Do kids ever sleep?
When I read this prompt in Monday Mommy Moments, I just smiled and thought, how could I compress a book into a small blog? There are so many ways tried and tested and exhausted.
I am sure no two kids are the same and I am no different. When my daughter was born, I have learnt every lesson of being a mom. It was hard to raise her as she was an over active child. And I drained badly in my initial years of bringing her up. All thanks to my joint family who have calmed me down and taken me out of post pregnancy depressions.
Experience speaks
With my experience, I could gather some of the ways that could help babies or toddlers to sleep on time. I hope some of them work for you too.
- Avoid letting them take a nap in the afternoon. This energises them by the time it is actually the time to sleep for mothers.
I couldn’t try this because I badly needed to take some rest in the afternoon. As a result, all the days we both were awake all through the day.
- Make their tummy full at the dinner table. If they feel full, they will feel sleepy.
Actually, this happened. My daughter slept early but used to get up at 12 o clock and then the cycle of sleeping and waking up use to go till morning.
- Don’t let them sleep between 7 pm -8 pm. This is very dangerous. They become super active at the time the clock hits 10 o clock.
You can’t keep them awake if they are actually feeling sleepy. At times you feel, let it be any hour of the day, at least they are sleeping for some time and giving me a break.
- You need to leave all your daily chores and make a schedule with the baby. The child watches you and behaves accordingly. You need to sleep at one time daily.
I tried hard but could not take advantage of this. My daughter had promised God not to let her mother sleep.
- Make a schedule to wake up also. If they get up early in the morning they will feel tired by night.
However, in my case I thought, if nights are not mine at least I can make mornings mine. If I wake her up early then I would be exhausted by afternoon only.
Different kids have different habits and still all of them are sweethearts.
Linking this post with Amrita and Deepa for #MMM
This is ,I guess, every mom’s challenge. But you have pointed out some really useful tips here. I used some of them and see moms using many of these to kids sleep peacefully at night.
Thank you Deepali.
Loved that you wrote about daughter promising God about not letting you sleep.Felt your pain.Lack of sleep makes all of us cranky.Thank you for writing a post so close to heart .#MondayMommyMoments
Thank you dear
This is such a heartfelt post Geethica. Enjoyed reading it. Thanks for sharing your tips and linking up with #MMM 🙂
Thanks Deepa
I so agree to – no two kids are same hence what worked with one may not work well with another. We follow full tummy, milk and physical routine. Afternoon naps not a prob in our casr thank goodness to her school shift.
Only school can make them sleep😀😉. Thank you dear