The Morning After

Brandt finally fell asleep at his normal 7:45pm last night, even though I tried to put him down earlier in an effort to increase his total number of hours of night-time sleep. I know a lot of people think it would make sense to keep your kid up later so they would sleep longer, but in all the child sleep books I've read and from all the other moms who have offered advice, the general consensus is "sleep breeds sleep." Meaning the more your kid sleeps in a 24 hour period, the better quality of sleep they receive and the more rested they are, which makes it easier for them to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Brandt woke up around 2:30am and stayed awake until 3:45am. Joe went in there once to try to get him back to sleep, which I know is part of our problem, since Brandt will continue to wake up if he thinks someone will come visit him during the night. Finally Joe wouldn't go back in there and after a while of listening to Brandt call out for us he closed the door and went to bed. Until 5:30am.

So let's do the math:
7:45 to 2:30am = 6 hours 45 minutes
3:45 to 5:30 = 1 hour 45 minutes

That's a total of 8.5 night time hours. According to Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth, the average number of hours of night sleep for a 2 year old should be within 9.5 - 12 hours. So we're already at a minimum of an hour deficit.

Brandt averages one nap a day of 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 45 minutes. Rarely does he sleep 2 hours or longer ... and by rarely I mean once every 6-8 weeks. According to the book, the average number of hours of daytime sleep for a 2 year old should be between 0 & 2.5 hours. So I guess he's getting sufficient nap time.

BUT, let's add his total number of hours of sleep within a 24 hour period. 8.5 + 1.5 = 10 hours. The average 2 year old should, at a MINIMUM, be getting 11 hours within a 24 hour period. And that's on the lower end. The average should be closer to 13 hours.

I really don't know how to fix this and we're quickly losing our minds over here.