Since the beginning of this year, I have tried to make some changes to Sophie's schedule. One salient aspect would be her sleeping patterns. Although we are far from successful, I think we have made some progress. In the past, Sophie would sleep at around 9 to 10 pm at night and become fully awake around 7. 30 am. Then she would take a nap around 9 am and 3 pm, each about an hour long. In total, she slept less than 12 hours per day. While it seems like a luxury for us (adults), it is not enough for an infant or even an toddler.
My target now is to let Sophie have at least 13 - 14 hours of sleep per day. I read that for young toddlers, their bedtime should be between 6.30 to 7.30 pm; if there is only one naptime, it should be ideally in the early afternoon and if there are 2 naptimes, it should be in mid-morning and early afternoon. I must discourage late naps because they interfere with their real bedtime. Therefore, nowadays Sophie naps at 9 am and 1.30 pm; and her official bedtime is 7.30 pm. Of course those timings do not include the one hour of "winding down" required to induce sleep. Unfortunately, I still rely on milk and her bottle to get her to sleep. Understandably, that is the hardest thing to wean off. In fact, my PD recommended me to delay the weaning off because Sophie is a fussy eater and she needs her milk.
So far, Sophie has responded rather postively to the new schedule. The only problem is weekends. We have the MIM class at 9.15 am so that could be why she was so cranky last Saturday. This weekend, I will get her wake up earlier and nap at 8 am. We will see how she responds to that. Also, it is hard to enforce the schedule when we have to go out or have lunch at Naenae's place. Sophie needs a super quiet environment to fall asleep. Well, I will think of something...
To complement this new sleep schedule, her mealtimes are changed as well. Her lunch time is now 11.30 am (used to be 12.30pm) and her dinner time is 5.30 pm (used to be 6.30 pm). Breakfast remains unchanged. In order for her to stay awake and happy enough to eat dinner, I will try to take her for a short stroll around 4.45 pm. So far, it has worked for her. She seems to eat better when she is not sleepy... plus our little pretend game during mealtimes helps.
All in all, a lot of new adjustments and hard work for the moment. I am not sure how long she will stick to this schedule. I reckon a change again sometime after June...
I used to read books and tried to kind of follow the schedule until I gave up cos' it didn't work for Ethan at all. So if it works for Sophie, good for her and you. If it doesn't work just be flexible and make changes.
ReplyDeleteI always feel that the child should suit our lifestyle and they should tag along with us, rather than we try to suit them. Then we'll become handicapped by them. Of course, on normal days, we'll stick to the routine and schedule but on days when we're out, we'll just let the children adapt and whine... haha :)
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