Is this just an unusually early bedtime or a sign that something is amiss?

[Moulesfrites]

We spent saturday at pils and stayed overnight. Bil and sil were there too. They have 2 ds's, with a 11 m age gap. Oldest dd is 16m. She had some pizza for lunch at about 2 pm. At 6 pm bil and sil said they were going to put her to bed. I was confused as she hadn't had any tea, and they said "oh no, she's usually in bed at 4pm". Aibu to be a bit at this? Mil was horrified as she thinks it means the dd is under stimulated. Bil works nights at a call centre so mil thinks the early bedtime is so that they are in bed by the time bil goes out to work as sil can't cope with it alone.

Now in some ways I can sympathize, I have a 7mo ds and bath/ bedtime is a 2 man job! I am lucky that dh is around at bedtime, but if I had to do it myself I would, but 2 might be trickier. I'm sure a lot of people manage though. I just can't believe she goes to bed at 4! Does anyone else have a bedtime this early? Apparently she sleeps until 7am. Aibu to think this is unusual or am I just bitter because my ds is nowhere near sleeping through yet?

It is a long time to go without a drink The length of sleep is not strange because at 16 months dd1 had a nap of 45 mins am and 2-3 hrs pm which would equate to the same time iyswim but a 15hr stretch of sleep could leave lo quite dehydrated in the morning.

Hows the babys weight gain? Sounds like dehydration because they can then become very lethargic and sleep more.

not sure about her weight gain tbh. sil has never mentioned centiles etc. I know they fell out with their dr and moved to a different one because they were told hungry baby milk was unnecessary and they took the huff. Not sure how often they see the hv.

As I said, she seems slight, but def not emaciated.

In the case sil was exaggerating, I would be actually relived and there would be no real reason for concern.
If not, perhaps next time you see them, observe the little one more closely, in the mean time have word with your own HV and get her perceptive on it.
If you are still concerned, your sil probably needs help and support, and there are definitely issues there, but I still can't think of anything/way on how to tackle it with your sil, and help her.

Agree with Sookeh

Whatthecaptaincrocfamily said, it isn't only underweight, undernutrition that is concern here, but dehydration and weak muscle tone, lack of spark.
The child of that age should be into everything and on a constant move, excited by new experiences around her, if she is subdued and non active, there may very well be the case of non stimuli form your sil and lack of interaction with little girl.

It seems an odd routine but my DD sleeps from 6.30pm to 8.30am some days with 2 naps in the day (1.5-2 hours- I wake her if she sleeps longer than that) and there is absolutely nothing wrong with her and i have done nothing to make her do that and that seems a similar amount of sleep. She is much younger though and she does eat a lot during her waking hours. My DS was exactly the same and still needs a good 11 hours at almost 9 years old

If your sil seems unable to cope she may well have PND and I second the advice to try to speak to the HV about her. They are pretty supportive in helping families to get help if they need it. She is slight so I would suggest she may be being under fed unless the parents are both very petite. In the practice where I work we would try to make contact and offer a visit/ development review. The lo should be having family meals at this age and it does concern me that she missed the evening meal. 2 meals is not enough at 16 months.

ohh i hate throwing my tuppence in on threads like this because my eldest daughter has heart disease only discovered when she went to bed at 5pm and wasnt up by 9.30am with naps during the day and the dr like me thought this a bit odd for a child under 2. Whilst i am 99.99% certain there is another explanation i would check out first that this is really the truth and if it is gently suggest that the amount of sleep is very unusual and perhaps needs checking out. Is this child really getting enough calories? Others have given some brilliant advice on how you can help the child and the mum. has anyone else in your family noticed this?

I don't think she's necessarily underfed. If she eats well at the two meals, she could well eat as much as a picky toddler eating 3 meals. Have to admit that we always have one meal (lunch or dinner) where DS might as well not bother for what goes in.

Re the baby sleeping through, I do know the odd baby that slept through very early . My friend's bf baby did 11pm to 6am from birth, so in isolation, a 4 wk old sleeping through wouldn't be that strange.

I really can't decide if there's an issue or not. It's a strange routine, but doesn't seem that it's completely off the charts as some posters have admitted to similar patterns. How did SIL appear, apart from this?

TheBride sorry to single you out but if a client told me this it would ring alarm bells. Especially as the SIL is reportedly not coping with having two children. children should not go without fluids for that long and she is also having naps At 16 months they need roughly 14 hours sleep, for a child to sleep that in one go regularly (as opposed to being ill) and then need a morning nap it is worrying. It is not the norm at that age, it sounds like you would expect of a 9 month old except the total would be in chunks.

Have found out some more info on this, from speaking to MIL today, she says SIL says dn comes to her when she is tired and asks to go to bed, which is part of the reason for the early bedtime?! MIL is still quite concerned.

It does sound odd, but then so does saying doing bed and bath for a 7 month old is a TWO man job

Oldraver I have clarified the bed/bath thing above - we are both around, so we do it together. no biggie.

How does she ask to go to bed? My dd quite regularly asks for a banana even though she hates them as she only has a handful of words at 17 months.

DD1 was always a great sleeper, ebf and slept through the night at 5 weeks and 6 days and has ever since. She used to crawl to the kitchen door at 6.30pm to signal that she wanted to go to bed and even now at 6yrs, she needs to have at least 11 hours a night, plus sometimes a nap after school.

DD2 otoh, never slept through the night, she will be one this month and still will not settle until 10 or 11 pm and then wake at 2am and up for the day around 6.30. Saying that she needs 2 naps a day (1.5 hrs each), dd1 dropped both her naps at 12months.

I think that different children do have different sleep needs, but this case does sound extreme. It's a long time to go without food/ drinks, attention from parents etc. I think you should go further with this, chat with hv, mil, a gp even for advice, I don't know, but I don't think things are right with either the little girl or your sil, but I suspect you know that as you are so concerned.

I think if the child is actually asleep the whole time and they are getting all their meals in then its not a problem. It would be more wrong to try and keep them awake if they need a lot of sleep. Although I would personally prefer to push the bedtime later and lay in in the morning as it would be quite restricting to need to be at home to get 2 kids ready for bed at 4!
DD went through a stage of going down for her afternoon nap at about 3/4. Sleeping until 6/7 when I would wake her to eat and wanting to go straight to bed after. She was sleeping until about 9:30 in the morning as well at this time. Must have been a growth spurt or something.

It does seem awfully early and it's a bit odd that she doesn't just get fed early if she goes to bed early?

My DD slept through from 4 weeks, she did a 6 hour stretch at night from birth and at 4 weeks started sleeping 11-12 hours. There was nothing wrong with her and I didn't do anything to get her to, she just did. She was FF and took 4-5 ounces every 2 hours or so in the other twelve hours though.

I am missing the point The child being put to bed was 16 months not 4 weeks!

tccf the 4 weeks was in reference to the child's younger sister.

yes but it isn't her who is eating pizza at 2pm and being put to bed at 430, its the 16 month old, which is worrying imo. Children that age do not normally sleep that long and have a morning nap.

If they pushed the older childs nap to the afternoon she would probably last later in the evening.