wow! it's been a while...
I've been thinking of getting back into this blog-thing and so I've had some ideas have kickin' around. One of which is children's sleep.
Those of you who know our parenting, know how important our children's sleep is to us. Since Katie was born, my priority has been to be sure my children get adequate sleep. I'm not sure why, but it's just one of things that I've been pretty adamant about. There have been times when we've had to bow out of events or leave early or drive separately so one of us could take the sleepy child home when appropriate. But I wouldn't change our stance.
It's a rather awkward subject sometimes. Being a popular topic among parents, "sleep" comes up often. I am not the one to bring it up either, but it arises and I feel like I'm guilty of something fraudulent when I acknowledge that my children sleep through the night by 6 weeks of age. Through the night is 6-8 hours. And that 8pm is entirely too late for the 7 yr old. Besides when dealing with illness, my children sleep 10 - usually 12 hours a night.
You know how there's these completely random bits of advice that you hear and somehow retain? For example, when I was in the 10th grade, I had a friend who was a senior and drove, I don't recall that he ever let me drive, but he gave me a piece of advice that I'll never forget. I don't necessarily follow it to a T, but I remember. Another - I can clearly recall my sister telling me "Sleep begets sleep." So true!!!
Children who get adequate sleep are frequently better behaved, in my opinion. (As I tell my kids in school: "I know it's your opinion, you're writing it!!") Anyways, observation has taught me this - and my own experience with my children when they don't get good sleep...the bad behavior and attitude and defiance all really strike! (It's either lack of sleep or lack of food which usually create bad behaviors in our house!)
I guess this is stems from last night. I can hardly say that - it was yesterday afternoon actually...Sean went to bed, for the night, at 4:05 yesterday afternoon!!! Slept through the night. Matt woke him up at 6:30AM. Seriously.
I don't know....I just have heard of people who don't want their kids to go to bed at a timely hour because they want to spend time together, because they had a late meeting, whatever the reason - they decide to keep their child awake past a bedtime that's reasonable. My preference is that my kids go to bed when they need to.
What's your stance on sleep?
(next post - what would you do if your child didn't get off the bus?)