when did your child start sleeping in after a later bedtime?

[okinawama]

I have a 22 month old son who subscribes to the Weissbluth thought, later to bed earlier to rise. Like last night, his bed time was 30 minutes later, and and rather than making it to his normal wake up time, he woke an hour+ EARLIER.

SO, at what ge did an occasional later bedtime yield a later wakeup?

[Melaine]

I hate to be a downer, but not yet for us at four and a half and for some kids it never will. I say that because I wake at the same time regardless of when I go to sleep and have been that way my whole life.

[twowhat?]

In our experience (we recently had to move bedtime later), it only works if you're consistent about bedtime/waketime. And also ONLY if you make sure he doesn't make up that sleep during his nap.

The Ferber thought is that kids need a certain amount of sleep each day, and they will get it however they can. You can determine what this number is by charting the number of hours he is actually asleep over a period of about a week. So, if he goes to bed later and wakes extra early, then he probably makes it up with a longer nap, or napping in the car, etc. So according to Ferber, you CAN make a child adjust his/her bedtime/waketime/naptime to suit your schedule - but you have to be strict about it.

For example if your DS needs 12 hours of sleep: that means you have to consistently make sure he sleeps no longer than 10 hours at night and naps no longer than 2 hours during the day (ideally in the middle of the day starting around noon or 1pm to appropriately divide up the time he is awake).

We just recently went through a whole big adjustment of sleep schedule based on our girls needing less sleep now than they did a few months ago. We calcuated how much sleep they needed, determined a bedtime/wake time based on that, and worked around a 2-hour nap. We also had an additional problem (limit setting) that we had to work on. We have also found that once you start a strict schedule and/or deal with problems like limit setting, your child may get LESS sleep than he needs at the beginning before his body settles into the new rhythm.

For us, things are 100% better now. Our 27-month-olds sleep quietly from 9pm until 6:30am and take a 1.5-2 hour nap at daycare.

eta: yes, it SUCKS never to be able to "sleep in". Oh, well.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

ds is 12 months and he normally will "sleep-in" a bit if he goes to bed later. normally (during the week) he goes to bed around 8:30-9pm and wakes up around 8-8:30am. but this past weekend we have been putting him to bed around 9:30-10pm (as a result of our schedule/routine changing due to going out during the day,e tc). as a result he's been waking up later, around 9am.

i think it really depends on the kid though. i am the kind of person who cant' really sleep in much..even if i go to bed late, i'll wake up around more or less the same time. though i think my DS is more like my DH (who is very sleepy/lazy in the mornings, could easily sleep in till noon if allowed!). we recently put a camera in DS's room and we found out he actually wakes up 15-20 minutes before we thought he did..he just lies there awake for a while.

[KrisM]

About age 6 years for DS1. DD is a bit better and she was 4-4.5 when she figured it out.

[Beth24]

Just starting now for DD, almost 8. And my almost 13 YO would sleep all day if I let him or if he didn't leave his room for food!

[okinawama]

Well hmm, it might be a while.

I would love it if my little guy would just make it to the "regular" wake time when put to bed slightly later, I think that sleeping in past the normal wake up will just be a pipe dream for a while. SO frustrating. And true to Weissbluth's theory, bad sleep encourages more bad sleep, and my little guy took a short nap after his short night. I wish that Ferber's theory that kids make up for lost night sleep by taking a long nap would be true for us!

No self regulating for this little guy.

Sounds like there are other people who have had to wait a while with their little one as well.