Double Duty. One Paycheck.
In which I decide it’s okay to stay up a little later
Living in Washington, more specifically Seattle, we all know about the lack of sunshine in the Great Northwest. I personally think Seattle gets a bad rap about rainfall. I’ll be honest; we see a lot of rainfall here. But I think it’s more about the lack of sunshine then the actual amount of rainfall per year. (Would you agree?)
What I’m saying is this: dude, it’s dark in Seattle.
Except for in the summer months. Summer days in Seattle start bright and early at 5AM and go until 10 PM. There is nothing like sitting on your porch, in the sun, at 10PM at night. It’s glorious, magnificent and oh-so-well-deserved.
It’s also not so good for putting your kid to bed at night.
This summer is the third summer that I’ve been a parent. The summer of 2006 was easy. Babboo, my son, was a few months old and wasn’t following any rules about sleeping at night. I was probably still waking up every 3 hours to nurse him. Our little family was still on a new baby high and I’m confident that we didn’t even notice if it was sunny or rainy outside or what time the sun set.
Summer of 2007, Babboo was only a year old, no longer waking up to nurse at night, and pretty much just doing whatever we told him to do. We were following a pretty strict bedtime routine that started with a bath at 7:15 and being fast asleep by 8:15. It was like clockwork and it was heaven well into the fall, winter, and spring months.
Summer 2008 hasn’t even officially started and already I know it’s not going to go so well. My little two year old has quickly noticed it’s still light out at 8:15 and wants no part of “night night time”. While I’m begging “night night?” he’s replying with “Babboo play toys!”
What makes this even harder is that it is also getting light out earlier. So it’s not even like Babboo can sleep later in the morning. Thankfully, according to his daily reports from daycare, his naps are still almost 3 hours long. The “experts” suggest toddlers get 12-14 hours of sleep a day. While Babboo isn’t getting as many hours at night, combined with his time at daycare, he is meeting the recommended amount.
I finally realized this last night, while deep in the middle of trying to get my kid settled into his crib. He’s fine. He’s getting enough sleep. I need to relax a bit and let him stay up a little later in the summer.
If he’s anything like his mom, the added daylight will be good for his soul.
So tell me, do you adjust your children’s sleeping habits according to the seasons? Do you adjust your own sleeping habits?
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Isabel is a pseudonym for this Seattle-based blogger. She’s been working since the day she realized soda and lip gloss weren’t free. Isabel became a mom in 2006 and continues to work full time, outside the home, since diapers and mortgages aren’t free either. You can read far too much about her personal life at hola,isabel.
If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for “Double duty. One paycheck.”, email Isabel at holaisabel [at] gmail.com.
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We don’t really change bedtimes for our 8 year old. We learned early on that she needs A LOT of sleep, and messing with that resulted in a crabby kid and irritated parents. She still, at 8, needs 11 hours of sleep, bare minimum. An attempt to let her stay up later this past fall resulted in a week of bedwetting after years of dryness. So we reverte back to the early 7:30 bedtime.
We’re going to try for 8 p.m. again once school ends, but at her request, only as an experiment. She’s long done with naps, of course.
She does have a little trouble falling asleep when it’s so light out, but she solved that herself by requested an eye cover like they give you on the airplanes! Problem solved!
No changing bedtime here! Mama needs a break!
Bubbalu 18 months goes to bed at 7:30 summer or winter.
May I suggest a black-out shade for your son’s bedroom? They work pretty good.
Shoot, I was going to say the same thing about the black-out shade. We put one up last summer (it was actually just a really heavy curtain, but it had the same effect), and it worked very well.
Our boys (3 1/2) are in Baboo’s camp… it’s still light at their normal bed time and they don’t want any part of it until later. So… we’re being more lenient about bedtime for the moment. Because I get to stay home with them, we don’t have a set get-up time and they’ll usually sleep later in the morning if they go to bed a little later. If we try to put them down too early, we fight with them until 10 or 11 just to get them settled down. Definitely not worth the struggle.
That whole time change has us still spinning. There seems to be no way around it. Early days!
We hold firm to bedtimes for the youngest . . . she’s not quite 6 and thinks it so unfair that she goes to bed before her older siblings, but I can only take so much five-year-old-goodness.
Yeah, we have heavy curtains over the blinds. It really helps with the brightness issue.
Doesn’t solve the two-kids-in-the-same-room-can-now-conspire-together-all-night-long problem, though.