I know what the books say about how much sleep a toddler should get, but I am curious how much sleep real world kids get.

The last couple of weeks our boys went from waking up at 6:15am on the dot every morning to now they wake up at 5:30am. It doesn't matter if we tire them out or vary the bed time. Usually they go to bed anywhere from 7:30 pm to 8:00 pm (we are fairly consistent), but if they go to bed at 9 after an evening of swimming or the park, the rooster crows at 5:30.

I'm a bit of a morning guy, so this isn't the end of the world, but usually my wife and I are rolling out of bed M-Th and getting ready for work this time of the morning and 6:15 was right as I was making their breakfast so the timing was great, now...not so much.

The whole "Twin factor" plays a role as well, soince we are fairly sure Toddler B would sleep longer if Toddler A didn't start playing loudly and calling for Mom and Dad as soon as he wakes up.

Let's see. At 2, Duncan is sleeping from 8:30-ish until 6:30 or 6:45. Then he has a 2 hour nap starting around 1pm. So, that's about 12 hours, total.

How old? 2 or getting close to 3? At 25 months, we're still finding that if we want him to wake up later, we need to put him to sleep earlier. But it's becoming less of a factor as 1) he has more ability to put off going to sleep being out of the crib and 2) his brother tends to wake him earlier due to the early morning full diaper.

If one is waking before the other, can you figure out why they're waking up first? We progress up the night-time diaper sizes before the daytime as we experience more full ones in the morning.

I don't do mornings, so when we can whisk the baby out of the room before Duncan decides to get up, he may sleep for another hour so I can approach my day in a Zen state. This is infrequent, though. The difference between daddy at 6:15 and 7:15 is like Bosnia in the 90s and CareBear Land.

I'm beyond the toddler phase, but I do remember this being typical of our experience. Our youngest in particular has an internal alarm that goes off in the morning regardless of bedtime. It's one of the many things that have led us to be so militant about getting the kids to bed early.

Funny thing. These days our youngest, if left to himself, gets up at 7:15 on the dot with a smile on his face. But when we wake him up at 6:45 for school, it's like pulling teeth. That 30 minutes is the world when it comes to mood. I guess that's when he downloads a positive attitude.

we go out of our way to make sure our son (2.25 yrs old) gets enough sleep - as in, our friend's think it's strange how unflexible we are. lately it's been smooth sailing: 10.5-11 hours at night plus a ~2 hour afternoon nap. but there's been *a lot* of variation. i'd say over the past year his average wake up time has been 7am, but there have been periods where he woke up a 6 quite a bit. there have also been a couple of periods where he went on such a long nap boycott we worried he was done. during those dark days he was probably getting less than 9 hours of sleep per day and, lemme tell you, he was no fun to be around. but currently he often falls asleep instantaneously at naptime... (very weird, but no one's complaining...)

this is a little off-topic, but we took off his crib rail a while ago and we were very worried about it beforehand since he often seemed pretty active in his crib before falling asleep. however, he has actually slept better now that he's unfettered. (once again, unexpected, but no one's complaining...)

Our boys (~2 1/2)go to sleep around 9, but we start winding them down around 7 for a 7:30 bedtime. The problem is once we close the door WWE breaks out. Finally around 9 they will usually be headign toward sleep, but early in the AM they are wide awake. This is when going to sleep and waking up, the twin factor plays a part.

I think what it comes down to is making sure they burn as much energy as possible during the day. The sitter they are with M-Th doesn;t necessarily give them that release, but all of our solutions cost money. We are trying so my wife can stay home with them, and/or find a pre-school with an indoor gym/playset so that even in the heat or winter's cold they can exhaust themselves.

The stress is beginning to get to us. If we could have 1 hour each night to unwind and get some things accomplished our stress level would greatly decrease, but the staying up antics rob us of the stress release ime at our house. Just another "phase" I'm sure.

We have found behavior of our kids from 0 to 7 is heavily influenced by sleep. And while this should be obvious, we tend to let it slip or not value it enough. Obviously we are all thinking about it, and obviously it is one of those things we talk about as parents, but lately the discussion in our house has been it should be up there on the list with education and vegetables.

Sleep and food.

You know when they haven't slept well or are hungry by their behavior ( or misbehavior ).

Our boys (1 & r years ) start bedtime around 7 and are both asleep between 8-8:30.

Sometime the elder keeps getting out of bed till 10 or so and sometime the younger has a midnight wakeup, but those are the exception.

The interesting thing is that it has no bearing on wakeup times.
Sometimes early (5-5:30), sometimes late (>7am)

All in all, we consider ourselves blessed on the sleep front.

me and my girlfriend are new to the baby experience. we have a 2 week old infant and can't seem to get him to sleep when we want to go to bed at night. he has 2(sometimes 3) feedings per night. we have a really hard time keeping him up during the day so it kicks us in the butt when we are trying to get sleep at night. can someone please help us because we dont know what to do. thanks

Hi, dmick. Welcome to The Labs!

The bad news is that at 2 weeks, you're unlikely to have a solid wake and sleep schedule of any kind. What's happening sounds normal for the first month or maybe two. As I recall, a short 8 months ago, I was setting timers on a 3 hour schedule. In a 3 hour period, beginning with a bottle (that could take half and hour to drink), we'd have a diaper change at 1 hour, and nap at 2 hours. Up at 3 hours with a new diaper most times. Until about a month in, this continues almost all day and night. They start losing the need for as much at night as their systems can hold more fluid both for ingesting and for expelling. Until you get to that point, it's hard to find time for a normal adult sleep schedule. Tis is probably why civilized nations give maternity AND paternity leave, at least for the first stage of baby development.

Good luck getting some rest. It's tough and can cause problems you didn't expect. But hang in there.

@dmick1981

As Ben points out, disrupted sleep is pretty much par for the course with a new baby. The frustrating thing is that no two babies are alike in this regard. There will be parents out there who will drive you nuts by claiming that their baby "slept through the night" on day one. They're probably full of it.

Babies have tiny stomachs, but are growing fast. They empty their stomachs very quickly and need them refilled around the clock.

The baby should still be breastfeeding at this point, so there isn't much for you to do but to help with changing the baby. If the baby is being fed formula, you can try trading off. Overall, you should expect being a little light on sleep for a couple of months.

It doesn't last forever, though. We promise!