She had always slept until 8:30 or 9 in the morning and didn't understand why the baby wouldn't sleep later.  So, the rest of the class immediately got up and strangled her for being so, um, STUPID.  And SELF-CENTERED. 

However, once cooler heads prevailed, that mom's desire to go back to her old life of sleeping until 9AM started to sound less selfish and more like, um, the rest of us.  Whether it's sleeping in or peeing with the bathroom door closed or eating in a restaurant without a children's menu, we all give up a lot for our kids.  And when we are sleep deprived, it makes it that much harder to deal with all that we've sacrificed.  So, the sleep patterns of those little darlings become even more important to us to control.

If your children, like Trixie's, wake up at the CRACK OF DAWN, it's okay to push bedtime back a bit.  It is our belief that all children under the age of 12 should have a bedtime of no later than 10PM.  For kiddos under the age of 6, it should be by 9PM.  If your kids don't have issues with sleep other than waking up early just to DRIVE YOU NUTS, then push bedtime back by half an hour or so to keep them asleep past the rooster's first crow.

An actual informative discussion of sleep scheduling could take another entire post, so we will leave it here for now, with more to come on scheduling.